ph0rcyas
Alcoholism in Antarctica
The Economics of Social Status
Discouragement for Young Writers
Show HN: phorcyas lab - webgl cyberchat experiments
Phorcyas lab - webgl experiments in a 3d chatroom
http://codemirror.net/
http://codemirror.net/demo/preview.html[Groupware BAD, Users GOOD]:"How will this software get my users laid?"(2005)
The kind of abstraction that works is greatly influenced by its surrounding context. In more complex issues (say in law), appeal to common sense is sometimes more preferable than using the most fashionable 'scientific theory'. You don't like your spouse? How about teaching her evolutionary biology/psychology?
Dogmatism breeds the act of taking these out of context. Some parts of math works in their internal framework(i.e. math), but taking it out of context is at best, dumb, and at worst, harmful. Having theorems giving infinite-length messages yield certain events of probability one makes all 'realistic' outcomes probability zero. Same for theorems too sensitive to perturbation in axioms that removing a single point turns things upside down.
We don't need 'institutional science', or dogma, or 'mathematics strictly contained in universities', all we need is science, is mathematics, is reason, and understanding their application context.
Such debate often occurs with confusing science with 'opinions of the majority of scientists in academia of what's right'. No, science is not the latter.
[TL;DR] Science and math are useful in a very specified context, and as such is a framework of thinking. Those who take some of their context-dependent results universally and urge everyone to accept it is dogmatic, not scientific.
http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9781449398583/index.html
And seriously, before jumping into node one needs to know some javascript. Haverbeke's 'Eloquent Javascript' and Resig's 'Secrets of the JS Ninja' will provide a starting point. They're one of these rare books you thought 'boy, I wished it was longer...'.
'Up and Running with Node.js''s code aren't thoroughly polished yet (eg.chapter 2), but plenty people refined and posted them on StackOverflow.
Having both these modules in close (spatial and temporal) proximity helps minimizing efforts spent in irrelevant problems. The general rule holds for most softwares with 'manufacturing' replaced by user appreciation.
The hidden cost of taking manufacturing offshore is that a GREAT deal of industrial knowledge is lost. How do you know a problem needs to be taken into consideration if... you don't even know what the problem is?
The glorious days of Bell Labs seems like heaven for tinkerers. Designing, implementing and manufacturing camps don't alienate but simply part of one living organism.
Programming: Common Lisp. And... not being overzealous about it.
But this does make sense, because if they put things in plain words most of them will be "This is another social platform", or "this is another cloud service", "another image processing tool", "another education software". That doesn't sound very attractive, and they're well aware of it. The trick is to first convince that this is something wonderful, then subconsciously people will perceive it as something different from all existing services - and so willing to try it out.
However, most users are getting increasingly sophisticated and skeptical, and this sensible strategy sometimes backfires.
But that's okay, we have plenty of money to spend on all kinds of research - we're aiming at a lofty goal! But the discomforting bit is when the majority of the graduates regard everyday-life mundane stuffs are below them, that all high is in the textbooks, and simultaneously have no urge to do something (themselves or earthly people value) instead of just "learning".
'Don't become a scientist!': http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html 'Women in science': http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science
The career for pure mathematicians(which is more like the humanities, and specific knowledge quite untransferrable) in academia, being better or worse, is open for discussion.
Programming is arguably one of the best ways to derive pleasure and seeing meaning in the learning process. You create, you design, you implement, you learn from others and in the end - most importantly - you have something working (and to show off), together with the thrill of knowing that this existed _because_, and solely because, you made it happen.
It gives one a purpose. So in order to bring things that're only in your imagination into reality, you learn to code better, and learn about what you're trying to code (say, history, or science, or Tarot decks if you're into that).
Instilling this sense of purpose to our young is a very lofty goal. In our current context, programming seems to achieve this goal in a far more time-efficient and rewarding way.
Give up pursuing eloquence, unless
You can speak as you feel! One's very heart
Must pour it out, with primal powers address
One's hearers and compel them with an art
Deeper than words. Clip and compile, and brew
From the leavings of others your ragout
Of rhetoric, pump from your embers
A few poor sparks that nobody remembers!