throwaway55533

+1, pg is using a pretty typical argument you see in analysis/topology.

If you want to get to real analysis/topology the typical sequence is

1. Logic and Set theory (recommendation: How to Prove It, Velleman)

2. Linear Algebra (don't have a good recommendation)

3a. Real analysis (recommendation: PMA, Rudin)

3b. Topology (recommendation: Topology, Munkres)

I'm not sure I'd recommend learning math. It's an extremely expensive skill -- though pretty valuable in the software industry. People who go learn math are generally just drawn to it; you can't stop them even if you wanted to.

But be aware, (1) you'll have no one to talk about math with. And (2) you'll be joining a club of all the outcasts in society, including the Unabomber.

Sure, maybe my definition was imprecise. Good catch.

But my point remains. I don't feel like I should be compensated for my HN posts. My great aunt doesn't expect compensation for posting her cat pictures. To be honest, I don't care about consuming artists' content. I'm sure it's great. But I go to the local art museum for that. When I go on social media, it's to hear from my great aunt.

And if YC wants to train a model that will eventually replace me, sure. I don't want to be paid for it. The whole thing is inevitable. You can't stop technology, only delay.

People just want to enjoy using computers (in the time humans have left).

Ok, but the author referred specifically to "Creators", which usually means the minority of users who post things other than text.

If you read more of the author's post:

> We are a webcomic duo that has been creating original comics since 2011 and sharing them on various platforms on the web

> Any business model that does not acknowledge this and does not seek proper compensation for artists is not of interest to us.

My point is, while I agree with their sentiment, I believe they are mistaken that artists are the core driver of social media growth. (And by their assertion, the reason people use social media.)

> Social Media platforms cannot grow without engaging and original content, made by people. This is the basis for any user to join. Creators have – in large part – not been privy to the rewards that these platforms have generated over the years even though they are the reason for platform growth.

Disagree. People use social media for plenty of other reasons than to consume artists' content. Sharing news with family and friends, arguing with strangers on the Internet -- HN itself is the obvious counterexample.

How is it flawed logcally? Seems perfectly correct to me. Although I'd agree it's a bit over-literal. As if the emotional workings of the human mind can be precisely reasoned about (i.e. precisely enough to say "always").

Regardless, I've experienced this effect a lot when writing design docs. Iteration and objective criticism on a tangible thing (a doc) is an extremely effective way to see the problem from all sides.

no.

> government-mandated monopoly

Could you expand on this, aren't U.S. car dealerships private businesses competing in a (mostly) unregulated market?

Mitigating the risk of downloading a script from the internet and executing it -- even from a "trusted" website or package manager -- is absolutely a good reason not to use it.

Ah. Is 8 bits really optimal? I don't know how many UTF space characters there are, I thought there were only a few. Why not a 16-bit lookup?

From reading the article, how is this more efficient? Doesn't any word counting algorithm have to iterate through all the characters and count spaces?

What makes this better than the standard algorithm of

    wc = 0
    prev = null
    for ch in charStream:
        if !isSpace(ch) and isSpace(prev):
           wc += 1
        prev = ch