Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=903402

by amichail • 17 years ago

54 106 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

For me, I now believe that hypnosis is a real phenomenon: http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392595

ryandvm• 17 years ago

The best way to implement health care in the United States.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200909/health-care

HistoryInAction3• 17 years ago

I enjoy Ezra Klein as a left-perspective, wonky (politically technical, if you're not familiar with the term) writer who has a special focus on the intricacies of health care policy.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/

DanielBMarkham2• 17 years ago

Trivia note: "wonk" is a fairly new word, having been coined in the last decade or two if I remember correctly.

It used to stand for WithOut Normal Knowledge, meaning people who had a lot of ideas but not much practical experience. I think lately the definition has broadened to mean just intricately technical.

abyssknight• 17 years ago

I changed my mind on event models in stateless protocols. I used to think, "Oh, that sounds nifty. I bet it works really well, and simplifies the wiring."

Now I think, "Wait, how can an event work in a stateless... Oh, that's just sneaky Microsoft."

Not by choice, rather by circumstance, I have been writing Web Forms apps in ASP.NET for the last year. Took me that long to realize that something about the whole idea just doesn't make sense.

TeHCrAzY2• 17 years ago

I recently came upon MVC, and similary was enlightened re. the events within ASP.NET WebForms. I highly reccomend checking out thier approach: its incredibly flexible from a very low level.

boredguy83• 17 years ago

My biggest mental shift recently is an appreciation for ambiguity in language. Three months ago, if someone would have asked me, "Can you gain important topical insights from the ambiguous use of language?" I'd have said, "No, of course not: if you aren't precise in what you discuss, that creates a barrier to communication and makes things more confusing rather than clarifying. Intelligence is, in a large part, the ability to make fine distinctions and precise language helps make those distinctions."

I still see the value in precise language, but I now see it far more as one more tool in my toolbox rather than "THE WAY THINGS MUST BE!" And I've also come to see that my near-totalitarian enforcement of precision was prohibiting me from using other tools.

By analogy: suppose you want to know more about butterflies. Certainly catching them and pinning them to a spreading board is one way to study them: you can measure them exactly, you can count their spots and identify their coloration precisely. But you don't capture all that it is to observe a butterfly that way--you don't comprehend its flight, its movement, its way of being in motion.

Now, clearly I understand that, in a sense, I've only become 'more precise' in my language, willing to 'evoke ambiguity' when precisely necessary. But I can only protest that this fails to understand what I've gained from a willingness to recognize the value of ambiguity.

thisduck• 17 years ago

"By analogy: suppose you want to know more about butterflies. Certainly catching them and pinning them to a spreading board is one way to study them: you can measure them exactly, you can count their spots and identify their coloration precisely. But you don't capture all that it is to observe a butterfly that way--you don't comprehend its flight, its movement, its way of being in motion."

Nicely said.

pwmanagerdied• 17 years ago

Could you please elaborate on what led you to change your mind? I'm probably not far from where you were, and would like to see what I may be missing. :)

boredguy83• 17 years ago

For me, it's been part of a longer trajectory towards the appreciation of "the mess" in all of its dirty glory. I've always been an "algorithm" person: find the underlying pattern that gives beauty and stability (the two being synonyms, of course!) to the apparently chaotic world around us. Increasingly though, I've come to find that discrete difference has its own beauty and instability (the two being synonyms, or so I keep telling myself) that I had been blocked from appreciating.

Less philosophically and more pragmatically: during a time of reflection I was thinking about how my demand for precision was limiting my social interaction. I hadn't been as big a douche as some people I knew, but I could see more of myself in those people than I liked to admit, and realized I needed to change. But I can never change if I'm right, of course!

So I began to talk with people I knew were smart but didn't have the same penchant for demanding precision. On their testimony, I came to believe that there must be something good in ambiguity, though I couldn't comprehend what. I began to practice 'not objecting' when someone would use language or ideas ambiguously. This was immensely frustrating, but I vowed to let it be and try and find the value. Enough times of getting a glimmer of insight led me to finally admit that there was something worthwhile in ambiguity, and so I changed my mind.

mapleoin2• 17 years ago

So you've just discovered poetry?

boredguy83• 17 years ago

I've long appreciated poetry for it's ability to 'get at' the world in ways that I would consider rather precise. Metaphors are not a tool of ambiguity, but rather precision.

Though I haven't read much poetry (nothing that doesn't appear in Harper's or New Yorker): I'll have to go back and re-read some things to see in what ways my interpretation has changed, if at all.

xayide2• 17 years ago

Seat belt laws. For years, my inner Libertarian would cringe at the idea that the government could force someone to do something they didn't want to when it was their own life at risk. But then my inner Republican realized that if I were to be at fault in an accident, I would be financially and possibly criminally liable for a much steeper offense if the other party wasn't buckled up.

jacobolus• 17 years ago

Not to sound harsh, but your logic here epitomizes the stereotype of conservative as uncaring/greedy/self-absorbed. Instead of being concerned that people will die, your reasons for supporting seat belt laws is that it reduces your liability. Maybe you actually have some concern for human life, and don't actually intend to leave that impression; if not, it's worth considering how you present your argument, because right away you've alienated anyone who doesn't have a strictly utilitarian (or perhaps libertarian) view of the world.

JangoSteve3• 17 years ago

I think maybe you missed something in his post. How is he being uncaring/greedy/self-absorbed by acknowldedging how he is impacted by others' decision to use a seatbelt or not?

He isn't saying people shouldn't wear a seatbelt. He's saying it should be their choice. If someone chooses not to wear their seatbelt, they obviously care more about their own convenience and comfort than their safety and well-being. Why should he (or anyone else) worry about their lives more than they do themselves?

Not to sound harsh, but I think that your logic epitomizes the stereotype of the extreme liberal who thinks it's everyone else's responsibility to support and take care of you. You've alienated anyone who doesn't have a strictly socialist view of the world.

Of course, if you're not alienating someone, then you're probably not thinking things through enough to form a strong opinion. So, good on you for having an opinion either way ;-)

xayide2• 17 years ago

It's more that I don't feel it's the government's place to tell people that they must wear a seat belt. It's their place to hold car manufacturers to safety standards that make sure their seat belts are effective and safe. It's their place to make it publicly known that wearing a seat belt greatly reduces your risk of injury or death in a collision. Beyond that, I feel very strongly that it is personal responsibility and choice.

When I realized that allowing this freedom could possibly encroach on my freedoms, it became a different issue. And I changed my mind.

JangoSteve3• 17 years ago

Wow, I never thought of that. However, I don't think the answer is forcing people to wear seatbelts, but rather to exonerate the at-fault driver from the other driver's decision against seatbelt use. The former not only encroaches on people's rights, but it doesn't actually solve the problem mentioned, because the other person can still decide not to wear a seatbelt.

Luckily, I live in a no-fault state though. But still, that's a very good point.

rsheridan6• 17 years ago

There are all sorts of cases like that. We're probably going to get universal healthcare, so other people's health expenses affect you since you'll be paying for them. So cattle prods + fatties + treadmills = more freedom for you.

I'm glad I'm not a libertarian or I'd be experiencing cognitive dissonance.

lazyant• 17 years ago

In Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends & Influence People" he says to never argue with anyone, since you'll never convince the other person and if you do they'll resent you for making them look foolish (or something like this).

The case for wearing a seat belt is my exception to this rule. I was talking to a "libertarian" friend and he mentioned his life is his responsibility and he should wear the seat belt or not if he didn't want to. I told him that if he got in an accident and paralyzed because of not wearing seat belt then it wouldn't be fair to the rest of us tax payers to support him because of his decision. (This was in a modern country with universal health care).

He thought for a second and said, "oh, yes, you're right".

mapleoin2• 17 years ago

I now believe that C++ is a language worth learning (I haven't yet figured out if it's also worth using for anything dependable).

ludwig• 17 years ago

This. Learning to use modern C++ techniques (RAII, shared_ptr, boost, ...) was especially eye-opening for me.

novum• 17 years ago

I've been thinking a lot about happiness, learning, and experiences.

When you get right down to it, we only have a few short years in the sun. 80 years is less than nothing when compared to the age of the earth - let alone the solar system or universe - so it would appear rational to maximize your experiences, knowledge, and relationships because they would seem to lead to an increase in happiness.

One real-world consequence of this thinking is that I've found myself much more likely to consider switching jobs than my risk-averse persona would predict, especially if I see a new offer as a challenging opportunity to improve myself.

chasingsparks2• 17 years ago

PHP. It is neither useless nor used only by the contemporary version of AOL proggie coders. For many things, it really makes life easier (e.g. deployment via SCP).

chasingsparks2• 17 years ago

I was up voted more than I thought. I just wrote a blog post follow up.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=904018

mixmax• 17 years ago

I don't really want to be rich, I'd rather make interesting and fun stuff.

falsestprophet• 17 years ago

Inverse here

phugoid• 17 years ago

Something I read in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell shocked me into reconsidering my role as a father. I'm not a big fan of that book in general, but I found a pearl in there.

I used to think that I needed to set and enforce hard rules, as if this will teach my kids order. I don't want them to take the easy way out or try to negotiate everything. I thought my approach was a good balance to my wife's, as she doesn't assert much authority.

According to a study mentioned in Outliers, my style of parenting is prevalent among the poorer social class, and it leads to a mindset of resignation. Wealthier parents listen more to their children, negotiate with them, and help them take their place in the adult world rather than just be quiet and follow the rules.

This idea has connected a lot of dots for me, and I think I can be a better father than I have been.

JangoSteve3• 17 years ago

Outliers has also recently made me think more seriously about the role of luck in an individual's overall success. It is amazing the role it plays. In fact, I'm really suprised that the book didn't mention Lord Timothy Dexter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dexter), who is the epitome of success by luck.

However, it hasn't changed my overall viewpoint that it is largely up to the person to continually position themselves such that they are receptive to luck. Another way to look at it is by stating the corollary... that the only certain path to failure is to not try.

xprincessxjulzx• 17 years ago

That's a very interesting observation about parenting. I can completely relate because my grandmother, who was raised by a wealthy, but very stern mother, is totally submissive, and has a "midset of resignation". On the other hand, I've always been able to negotiate with my parents and there was never much enforcement of the rules (I could guilt-trip my mother for anything I wanted--especially with some cold hard logic). I don't think a single person would describe me as having a mindset of resignation.

dstorrs• 17 years ago

Don't be too hard on yourself, and don't go too far in the opposite direction. Kids do want boundaries, and they are happier when they have them. Watching my 8-year-old nephew's behavior bears this out perfectly; when he's given lots of input into plans and opportunity to negotiate, he acts like a demon and ends up melting down and unhappy. When given rules he's a happy angel.

I think the trick is to not open the floor to negotiation. If kids have reasonable objection or points you hadn't considered, they will raise the point and you can modify the rule. If they know that they are "negotiating" just to get their own way and that it won't work, they won't waste the time--and everyone will be happier.

That's my experience, anyway.

a-priori3• 17 years ago

I've been reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate lately. It has changed my view of the role of consciousness in everyday life. It's also clarified my understanding on various social issues, the relationship with the individual and society, and the evolutionary origins of the emotions.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through.

yan3• 17 years ago

Steven Pinker is amazing. From what I've read from his other articles, books, etc, it's always been enlightening. He also does a beautiful job communicating his ideas.

a-priori3• 17 years ago

I agree, his writings are eye-opening. I know a bit too much about neuroscience, I think, so sometimes when he ventures that way in The Blank Slate I'm unconvinced, but the core of his arguments always stand.

My first encounter with his works was The Language Instinct, which was required reading for a course I took on psycholinguistics. If that were more recent, I would have mentioned it in my initial post, because that book completely changed my understanding of human language.

booksnarf2• 17 years ago

Religion. I was born & raised a devout Baptist Christian (and creationist). But in the past 5 months, I've read about 50 books and hundreds of web pages and decided that agnostic atheism [1] and evolution make more sense.

Hopefully I didn't just devolve this into a religion argument...

[1] "Agnostic atheist" == I can't say for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I will live my life on the assumption he is not there.

yan3• 17 years ago

The above post.

I used to think that Dawkins & co's books were just preaching to the choir. Yeah, I found them fun to read and nod along, but I didn't believe they'd change anyone's mind. I assume that this isn't an issue of logic, and when you're not dealing with logic for the most part, no logical argument would be sufficient.

Reading posts like these do make me believe that it's possible to change minds, if people are willing.

(I'm not saying those books aren't useful; they give a sense of legitimacy to those who don't side with religion and this is important.)

amichail2• 17 years ago

Do you think that being a good atheist requires a certain level of intelligence that many people don't have?

In particular, the extent to which a person can predict the consequences of his/her actions is probably highly dependent on intelligence.

Religion can be viewed as taking some of this unfairness away.

Alex39172• 17 years ago

Same here, only the other way. After being an atheist my entire life, I got more interested in religion over the past few months. After listening to dozens of hours worth of podcasts, and reading a few books and academic journal articles, I've decided that there is such a thing as a "primary religious experience." Furthermore, it's pretty clear that while academia can verify that this experience exists, science can't really go much further than that, at least in its current state.

As to whether this experience is caused by contact with god, or the sacred, or whatever, I'd put myself in your same "agnostic atheist" camp. Only I'd say that I'll approach some future experiences on the assumption that God is there. (Not that I'm going to go out and become super religious or anything, but being able to suspend disbelief once and a while is the key to making things fun, whether it's watching Star Wars or reading about Mysticism or whatever.)

That's the real take away I think, that in the same way most people don't like math because they were "mathematically abused" as kids, most people don't like religion because they were religiously abused as kids. When actually learning about religion is kinda fun and intellectually interesting.

araneae2• 17 years ago

The feeling of "spirituality" is certainly universal; after all, so many people have it that it would be absurd to call it purely a cultural construct. However, as far as we can tell, the generation of these feelings is not associated with any external sensor, the way that the experience of seeing is connected with your eyeballs. In all probability, the feeling of religiosity is mind-bound phenomena, much like love and awe, and are not capable of detecting any real external phenomena.

On another note...

I'm an atheist, but I wasn't religiously abused as a kid. I just am interested in science. The fantasies of others is considerably less entertaining than understanding the nature of the universe.

berntb• 17 years ago

I buy the existence of religious emotions, for instance a sense of wonder and awe when confronted with astronomy or a newborn child.

My problem isn't with religious education (I didn't get one).

My problem is belief in any ideology. Political or religious.

That is, people having certain opinions about how the world is built from internal emotional experiences. Especially when they know that lots of other people have internal emotional experiences which says they are wrong.

steve197• 17 years ago

Christianity != Creationism

Agnostic != Evolution

Christianity != not(Evolution)

Most Christians (globally) care little about how man came into being and do not think either ideas have any impact on their faith.

It is the hardcore creationists who like to make out all Christians agree with them, and the hardcore underdog atheists who like to make out that all Christians are against them.

I don't know any Christians, and I know many, who believe that evolution and the bible are mutually exclusive ideas. They simply are not. And I wish both Atheists and Creationists would stop claiming that both ideas contradict each other.

pg2• 17 years ago

The late Roman empire, thanks to Theodosius: The Empire at Bay:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bi=0&bx=of...

I used to have very unclear picture of the late empire. Without thinking about it too much, I bought into the pervasive idea (probably due mostly to Gibbon) that the late empire had lost its Roman mojo: that it had become barbarized (what does that mean?) and worn out (why then?). Now I have a higher opinion of the late empire. They lost largely because they faced harder problems. The empire was depopulated, partly no doubt due to epidemics, and the barbarians on the frontiers were a greater threat than they had been in the time of Augustus.

I'm only half way through the book, but it's already the best thing I've read on the period. It would be worth reading for their revisionist view of Adrianople alone.

HistoryInAction3• 17 years ago

I'm all for revisionist views of Adrianople. My best impression currently is that the ongoing schism between east and west led to bad miscommunications and the eastern emperor rushing ahead into a flanking ambush that resulted in the near-destruction of the western army of the Eastern Empire.

With the late-late empire, I believe that doom came from the fall of the Libyan breadbasket to the Vandals, though that doesn't explain why Egypt (East but still Roman) couldn't provide food to Roman Italy, since it was yet to fall for another 200 years...

Let's see what this book tells me... thanks for the link.

The biggest question I have re: the Roman fall is how did the East stay stable while the West collapsed, though I'm also interested in the process by which a single Patriarchy in Rome managed to gain temporal authority while the Patriarchates in Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem remained bound to separate political organizations.

eugenejen• 17 years ago

In "Mohammed and Charlemagne" by Henri Pirenne, the whole Mediterranean region after collapse of the Roman empire still enjoyed prosperity. The economy went down after trades in Mediterranean sea decreased due to Muslim Arabs had taken control the area.

pg2• 17 years ago

It's a great book, but the Pirenne thesis has since been pretty thoroughly debunked.

bokonist• 17 years ago

Peter Heather recently wrote a very similar history which I found to be very good: http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Roman-Empire-History-Barbarians/d...

Heather argues that the Roman empire was still internally healthy, but that increasing pressure from the Persians and the European tribes eventually overwhelmed the empire. Archaeological evidence indicates that the population densities of the barbarian regions may have increased by a factor of two or three since the early days of the empire. The population was larger and more sophisticated, and thus harder to handle.

But just this year Adrian Goldsworthy has written a book countering the new revisionist view that Heather and Williams present ( http://www.amazon.com/How-Rome-Fell-Death-Superpower/dp/0300... ). Goldsworthy argues that the barbarian threat really wasn't that much greater, and that the empire collapsed from within, due to civil war and political strife.

I haven't read Goldsworthy's book yet, but it's on my list.

RiderOfGiraffes3• 17 years ago

Whether I really belong here. I used to think it was a given, now I'm really not sure. So much stuff I'm interested in gets completely ignored, and I'm pretty sure it's been seen. There's the occasional zinger, but I no longer think I'm a good match for this community.

DanielBMarkham2• 17 years ago

That's an interesting frame to the question -- whether you are a good match for the community.

Wouldn't the question work better the other way around -- Whether the community was a good match for you or not?

You would judge the answer based on how much the community helped you reach your goals. Whereas with the other question you're always looking outward for somebody else to validate you (which seems prone to getting bad feedback!)

RiderOfGiraffes3• 17 years ago

Being a match is close to symmetrical, but "usefulness" perhaps isn't. I get a great deal from this site and the musings of many of its participants. It's only reasonable that I should try to give something back, but repeatedly things I think are interesting get absolutely no response.

With me getting a great deal out, but the community not getting much back, are we therefore a good match?

Perhaps that's not really the question, but I've come to realise that stuff I think is cool, enlightening or simply interesting, generally get very little response.

Unless people just don't see them.

pasbesoin• 17 years ago

Gun control in the U.S.. I used to be more in favor, with the goal of a safer society as well as one less inclined to the isolation of sub-populations.

Now, I'm considering widespread ownership more in terms of a last bulwark against one or another form of totalitarian rule. Perhaps it is a limiting factor against pushing the population too far. You might call this a knee-jerk reaction; nonetheless, it's on my mind.

I still consider most unfortunate the additional, lethal violence that the ready availability of firearms (legal and illegal) seems to cause. The question for me is, is it a -- I hate to use this term -- necessary cost.

I feel a little uncomfortable writing about this, nor do I claim to be especially informed on the topic, but since you asked.

protomyth6• 17 years ago

About 15 years ago, I was at a state sponsored meeting in Minot ND. A group the state hired was there telling us about risk factors in the community. The group hired was from the west coast and all the research they cited was studies done in low income urban areas. They pointed out guns were a big risk factor. The head of one of the local social service programs took exception to this. He asked how many people in the room owned a gun. With the exception of myself, everyone raised their hands (my parents owned firearms and I never bought one myself). He then started counting upwards and more then half owned over 3 firearms. He felt the study had no relevance to the area. Examine Switzerland for another example of prevalent firearms.

People inclined to do violence to others will do so regardless of the weapons available. Swimming pools are more dangerous to children than firearms in the house. My take has always been that the weakening of one amendment will allow avenues of attack on the others.

die_sekte• 17 years ago

I read somewhere that total crime rates in Switzerland are comparable to other European countries' rates, but that Switzerland has higher gun crime rates compared to other European countries' rates.

Empact• 17 years ago

Some further evidence: over the past 30 years, concealed carry laws have loosened dramatically (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rtc.gif), while crime has consistently declined, including year over year in the states at the time they loosen their restrictions.

This year, Washington D.C. had an 17% drop in murder rate (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07...), immediately following the overturn of their gun ban via the Heller decision. Which is not to say the decision is responsible for the drop, but even if the impact was negative, it was swamped by other minor factors such as the rain.

I'm more and more convinced that gun restrictions have everything to do with perceived, rather than actual safety.

Zarkonnen2• 17 years ago

Switzerland is actually a very bad example to use. The unusally (for Europe) high number of firearms there is because the members of the militia army keep an assault rifle at home. This is rather different from a handgun or a shotgun, and you're not allowed to use them outside military training.

alan-crowe• 17 years ago

I think that the "bulwark against totalitarian rule" idea comes in two versions. The naive version imagines that the USA suffers an actual attempt at a military coup, and that the coup is defeated by gunfights started by armed citizens. The sophisticated version asks about ambitious young men: when they dream of gaining political power, what route to the top do they dream of?

If you are an ambitious young man in a country that has had military coups in the recent past, you might join the army, hoping to rise in ranks and be in the right place at the right time. That could also apply in a country with disarmed civilians. It is no part of the American dream. If you want political power in the USA you go to law school (or into banking?)

The 2nd Amendment protects against tyranny because it shapes the Zeitgeist. It makes the idea of staying in office after losing an election seem silly: you would only get shot. Since the very idea is silly the scenario is never played out.

This poses a puzzle to the would be Hari Seldons amongst us. Does the 2nd Amendment inherently undermine itself? Do we end up, after two hundred years of political freedom, thinking that the idea of protection against tyranny being provided by an armed citizenry is just plain silly, because we never see it in action? Where does that lead? Do we repeal the 2nd Amendment, leaving our grandchildren to discover, one hundred years later, that the Zeitgeist has changed and that old Amendment really mattered?

crystalis2• 17 years ago

I recently changed my mind about the quality of the producers and consumers on HN.

icey2• 17 years ago

Can you clarify? You haven't been registered here for long, so I'm curious as to what sort of trends you've noticed that have caused you to change your mind.

crystalis2• 17 years ago

I've lurked longer than I've trolled. There is a surface appearance of intelligence (thanks to a couple dozen prolific and intelligent participants) but a great deal of unproductive conversations.

Too often, people talk past each other.

Too often, people nitpick like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782752

Too often, edw519 gets upvotes for 'pithy' statements like http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=864709

Too often, reposts galore, and even worse, from techcrunch: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743735

Too much non-contributing irrelevant self-promotion: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=kkleiner http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=kkleiner

Too often, votes are based on... zealotry? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902804 Why would jrockway get downvoted for answering a question as to why OSX didn't merit the Apple Tax for his purposes?

HN is useful for the domain knowledge and experience of some notable fellows, but a lot of the active user base dampens a lot of the remaining signal.

tel2• 17 years ago

My desire to become a doctor. As a college undergraduate in a biomedical engineering major there's a lot of contact and allure toward that field, but after extensive shadowing experience in the ER I realized that while I undeniably admire those who can become doctors, there is absolutely something missing, for me, in that profession:

The ability to innovate, build, create, explore. An MD's life is more oriented toward dispensing the benefits of knowledge than actively seeking, crafting more.

ottbot• 17 years ago

You still could become a doctor (PhD) and innovate, explore, etc..

Unfortunately, whether or not a career in academia jives with your idea of what it is innovate/build/create would be another decision you'll have to make!

kingnothing• 17 years ago

Have you considered medical research?

RK• 17 years ago

Consider MD/PhD. The MD part of the degree gets you through a ton of doors that would otherwise be closed or incredibly difficult to open (unfortunately). It would also allow you to build products or perform research and actually be on the clinical side of things when it comes to testing (if you care).

tel2• 17 years ago

It is a consideration, but with the 10+ year path it takes to acquire it, I'm a little shaken. At any rate, I'm looking at PhD in neurosciences so it'd be a decent play with an MD if I wanted it later. I'm not certain that this still lets you get MD tuition waived, but that would be excellent.

maxklein• 17 years ago

I changed my mind about Django. In practical usage, it does not save time. Most things are faster, stabler, more portable and easier to outsource than Django. So, gone from being a Django enthusiast to making PHP my main web language and Django for things like admin and cron jobish sort of things.

petervandijck• 17 years ago

Now that I live there, Colombian food.

rrhyne• 17 years ago

Obama. He talked change and kept all the same financial advisers of the prior administrations.

anonymousDan• 17 years ago

What about all those paycuts for bankers though? I can't imagine those happening under Bush or McCain. Or are they just cosmetic (I'm not American and not overly familiar with the details)?

brown9-2• 17 years ago

Cosmetic in that they only affect a handful of banks, and none of the major profit-winners such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, etc.

mistermann4• 17 years ago

They are cosmetic....check back in a year and see if the money transfer moved to a new channel or not.

steve197• 17 years ago

I was not a Obama supporter but I really did hope that he would bring transparency into government, which is badly needed. Doing so would have used up a lot of his political capital. It would have been a great achievement and I would have cheered him on - regardless of what I thought of his policies.

I am saddened that he did not follow through and it seems unlikely that he will in the future.

snprbob862• 17 years ago

I used vim to edit a config file here or there for four years of college. I always hated it. I just couldn't wrap my head around command vs insert mode. Since I never edited more than a few lines at a time, I never really learned it. I thought it was just a stupid idea. Then, about 9 months ago, it clicked. I started loving it. Now, you couldn't pry it from my cold, dead, Python editing fingers. (Although, I still contest that IDEA/Resharper are far superior for Java/C#)

steve197• 17 years ago

did any particular tutorial make it click for you?

snprbob862• 17 years ago

This in my vimrc helped tons:

  map <down> <nop>
  map <left> <nop>
  map <right> <nop>
  map <up> <nop>

But the big thing that really made it click was just that I used it for real work, not small quick editing tasks. You have to really live in the app for a while before it feels like home.

alabut• 17 years ago

NASA and the ability for a government program to be startup-like, as well as my impression that test pilots were selected only for bravado.

I'm reading Carrying The Fire, a book by the Gemini and Apollo astronaut Michael Collins. I was totally caught off-guard about how fast-paced, creative and generally entrepreneurial the early space program was. A common description of their working life was that people on a space mission put in insanely long hours because they were captivated by the long term vision and routinely made fun of other areas of the government where people were just punching the clock.

Even working with otherwise disagreeable folk was tolerated. Collins on learning that he'd have to work with John Young on Gemini 10:

"...besides, I would have flown by myself or with a kangaroo - I just wanted to fly. All that stuff about crew psychology compatibility is crap. Almost anyone can put up with almost anyone else for a clearly defined period of time in pursuit of a mutual object important to each."

Also, I thought test pilots were crazy people with a death wish, probably because of The Right Stuff. Turns out they practice a form of user-centered design and consider themselves as advocates for the end user (pilots in the field). It doesn't surprise me that the current field of HCI was born from the study of airplane cockpits. A joke in the book was about the true story of emergency instructions printed on the inside of a canopy - all the steps after the first one were completely unusable in the context of a real emergency because step #1 was to blast off the canopy.

timinman• 17 years ago

My political persuasions have changed radically over the last 20 years... And I used to find politics interesting.

protomyth6• 17 years ago

This year has brought me to the belief that the forth estate is dead and has been replaced by pundits of all shapes and sizes.

You can argue where every news organization fits on the political spectrum (other than they all fit at one of the sides and the middle is an illusion), but I don't think there is any network or newspaper that just prints the facts of the case. Every network has their favorites and calls the other sides "little people" names (e.g. pinko, teabagger). All the networks throw out opinions and call them facts. Heck, making up crap doesn't even seem to phase anyone (e.g. false papers, trucks with explosives on the gas tanks).

Has any network gone through the current draft of the health car bill and told us what's on it? Has any network tried to get all the payouts the gov did as part of the bailout?

mistermann4• 17 years ago

So true.

For example: http://consortiumnews.com/2009/102409b.html

This won't be on the news, yet I bet every American would have a strong opinion (for or against) this practice....but it is not newsworthy. A boy who may (or may not) be floating away in a balloon, however, gets 24x7 coverage.

Whats that saying about something becoming a parody of itself? Thats how I see America today....they have such passionate beliefs about what they are as a people, but their actions are the exact opposite. It's sad...of course, a lot of this has been happening for decades, but what can be pulled off now in the light of day with no public reaction (torture, war crimes, unprecedented financial fraud, etc) is just mind boggling.

steve197• 17 years ago

Nobel peace prizes. I used to see them as the ultimate award that could be earned and the ultimate award which humanity could bestow on an individual. Now I see them as a powerful and influential political tool.

I think many people came to that conclusion many years ago ... I am a bit slow on the uptake.

steve197• 17 years ago

It would be great if a award, with a substantial prize (upwards of $10 million), was created to be awarded to the person that has done the most for the human race: for peace, heath care, human dignity, human rights and freedom.

Bill Gates .. you listening? ;)

Klondike• 17 years ago

Hacker News, after reading this thread. I think I'll become a regular.

Ask HN: What have you changed your mind about recently?

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