danielalmeida

I think the main point made by the author is that we should _be able to_ read properly and consciously make the decision to do so for some texts. I don't think anyone would argue that we should carefully read every single shallow, poorly written blog post out there.

"We need to cultivate a new kind of brain: a “bi-literate” reading brain capable of the deepest forms of thought in either digital or traditional mediums. A great deal hangs on it: the ability of citizens in a vibrant democracy to try on other perspectives and discern truth; the capacity of our children and grandchildren to appreciate and create beauty; and the ability in ourselves to go beyond our present glut of information to reach the knowledge and wisdom necessary to sustain a good society."

This is all over the place and reads like a collection of random pieces of advice.

Why not stop at "An engineer makes something work. You are more than that. You are an artisan." and present a reasonable line of argument?

Here's a better title: "What the PhDs we interviewed should've known before interviewing with us".

Basecamp has 50 employees. Google was founded in 1998 and has 50k employees. I think there's something more to be said about the differences in their experiences and the kind of mistakes they have made.

I agree with you. To put it simply, papers are optimized for the scientific community and making them "more accessible" to outsiders has a cost. I'd settle for better writing and presentations within the scientific community for now. If you ever find researchers that blog about their research in simple terms, I think it's safe to assume they're using their personal time to do that (I know of very few; Andy Ko [1] comes to mind).

[1] https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior

Not necessarily. IMO, she proposes a specific way of "thinking" about the paper's content (I use another approach [1]). Papers are written following a certain structure because many people think it's a better way of presenting the ideas in detail/with the necessary rigor (that's what other "scientists" in the field would expect). For example, no researcher expects a five-sentence summary of the background. Personally, I expect an explanation of the relevant concepts/techniques and some sort of analysis of how existing work relates to the paper (instead of a list of related papers). At least in software engineering, many papers state the research questions explicitly, i.e., they would be identified if you read the paper from beginning to end. They tend to have a "results" section as well, so summarizing the results myself would be an intellectual exercise. Once you understand how papers are usually structured, you pick up on many of those things as you go (I mean, as you simply read the paper as the author intended).

On a side note, I'd say that many researchers don't do a good job of conveying their ideas clearly (it gets worse with conference presentations). It won't really matter in what order you try to read their papers.

[1] http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/p...

Because they are not writing for non-scientists.

Posted and discussed before multiple times.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8815065

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9610075

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9404006

This has been posted before ("2014" in the title would be nice) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8677556

First paragraph: "Ok, ok. I didn't quite 'hack Facebook'. What I did was execute OS level commands on one of Facebook's acquisition's servers."

Seriously?!

I'm not saying you can only know a couple of frameworks, but it 's hard to be an expert in Python/Django, Ruby/Rails, Node.js and Java. You can do the same for frontend stuff. For example: I think it's a better option to be a Django and Angular.js expert, good at Node.js and Backbone.js.. and kind of ignore projects related to Java, Rails, Ember, React etc. You can pick anything you want, it's just an example. You can still work on side-projects with the trendy stuff and migrate depending on your interests and the market, but you shouldn't transition into new things every month. Just my 2 cents, best of luck. :)

I suppose you can still focus on a few technologies when looking for new projects and freelancing. At the beginning it should be quite complicated since you won't like the idea of letting a project go just because it requires some new framework you don't know, but it's a price to be paid in order to have more expertise and experience using your skillset (proper financial planning might help in this transition). If you keep learning and relearning things for each 2-weeks project you find, you'll end up without much depth in any of the technologies you have used. The question then is: which technologies/frameworks/languages should you focus on?

I've been seriously annoyed about that since I started working in one of those open offices. I've read a few articles about it and cannot understand why would someone like to be in such an environment. Stack Exchange's organization/culture seems to be a quite balanced approach, providing both the common areas where people can be together working/relaxing AND a proper space for them to stay focused while working alone on something. Really good to know there are companies trying to get it right instead of cool.

Ideas come from somewhere, not sure from where it is. I do believe that everything you read, watch or listen is somehow "stored" and influences how you think and the ideas you have. Once I have an idea, I try to share it with friends and/or colleagues to see if they approach the problem/idea as I did and how differently they look at it. I usually write it down so that I can go back months later and think about it again. Sometimes they seem ridiculous, other times they seem just different.

Keep reading, watching, listening and sharing your knowledge and ideas. Keep your eyes and your mind open and try to understand how other people think and how they see the world (traveling and getting to know different cultures might help a lot on that).

Torrents (and illegal downloads in general) are a strong incentive for copyright owners to improve their game. Otherwise it'd be a stagnant monopoly.

I'm not sure breaking the law (whether you agree with it or not) is the proper way to fight monopoly (?) or to push companies to "improve their game".

Btw, there is no monopoly in the music or gaming industry (not that I know of, at least). There are laws for monopoly issues.

I fully understand what you mean. I saw you're from Brazil too, so you know how awful Netflix is around here and how much we pay for games, for example. I download mostly due to the reasons you mentioned. As much as possible I avoid downloading books and I try to pay for music when I can (some stuff is just too expensive to import and many times really hard to find). I also rely on Steam and digital copies to avoid stealing (I have no problem calling it that) games.

But by the end of the day, despite being hard to find or expensive or unavailable, it's not mine to take. I understand I have no right to just rip The Flash S01E09 and make it available for free, IMO. Even though I downloaded and watched it yesterday.

I'm not going into the "sharing links vs sharing content" debate.

And it isn't always copyrighted content.

True, it isn't ALWAYS, but I guess it's mostly copyrighted.

The point isn't to help people steal stuff, it's to help people share information, regardless of whatever arbitrary laws exist about sharing information. That's a worthy cause, IMO.

I do think we should be able to share information freely, not necessarily share whatever I want. My problem is with the "regardless of whatever arbitrary laws exist about sharing information" part.

"What people reveal, what people fight for, are major causes. Freedom of information. Liberty. Democracy. Governmental transparency and due process."

I have a really hard time trying to link this with my experience on TPB. It's all about downloading stuff without paying for it. Honestly, that's it. I'm not proud of that, I'm not saying it's a noble thing to do. I really don't get what trying to "determine" what should or shouldn't be free by sharing other people's stuff without their permission has to do with freedom.