HN user
100% this … He’s a wounded Soul … desperate to be loved and admired. As someone else wrote - there’s a void inside him that can’t be filled.
Yes if only he had the heart/insight to make that 180 U-turn. It’d bring him some peace at last.
Software projects fail because humans fail. Humans are the drivers of everything in our world.
Ah finally - I've had to scroll halfway down to find a key reason big software projects fail.
<rant>
I started programming in 1990 with PL/1 on IBM mainframes and for 35 years have dipped in and out of the software world. Every project I've seen fail was mainly down to people - egos, clashes, laziness, disinterest, inability to interact with end users, rudeness, lack of motivation, toxic team culture etc etc. It was rarely (never?) a major technical hurdle that scuppered a project. It was people and personalities, clashes and confusion.
</rant>
Of course the converse is also true - big software projects I've seen succeed were down to a few inspired leaders and/or engineers who set the tone. People with emotional intelligence, tact, clear vision, ability to really gather requirements and work with the end users. Leaders who treated their staff with dignity and respect. Of course, most of these projects were bland corporate business data ones... so not technically very challenging. But still big enough software projects.
Gez... don't know why I'm getting so emotional (!) But the hard-core sofware engineering world is all about people at the end of the day.
Another interpretation of the double-slit posits a guiding 'Pilot Wave' separate from physical particles... aka DeBroglie-Bohm Theory or Bohmian Mechanics.
Apparently it's not popular among professional physicsts though John Bell investigated it a bit. Einstein had some unpublished notes in the 1920s about a "Gespensterfeld" (ghost field) that guided particles.
Born was influenced by this 'Ghost field' idea when he published his famous interpretation of the 'Wave Function' |Ψ|^2 as a probability rather than a physical field.
More info: Nonlocal and local ghost fields in quantum correlations. https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9502017
That's interesting about walking. I've done longish walking pilgrimages lasting several weeks (Camino etc.) and some stomach problems and joint problems improved a lot. I usually walked about 25km a day - I realise that's longer walking than what you mentioned.
There are some books about walking putting illness into remission. A famous one is "The Salt Path" where someone with "corticobasal degeneration" brain disease was positively impacted by their walk. (Although the claims are in doubt now because the main author wasn't truthful about other aspects of their walk)
Anyway walking probably a real positive overall!
... is a sophisticated system of ritual politeness that emphasizes deference, modesty, and indirectness.
I'm Irish and think we have a similar culture of indirectness and politeness...
In the countryside anyway we're rarely very blunt... everything indirect...
"You'll have a cup of tea Mary?"
"Ah no.. sure I'm only after a drop"
"Ah go on... you will"
"Not at all, I'm grand"
"Go on, go on, go on you will" etc (as in Father Ted)
This mightn't be exactly what you're looking for - but Leatherman seems an example of a class of people called 'Holy Fools'. (maybe because Leatherman carried a little prayer book)
The Holy Fools were semi-religious figures who acted strangely or pretended to be mad to challenge social norms and express spiritual truths.
They were common in Russia at one time and called: "yuródivyy"
In the West, some examples would be Francis of Assisi and Benedict Joseph Labre.
edit: In the USA I'd nearly call Johnny Appleseed one of the 'Holy Fools' and even Chris McCandless (Into the Wild)
Having no "safe harbour" ...
Yes this is soul destroying - the psychological effects are brutal. Not having any little place as a 'base'.
I was homeless in Europe for a few weeks and it really crushes someone. I can see why so many rough sleepers take alcohol / drugs. Just to numb everything. I used to drink a few cans every night before trying to find a place to sleep.
Another crushing thing: as a commenter below said - on average people look down at you as if you were dirty etc. I found that so hard too.
I wish you the very best wherever you are ... really hope your situation will get better somehow please God...
(edit: oh just realised something - not implying the OP takes any substances or anything... just talking in general how I had to resort to alcohol in my situation)
Yes - I think that's the one the OP recommended. Great read. Gives a superb historical overview and the reader can follow the twists-and-turns of discovery. You get to 'know' the scientists as they battled the Quantum. Sets the scene before delving into other books that teach the actual Math etc.
I cycled across the Nullabour Plain in 1998 (Perth to Adelaide)... I have to agree with some parts of this article - there's something Spiritual about the landscape there.
I used whisper to transcribe nearly every "episode" of the Love Line syndicated radio show from 1997-2007 or so.
Yes - second this. I found 'Whisper' great for that type of scenario as well.
A local monastery had about 200 audio talks (mp3). Whisper converted them all to text and GPT did a small 'smoothing' of the output to make it readable. It was about half a million words and only took a few hours.
The monks were delighted - they can distribute their talks in small pamplets / PDFs now and is extra income for the community.
Years ago as a student I did some audio transcription manually and something similar would have taken ages...
I heard somewhere that we speak a mild 'Elizabethan' English in the West of Ireland... no idea if this is true really.
Although my parents use some archaic words:
"Pass me yon cup please." (Yon as in yonder = that cup)
"It's a bully old day." (bully = good, grand)
"That's a quare setup." (quare = strange)
"Oh aye... that's right." (aye* = yes) *common in Northern Ireland / Scotland too
We use "woe" a lot. (woe = misery)
Em... that's it really I suppose.
Totally agree about housing costs. After 10 years of paying high rent in the UK I've returned to Dublin.
Currently paying €1,300 per month for a tiny studio. (I'm told I'm lucky) So hard to build up savings.
The average price for a home in Dublin is now €600,000 according to our central statistics office. Unbelievable.
(The average annual salary in Ireland is €50,000)
I'm early 50s and went to school in the Republic of Ireland - late 70s, 80s. I really feel the same as the OP here. It felt like a daily prison, combined with huge amounts of memorisation for exams. (promptly forgotten)
Maybe a child could put up with the incarceration if it wasn't for the bullying on top of that too. No escape.
Aside: In the 70s the Headmaster had a cane that was used occasionally but at least that died out later.
But on a more optimistic note, I think there's some 'alternative schools' becoming more popular in Ireland now, like 'Forest School Ireland' etc... sounds more healthy anyway!
One usage example is worth a hundred words ... For bash idk if that exists on the internet, ...
Totally agree with that - I maintain a big txt file too.
Maybe this bash compendium is a bit similar:
Totally agree about Newton and his 3 ways. I remember reading in Burton's History of Mathematics:
"Newton developed 3 different versions of his calculus, apparently searching for the best approach; or maybe each version served a different purpose.
- 'Infinitesimals': largely a geometric approach, - 'Fluxions': a kinematic approach, - 'Prime and ultimate ratios': his most rigorous, "algebraic" approach.
The 3 methods weren't always kept apart when solving problems. See: DT Whiteside, Mathematical Papers Isaac Newton."
You might enjoy Tristan Needham's book on Visual Differential Geometry where he really dives into Newton's geometric approach.
Thanks for the other links... must go through them. Lots of gold there.
I think that's why I'm redoing my old Physics problem sets - but using the infinitesimal approach this time. To see is it more useful. So far the gains are modest but I find it easier to 'reason' about some of the calculations.
The author Seth Braver has two nice examples of reasoning with infinitesimals in the book intro - the first few chapters are available for free: https://www.bravernewmath.com/
Time will tell if the study will pay off. In later years of the Physics degree I ended up doing lots of algebraic manipulation without much understanding. Maybe because I had no intuitive 'feel' for the Calculus and it all felt like symbol manipulation ... As another commenter said, somehow infinitesimals allowed the giants like Newton & Lebnitz to work their way to some amazing results (especially about motion...)
That's interesting - I read something similar in Bell's 'A primer of infinitesimal analysis' where he said the price for 'Smooth World' infinitestimals is giving up the Law of Excluded Middle (LEM).
Don't really understand why (he said something about unconstrained use of LEM allows discontinuous functions...)
Is there any link to Brouwer's Intuitionism where LEM is rejected too (?!)
Ah it's all an interesting can of worms...
Thanks for the tip... it seems to mention Robinson's 'hyperreals' too...!
I find infinitesimals more intuitive than the formal 'limits-based' approach. I'm currently studying my old degree material but using a fairly interesting book:
"Full Frontal Calculus: An Infinitesimal Approach" by Seth Braver.
I like his readable style. His poetic intro finally gave me an intuition why infinitesimals might be useful, compared to the good old reals:
"Yet, by developing a "calculus of infinitesimals" (as it was known for two centuries), mathematicians got great insight into `real` functions, breaking through the static algebraic ice shelf to reach a flowing world of motion below, changing and evolving in time."
Along with getting a ZX Spectrum+ in 1985, we got a subscription to "Input" magazine.
It's tagline: “Learn programming for fun and the future”
https://archive.org/details/inputmagazine
It had tutorials on BASIC ... and introduced the strange and mysterious world of machine code via PEEK and POKE (!)
... I found it a bit poignant / emotional as well! ... those engineers in a dusty office beside McDonalds... quietly keeping the mission going... in touch with something that's beyond our solar system now... True engineers! No glitz... quiet dedication...
There's a good documentary about the quirky team of NASA engineers that keep in contact with the Voyager probes...
It's slightly melancholic, the engineers are aging, the mission's heyday is long past... but there's something gripping about it...
"It's Quieter in the Twilight" (2022)
This reporting style seems unusual. Haven't noticed it before...(listing the number of people):
- according to four people familiar with the talks ...
- according to interviews with 19 people familiar with the relationship ...
- according to five people with knowledge of his comments.
- according to two people familiar with Microsoft’s plans.
- according to five people familiar with the relationship ...
- according to two people familiar with the call.
- according to seven people familiar with the discussions.
- six people with knowledge of the change said...
- according to two people familiar with the company’s plan.
- according to two people familiar with the meeting...
- according to three people familiar with the relationship.Ireland: Swimming togs (!)
Gosh it's a long time since I heard 'Clipper' mentioned. I used to do 'PC' apps for Banks in the early 90s. Turbo Pascal and Clipper were popular with us. (We used PL/1 rather than COBOL for batch processing)
Then VB 4.0 started to get popular around 1996 and ruled the roost...
So many technologies... does anyone remember 'SUPRA' from that era! (think it was supposed to be a 4GL language/interface for mainframe databases)
Just back from Poland- they have a great system 'BLIK' that sounds like iDeal...
Most merchants have a BLIK button... you click it, enter a 6 digit code created on your banking app. Purchase complete. Takes a few seconds. No card numbers, CCV etc..
Totally agree with this comment.
I've worked as a programmer, care assistant, office clerk and for 6 months as a Maths teacher in a UK Further Education College.
The teaching was incredibly demanding - way ahead of the other jobs. 6 hours a day engaging a class of 18-year-olds. Hours of marking and prep in the evening. Extra teaching at the Easter break. Marking at Christmas. Dealing with student mental health issues, drug issues, fights between gangs.
Had to leave for my own health and 1 other teacher just walked out mid-semester - 2 others were out on long-term sick leave.
Another sign it's a tough profession: there's ~ 2,800 teaching vaccancies in the UK at the moment [1] and schools struggle to recruit.
I've nothing but respect for those teachers that do it year after year.
[1] https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/teacher-vacancies-in-uk-in...
Ah I knew I shouldn't have said 'IBM PC 386'...! :-O
It was an "Epson Equity 386SX" which - as you say - is my uninformed shorthand for 'a 386-based PC compatible' (actually maybe it was only 286-based anyway?!)
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/epson-equity-386sx-16...
ps: I was a mainframe PL/1 programmer at the time so plead ignorance on all things PC-based... (!)
Home computers were definitely common-ish in Ireland in late 80s. (Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga). I'm from a small town in the West of Ireland and about 6 or 7 families got the new "Spectrum 48k" in 1985... By 1988-90 they were all over the place.. It was 1992 before we got an IBM PC 386 and that was a bit rarer alright... but Commodore and Amiga ruled for years..
Maybe a long-shot: Last year I did 15 hrs a week proofreading CS and Engineering journal papers. Got around $300 - $350 per month
- Company 1: https://cactusglobal.com/careers/freelance/
- Company 2: https://proofreading.org/about/careers/
Didn't need a certificate in Proofreading / Editing. You have to test edit a few sample papers to get employed. My backgound: software development (but have a Science degree too from years ago).
The work is remote, flexible (you can decline papers) but *not* highly paid. Also quite hard if you get a poorly written paper. I only did it as a stop-gap.
Also: don't know if GPT has finished this market...