On Sun, 23 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
It saves all messages in a local spool folder, and since nntp is a
nice and simple retro-protocols, it is trivial to understand the
format. So what you could do, between 2 leafnode servers, is to just
reverse engineer the format and "copy" the spool directory between the
two leafnode installations and all the messages will pop up on the
other leafnode as well.
Okay, but the question was to just to confirm my mostly-forgotten
recollections of Leafnode. I wouldn't mind working on it to make it
peer via NNTP itself. But I would much rather write a completely new in
a non-C language.
I wonder if there are any good C to Go converters out there? Would be interesting to see how much effort it would take to convert leafnode from c to
go? Maybe then, it would be an easier code base to work with?
I think is perhaps somewhat of a downward trend. I feel awe when
talking to the older generations who had to learn the hardware,
program in assembler and so on.
I feel the same. Like you, I feel great learning from the older
generations. In fact, I often think that they were privileged for being
able to be there first. I identified this easily enough to develop a
passion for studying the history of computer science, which makes me
look very old now because I use a lot of very old tools, which are
awesome tools despite their age. I got a web post by Joel Spolsky the
phrase that ``software doesn't get dusty''.
True. I have a retro-class on thursday and will show them some nice stuff in the
form of vim, alpine, and midnight commander. Apart from a shell (bash) those are
my main tools in the terminal.
Nevertheless, I feel obsessed by computers and I try to get close to the
hardware by more abstract means. For instance, I've been reading about
the 6502 and it seems like such a simple CPU that it makes up for a very
great computer architecture first introduction, unlike x86, say.
I remember programming for the Z80 when I was young, on my calculator, and also,
of course, assembler on the 486. Those were the days! =)
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
It saves all messages in a local spool folder, and since nntp is a
nice and simple retro-protocols, it is trivial to understand the
format. So what you could do, between 2 leafnode servers, is to just
reverse engineer the format and "copy" the spool directory between the >>>> two leafnode installations and all the messages will pop up on the
other leafnode as well.
Okay, but the question was to just to confirm my mostly-forgotten
recollections of Leafnode. I wouldn't mind working on it to make it
peer via NNTP itself. But I would much rather write a completely new in >>> a non-C language.
I wonder if there are any good C to Go converters out there? Would be
interesting to see how much effort it would take to convert leafnode from c to
go? Maybe then, it would be an easier code base to work with?
I know C a lot more than I know Go---nothing. :) I've already began
some work in Common Lisp.
I think is perhaps somewhat of a downward trend. I feel awe when
talking to the older generations who had to learn the hardware,
program in assembler and so on.
I feel the same. Like you, I feel great learning from the older
generations. In fact, I often think that they were privileged for being >>> able to be there first. I identified this easily enough to develop a
passion for studying the history of computer science, which makes me
look very old now because I use a lot of very old tools, which are
awesome tools despite their age. I got a web post by Joel Spolsky the
phrase that ``software doesn't get dusty''.
True. I have a retro-class on thursday and will show them some nice stuff in the
form of vim, alpine, and midnight commander. Apart from a shell (bash) those are
my main tools in the terminal.
Hey... GNU EMACS. :)
Nevertheless, I feel obsessed by computers and I try to get close to the >>> hardware by more abstract means. For instance, I've been reading about
the 6502 and it seems like such a simple CPU that it makes up for a very >>> great computer architecture first introduction, unlike x86, say.
I remember programming for the Z80 when I was young, on my calculator, and also,
of course, assembler on the 486. Those were the days! =)
Lol. You have more experience than I do. I did own a 486 DX2 66 MHz
(that was my first), but I wrote no assembly at all---I didn't even know there was assembly or machine code back then. I did get to know the
BIOS pretty well, though, but I had not much of an idea how it really
fit into the hardware. (I took four to five years to realize that I had
to get involved with programming to really understand the computer.)
Pretty funny, though, the first book I read was called ``HARDWARE''. It
was an x86 computer architecture book, superficial, that explained how
the parts connected or something. That book was very influential
because it showed me that, by reading it, I could actually make sense of taking the computer apart and putting it back on. I consciously
realized---I can read and get knowledge. (Schools always recommended reading, but they never really recommended technical reading---they
seemed to recommended only national literature.)
From that point on, I never stopped to read technical books, which gave
me a new realization of how amazingly broken schools are. And the
problem is not so much in the system itself---it's more in the people
who run that system.
Many years later, as a result, when I was in graduate school, instead of choosing a topic to write on, I chose an adviser to work with. I
couldn't care less about any topic; I asked my adviser---what are you
working on? Let's work on that. You see? Anything is interesting so
long as the people working on it are interesting. When they are not,
no method will do.
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
It saves all messages in a local spool folder, and since nntp is a
nice and simple retro-protocols, it is trivial to understand the
format. So what you could do, between 2 leafnode servers, is to just >>>>> reverse engineer the format and "copy" the spool directory between the >>>>> two leafnode installations and all the messages will pop up on the
other leafnode as well.
Okay, but the question was to just to confirm my mostly-forgotten
recollections of Leafnode. I wouldn't mind working on it to make it
peer via NNTP itself. But I would much rather write a completely new in >>>> a non-C language.
I wonder if there are any good C to Go converters out there? Would be
interesting to see how much effort it would take to convert
leafnode from c to
go? Maybe then, it would be an easier code base to work with?
I know C a lot more than I know Go---nothing. :) I've already began
some work in Common Lisp.
I think is perhaps somewhat of a downward trend. I feel awe when
talking to the older generations who had to learn the hardware,
program in assembler and so on.
I feel the same. Like you, I feel great learning from the older
generations. In fact, I often think that they were privileged for being >>>> able to be there first. I identified this easily enough to develop a
passion for studying the history of computer science, which makes me
look very old now because I use a lot of very old tools, which are
awesome tools despite their age. I got a web post by Joel Spolsky the >>>> phrase that ``software doesn't get dusty''.
True. I have a retro-class on thursday and will show them some nice
stuff in the form of vim, alpine, and midnight commander. Apart from
a shell (bash) those are my main tools in the terminal.
Hey... GNU EMACS. :)
Hah... wrong church and religion! ;)
Nevertheless, I feel obsessed by computers and I try to get close to the >>>> hardware by more abstract means. For instance, I've been reading about >>>> the 6502 and it seems like such a simple CPU that it makes up for a very >>>> great computer architecture first introduction, unlike x86, say.
I remember programming for the Z80 when I was young, on my
calculator, and also, of course, assembler on the 486. Those were
the days! =)
Lol. You have more experience than I do. I did own a 486 DX2 66 MHz
(that was my first), but I wrote no assembly at all---I didn't even know
there was assembly or machine code back then. I did get to know the
BIOS pretty well, though, but I had not much of an idea how it really
fit into the hardware. (I took four to five years to realize that I had
to get involved with programming to really understand the computer.)
Pretty funny, though, the first book I read was called ``HARDWARE''. It
was an x86 computer architecture book, superficial, that explained how
the parts connected or something. That book was very influential
because it showed me that, by reading it, I could actually make sense of
taking the computer apart and putting it back on. I consciously
realized---I can read and get knowledge. (Schools always recommended
reading, but they never really recommended technical reading---they
seemed to recommended only national literature.)
From that point on, I never stopped to read technical books, which gave
me a new realization of how amazingly broken schools are. And the
problem is not so much in the system itself---it's more in the people
who run that system.
Many years later, as a result, when I was in graduate school, instead of
choosing a topic to write on, I chose an adviser to work with. I
couldn't care less about any topic; I asked my adviser---what are you
working on? Let's work on that. You see? Anything is interesting so
long as the people working on it are interesting. When they are not,
no method will do.
True!
I don't actually read that many books on technology. My technology
exposure these days is more through blogs, usenet, and the occasional networking event. Oh, and work of course, but that is more "organical" exposure, and not really something I do actively.
Hah... wrong church and religion! ;)
Lol. I have been feeling pretty religious lately indeed. :)
I don't actually read that many books on technology. My technology
exposure these days is more through blogs, usenet, and the occasional
networking event. Oh, and work of course, but that is more "organical"
exposure, and not really something I do actively.
Yeah. This probably implies you're getting a lot of screen reading
time. I like books because I can get off the screen. And, the book
being good, is usually so much more carefully written than most papers
and blogs.
I try to go to the beach every day. Today, for instance, I biked to the beach, swam and then drank coconut water and do my reading. If I'm not
reading a book, then I go to Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com) and I
print out what I find interesting there. It's so much slow and
pleasurable to read off screen. At the beach, I cannot just skip too
many texts because I have just a few with me. And I shouldn't read too
fast because then I have nothing else to read. So I take a long time on every word and so the reading is a lot more fun.
I'm even reading non-technical stuff. Since December, I read
``Hackers'' by Steven Levy (1984) and then I also read the book ``No
Filter'' by Paulina Porizkova (2022), the model. :) She's an excellent writer. I enjoy the music from The Cars. Paulina was Ric Ocasek's
wife. He died in the pandemic, though not from COVID-19. She seemed interesting and I found her book interview-ads while listening to The
Cars songs on YouTube. I enjoyed the book, but, yeah, I was just
snooping into other people's lives, which perhaps I shouldn't.
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
So if fdm can download the files in a nice spool folder format, I
might even be able to apply my small python script to copy the news
posting into Maildir folders, and there I can read, and alpine then
posts.
I'm sure fdm can download and write them to a Maildir: it's how I use
it.
Oh, that might even make my python script redundant! This gets more interesting
by the minute!
Go is the next on my list. What is it that makes you like lisp so
much? I have never considered it, so I am curious. Doesn't it wear out
the () keys on your keyboard? ;)
Lol. [L]ots of [S]tupid, [I]rritating [P]arenthesis.
Have you ever used paredit-mode in the GNU EMACS? It makes you love the
parenthesis. You're a vim user, so you likely never heard of paredit.
If you have the energy, the time and the curiosity, you could watch a
3-minute demo at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6h5dFyyUX0
A few seconds will be enough to get the spirit, but I don't care if you
watch it---just skip it.
Never heard of. It was a bit too quick, so I'm still not quite sure what it does. Some of that jumping around can be achieved in vim, but since I'm not familiar with lisp nor with exactly what he was doing, it is difficult
to say.
It's a pleasure to use paredit-mode. Let me quote Donald Norman. I'm
gonna show a larger quote, but my point here is on pleasure of use and a
``feeling of control''.
This is true. I like the idea that everything is a file, and that log files are
plain text. It increases my feeling of control over the system.
That is why I do not like systemd. It moves away from this philosophy
and frankly, I still have not experienced anything that I need systemd
for, that could not have been solved without it.
Sad!
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
I don't actually read that many books on technology. My technology
exposure these days is more through blogs, usenet, and the occasional
networking event. Oh, and work of course, but that is more "organical"
exposure, and not really something I do actively.
Yeah. This probably implies you're getting a lot of screen reading
time. I like books because I can get off the screen. And, the book
being good, is usually so much more carefully written than most papers
and blogs.
Too much screen reading if you ask me. But when I'm not working, I read a lot of
regular books, or on my eInk device, which is much kinder to the eyes. Reading
is one of my greatest hobbies. My wife gets annoyed at the enormous number of books I accumulate. She wants me to throw them away, but it would be like throwing away my children. I cannot do it! =/
I try to go to the beach every day. Today, for instance, I biked to the
beach, swam and then drank coconut water and do my reading. If I'm not
Oh, wonderful! Where do you live?
reading a book, then I go to Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com) and I
print out what I find interesting there. It's so much slow and
pleasurable to read off screen. At the beach, I cannot just skip too
many texts because I have just a few with me. And I shouldn't read too
fast because then I have nothing else to read. So I take a long time on
every word and so the reading is a lot more fun.
Wonderful! Sounds like an excellent idea! I do save online articles and stuff as
pdf:s and do the same thing sometimes, going to a café or when flying. I find
the effect very similar to yours.
I'm even reading non-technical stuff. Since December, I read
``Hackers'' by Steven Levy (1984) and then I also read the book ``No
Filter'' by Paulina Porizkova (2022), the model. :) She's an excellent
writer. I enjoy the music from The Cars. Paulina was Ric Ocasek's
wife. He died in the pandemic, though not from COVID-19. She seemed
interesting and I found her book interview-ads while listening to The
Cars songs on YouTube. I enjoyed the book, but, yeah, I was just
snooping into other people's lives, which perhaps I shouldn't.
I'm currently reading Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling (and other authors). Some
good, classic cyberpunk.
I'm also reading various texts by Schopenhauer trying to figure out if
he in fact did independently discover buddhism, as his proponents are
very fond of saying. I'm skeptical. But let's see!
Oh, that might even make my python script redundant! This gets more interesting
by the minute!
It will surely do. (It is also a powerful filter, so you can organize
your NNTP articles into various different Maildir, essentially being
your NNTP client from the downloading perspective. For uploading, we
will need another program.)
Never heard of. It was a bit too quick, so I'm still not quite sure what it >> does. Some of that jumping around can be achieved in vim, but since I'm not >> familiar with lisp nor with exactly what he was doing, it is difficult
to say.
I'd bet vim can do the same.
It's not important. But the illustration there is that Lisp programmers don't worry about parentheses; it's all managed by them by editors such
as the GNU EMACS (with its various packages for handling these
specialized operations).
It's a pleasure to use paredit-mode. Let me quote Donald Norman. I'm
gonna show a larger quote, but my point here is on pleasure of use and a >>> ``feeling of control''.
This is true. I like the idea that everything is a file, and that log files are
plain text. It increases my feeling of control over the system.
Good illustration!
That is why I do not like systemd. It moves away from this philosophy
and frankly, I still have not experienced anything that I need systemd
for, that could not have been solved without it.
One thing I liked about systemd is that regular users can have their own daemons. But it turns out that's the only thing about systemd that I
ever liked. And even then I changed my opinion. Daemons are not really meant to be managed by regular users; if there's any user that should
have the right to run a daemon, then they should have sysadmin powers,
even if specifically just for the task at hand. Bottom line: it's a
neat thing that it does, but it might not quite be a real need.
Let's take daemontools by djb, say. You can let regular users run their
own daemons with a simple UNIX command of letting the directory where
daemon lives have the adequate permissions for regular users to manage
their own daemons.
Now let's take the dependency management of systemd. Is that neat and
cool? It is. But a competent sysadmin knows exactly what's needed in
his start-up scripts---he doesn't need something complex to handle it.
If he doesn't, he would want to learn. Once he learns, I can't quite
see much of a point in having those things be completely managed by a monolithic subsystem that's trying to hide details from the sysadmin.
Sad!
It's alright. As long as there are systems that don't buy the Microsoft
way of things, we're good. And there will always be because hackers
never buy into the nonsense.
Too much screen reading if you ask me. But when I'm not working, I read a lot of
regular books, or on my eInk device, which is much kinder to the eyes. Reading
is one of my greatest hobbies. My wife gets annoyed at the enormous number of
books I accumulate. She wants me to throw them away, but it would be like
throwing away my children. I cannot do it! =/
I don't know the two of you, but it does sound like a good idea to throw
it all away. But I'm suspicious to say it because I often do it. When
I was a freshman, I bought all the books I'd use at the university. I thought it was expensive, but it was worth it---I thought then. On the second semester, I couldn't spend that money again and decided to try to
just get the books from the library. If the exact book wasn't
available, I'd take another one---a theorem should be the roughly the
same in every book, right? From this experiment, I concluded that I'd
never buy another book (and that every student should do the same). It
was wonderful to always look at other books perspectives.
Of course it's not literal throwing away. You'd give them to a library,
say. If that's too hard, you could rent a u-haul-equivalent storage in
your country to just put them out of the house. It's not the same thing---you could possibly enjoy the experience of being completely free
from these books.
I'm suspicious because I love to get rid of stuff. :)
I try to go to the beach every day. Today, for instance, I biked to the >>> beach, swam and then drank coconut water and do my reading. If I'm not
Oh, wonderful! Where do you live?
Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Wonderful! Sounds like an excellent idea! I do save online articles and stuff as
pdf:s and do the same thing sometimes, going to a café or when flying. I find
the effect very similar to yours.
I used to go to cafés too... But they only have bad stuff to eat such as coffee and coffee-like drinks and anything with gluten. :) Coconut
water, on the other hand, happens to be better than mineral water. And
the Sun is a true doctor on this planet.
I'm even reading non-technical stuff. Since December, I read
``Hackers'' by Steven Levy (1984) and then I also read the book ``No
Filter'' by Paulina Porizkova (2022), the model. :) She's an excellent
writer. I enjoy the music from The Cars. Paulina was Ric Ocasek's
wife. He died in the pandemic, though not from COVID-19. She seemed
interesting and I found her book interview-ads while listening to The
Cars songs on YouTube. I enjoyed the book, but, yeah, I was just
snooping into other people's lives, which perhaps I shouldn't.
I'm currently reading Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling (and other authors). Some
good, classic cyberpunk.
Sounds interesting. The topic is fascinating. But it might be a little overrated as well. Currently, I don't think our technology is really advanced to warrant all the exploration of cyberpunk writing. What I
think we have a lot of hype, which makes sense, given that the industry
has taken over the monarchies over the years. You see, rewind history
until the collapse of the roman empire; then feuds sprang; then
monarchies were established, with help from the churches; eventually the industrial revolution begins and then the bourgeoisie rises. Now it's
their prime time---no wonder the hype is all in their favor.
I'm also reading various texts by Schopenhauer trying to figure out if
he in fact did independently discover buddhism, as his proponents are
very fond of saying. I'm skeptical. But let's see!
I wouldn't be surprised. I think a lot of ideas from buddhism can be inferred by a sensitive person. Of course, those who sit down to write
and publish and have the skills to do it well are much less in number.
So perhaps Schopenhauer is one of them. Let me know what you find. :)
[-- text/plain, encoding 8bit, charset: utf-8, 108 lines --]
Too much screen reading if you ask me. But when I'm not working, I read a lot of
regular books, or on my eInk device, which is much kinder to the eyes. Reading
is one of my greatest hobbies. My wife gets annoyed at the enormous number of
books I accumulate. She wants me to throw them away, but it would be like >>> throwing away my children. I cannot do it! =/
I don't know the two of you, but it does sound like a good idea to throw
it all away. But I'm suspicious to say it because I often do it. When
Ouch! My children! ;)
I was a freshman, I bought all the books I'd use at the university. I
thought it was expensive, but it was worth it---I thought then. On the
second semester, I couldn't spend that money again and decided to try to
just get the books from the library. If the exact book wasn't
available, I'd take another one---a theorem should be the roughly the
same in every book, right? From this experiment, I concluded that I'd
never buy another book (and that every student should do the same). It
was wonderful to always look at other books perspectives.
I bought last years used books. Usually they weren't that expensive, about 20-30
USD or so per book. But if you bought them new, the price were at least double!
D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
[-- text/plain, encoding 8bit, charset: utf-8, 108 lines --]
Too much screen reading if you ask me. But when I'm not working, I read a lot of
regular books, or on my eInk device, which is much kinder to the eyes. Reading
is one of my greatest hobbies. My wife gets annoyed at the enormous number of
books I accumulate. She wants me to throw them away, but it would be like >>>> throwing away my children. I cannot do it! =/
I don't know the two of you, but it does sound like a good idea to throw >>> it all away. But I'm suspicious to say it because I often do it. When
Ouch! My children! ;)
I was a freshman, I bought all the books I'd use at the university. I
thought it was expensive, but it was worth it---I thought then. On the
second semester, I couldn't spend that money again and decided to try to >>> just get the books from the library. If the exact book wasn't
available, I'd take another one---a theorem should be the roughly the
same in every book, right? From this experiment, I concluded that I'd
never buy another book (and that every student should do the same). It
was wonderful to always look at other books perspectives.
I bought last years used books. Usually they weren't that expensive, about 20-30
USD or so per book. But if you bought them new, the price were at least double!
The entire university textbook market is one giant scam anyway.
Publisshers make minor updates (often just changing the "exercises") to create "volume 4", and then the professors state "vol 4" as the text
for the class, duping lots of students into paying full price. One
wonders how much of a kickback the professors get for recommending the "updated volume" that is 99.9% identical to the prior volume.
On Tue, 25 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Rich wrote:
[...]
I often 'frustrate' my wife by going off the beaten path (major roads) >>>> onto back roads (I'll admit, sometimes done specifically for the value >>>> of the 'frustration' part) to get "there" from "here" with no GPS nav
or pre-planning at all and in almost all instances I get "there" even
though the entire route is brand new for me.
This is excellent! Always going the same way, or driving the same route gets
very boring after a while. Sometimes when I walk a new path, I discover a new
store I didn't know existed.
That really happens when you walk instead of driving. Not to mention
that if you're walking, it's okay to stop by at a store. If you're
driving, it's not okay because (at least where I live), it's never easy
to find a parking place. And you might not want to interrupt the song
that's playing or get out of the air conditioning.
This is the truth! I like walking. It is one of the few forms of
exercise I engage in. =) It is also relaxing and can almost be a bit meditative if you get into it.
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
I don't have much information. The command line seemed an awful
experience to them. I suspect that they thought that the command line
was archaic means of system interface and that perhaps it was just a >>teacher idiosyncrasy.
This is something I see a lot of... we get interns who are engineering students or computer science students and they have never seen a command
line of any sort before. Not bash, not powershell, not anything. They
first of all don't get the command line concept and secondly they don't
get the concept of the heirarchical filesystem. "The file is on the computer!" "But where on the computer?" "It's on the computer!"
We even got a guy with a PhD in CS from a university that I had previously thought reputable who had never used a command line and who just could
not understand how make works in spite of the O'Reilly book.
I think some of these concepts have to be introduced early on, but they
NEED to be introduced early on in order to get any kind of basic computer literacy.
D Finnigan <dog_cow@macgui.com> writes:
On 2/25/25 8:08 PM, Rich wrote:
The prior can also largely be blamed on modern GUI OS'es. They've
reached the point where the unknowing can make use of a computer
without ever needing a command line at any point.
Which meant that computer hardware and software vendors could thus
market their wares to a much larger consumer audience.
Just so. But doesn't address the bizarre observation that PhDs in computer-related domains are utterly unaware of the command line.
The command line is like language.
The GUI is like shopping.
Reports from a very different domain (sorry, I forget the URLs) are
to the effect that university-level teachers of language & literature
find that students are wholly unprepared to read whole, long novels.
They just don't get it. Somehow, despite having reached postsecondary
level, they don't have the attention span -- or can't call up the intellectual resources to invoke the attention span -- to read
attentively something that goes on for a few hundred pages.
A friend and fellow blacksmith -- sadly now deceased -- was very bright
and very skilled but recounted an experience from high school.
Assigned to read a novel -- I forget but I think it was Count of Monte Christo -- he just couldn't get through it. So he bought the Coles
Notes (or similar) version and still ran aground. Then he happened
on the comic book version, bought and read that, got a passing grade on
the review he had to write.
All well. There are differing kinds of intelligence and his strength
lay in spatial relations and tangible physical forms, not language.
But people taking a university-level Great Books course are a
different matter. So are people studying how computers operate.
Language is a fundamental intellectual tool. Shopping, stichomythia,
ideas reduced to 168-char squibs and, yes, shopping look to me like degenerate forms of disciplined thinking.
As a digression, an assignment left for the reader, consider the
command line, even one as intimidating as that for gcc. After decades
of change, with the accretion of a multitude of options, it retains
the same linguistic form of a command.
But how do you get along with a GUI for something of similar
complexity when someone 20 or 30 or 40 years your junior, decides that
a complete redesign of of the GUI is a desirable and necessary
improvement? He grew up in a mental Manhattan or a Mental Tokyo,
demolishes the graphical Boston of your favorite tool and rebuilds it
to match his visual head-space.
So you can learn it all over again. Life-long learning is supposed to
be about learning new stuff, but about learning the same stuff over
and over.
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:
We even got a guy with a PhD in CS from a university that I had previously >> thought reputable who had never used a command line and who just could
not understand how make works in spite of the O'Reilly book.
What O'Reilly book? Are you saying the PhD was an O'Reilly-published
author? That would be literally incredible.
Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> writes:
[snip]
The command line is like language.
The GUI is like shopping.
Reports from a very different domain (sorry, I forget the URLs) are
to the effect that university-level teachers of language & literature
find that students are wholly unprepared to read whole, long novels.
They just don't get it. Somehow, despite having reached postsecondary
level, they don't have the attention span -- or can't call up the
intellectual resources to invoke the attention span -- to read
attentively something that goes on for a few hundred pages.
[snip]
I'm sorry for a follow-up with very little to add, but you really said everything.
The command line is language. And, yes, it turns out we
have an entire population who don't master much language at all. And I equate language with thinking.
If you're thinking, you're using language....Anyway, this lack of intellectual abilities, which boils down to language, grammar skills
has crept up even in the computer science graduate group, which is
appalling.
On Tue, 25 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Oh, that might even make my python script redundant! This gets more
interesting by the minute!
It will surely do. (It is also a powerful filter, so you can organize
your NNTP articles into various different Maildir, essentially being
your NNTP client from the downloading perspective. For uploading, we
will need another program.)
Excellent! I wonder if it can replace mbsync nicely as well? Would be nice to have fdm handle both my mbsync (so sync imap folders to local laptop) _and_ to
take care of news posts! I can easily see how the filters would take care of sorting the posts from various newsgroups into their respective folders in my mail client.
As for posting, my mail client, alpine, has that covered! =)
Never heard of. It was a bit too quick, so I'm still not quite sure what it >>> does. Some of that jumping around can be achieved in vim, but since I'm not >>> familiar with lisp nor with exactly what he was doing, it is difficult
to say.
I'd bet vim can do the same.
It's not important. But the illustration there is that Lisp programmers
don't worry about parentheses; it's all managed by them by editors such
as the GNU EMACS (with its various packages for handling these
specialized operations).
Yes, that makes a lot more sense. Manually typing all of those parentheses would
be horrible! ;) It reminds me of an old xkcd comic... there were your father parenthesis, a more civilized weapon for a more civilized age. ;)
One thing I liked about systemd is that regular users can have their own
daemons. But it turns out that's the only thing about systemd that I
ever liked. And even then I changed my opinion. Daemons are not really
meant to be managed by regular users; if there's any user that should
have the right to run a daemon, then they should have sysadmin powers,
even if specifically just for the task at hand. Bottom line: it's a
neat thing that it does, but it might not quite be a real need.
I agree! That's the problem, it tries to be too neat, and to do too much. In the
end you have this horrible monolithic kludge that will probably crash due to its
complexity, and take the system with it.
Another thing I intensely dislike with it is the long and convoluted syntax of
the commands. I mean just look at "ls"... it's beautiful! And "l" followed by an
"s"! =D
Now look at this horrible mess: "systemctl list-timers" Yuck!
It's alright. As long as there are systems that don't buy the Microsoft
way of things, we're good. And there will always be because hackers
never buy into the nonsense.
That's good! After all, if I don't want systemd, there are distributions without
it. =) The only annoying thing is that since I teach linux I am forced to teach
the most common tools, and sadly that means systemd.
D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
[-- text/plain, encoding 8bit, charset: utf-8, 108 lines --]
Too much screen reading if you ask me. But when I'm not working, I
read a lot of regular books, or on my eInk device, which is much
kinder to the eyes. Reading is one of my greatest hobbies. My wife
gets annoyed at the enormous number of books I accumulate. She
wants me to throw them away, but it would be like throwing away my
children. I cannot do it! =/
I don't know the two of you, but it does sound like a good idea to throw >>> it all away. But I'm suspicious to say it because I often do it. When
Ouch! My children! ;)
I was a freshman, I bought all the books I'd use at the university. I
thought it was expensive, but it was worth it---I thought then. On the
second semester, I couldn't spend that money again and decided to try to >>> just get the books from the library. If the exact book wasn't
available, I'd take another one---a theorem should be the roughly the
same in every book, right? From this experiment, I concluded that I'd
never buy another book (and that every student should do the same). It
was wonderful to always look at other books perspectives.
I bought last years used books. Usually they weren't that expensive,
about 20-30 USD or so per book. But if you bought them new, the price
were at least double!
The entire university textbook market is one giant scam anyway.
Publisshers make minor updates (often just changing the "exercises") to create "volume 4", and then the professors state "vol 4" as the text
for the class, duping lots of students into paying full price. One
wonders how much of a kickback the professors get for recommending the "updated volume" that is 99.9% identical to the prior volume.
You know what I think? I believe the problem is more on the teachers.
Too much screen reading if you ask me. But when I'm not working, I
read a lot of
regular books, or on my eInk device, which is much kinder to the
eyes. Reading
is one of my greatest hobbies. My wife gets annoyed at the enormous number of
books I accumulate. She wants me to throw them away, but it would be like >>> throwing away my children. I cannot do it! =/
I don't know the two of you, but it does sound like a good idea to throw
it all away. But I'm suspicious to say it because I often do it. When
Ouch! My children! ;)
I try to go to the beach every day. Today, for instance, I biked to the >>>> beach, swam and then drank coconut water and do my reading. If I'm not >>>Oh, wonderful! Where do you live?
Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Ahh... the country of eternal sunshine and happiness! At least that is what it
looks like from here on the surface.
But sadly I have also heard that polarization and leftists vs rightist
has infiltrated brazil as well. =( I hope it won't become as bad as
the US, that would be really bad for the country.
I also imagine that it would be difficult to work from the beach. Too many beautiful women, it must be very distracting!
Wonderful! Sounds like an excellent idea! I do save online articles
and stuff as pdf:s and do the same thing sometimes, going to a café
or when flying. I find the effect very similar to yours.
I used to go to cafés too... But they only have bad stuff to eat such as
coffee and coffee-like drinks and anything with gluten. :) Coconut
Bad coffee?? Doesn't brazil have the best coffee in the world?? Be thankful that
you don't have to drink the crap I have here in europe. ;)
I'm currently reading Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling (and other
authors). Some good, classic cyberpunk.
Sounds interesting. The topic is fascinating. But it might be a little
overrated as well. Currently, I don't think our technology is really
advanced to warrant all the exploration of cyberpunk writing. What I
think we have a lot of hype, which makes sense, given that the industry
has taken over the monarchies over the years. You see, rewind history
until the collapse of the roman empire; then feuds sprang; then
monarchies were established, with help from the churches; eventually the
industrial revolution begins and then the bourgeoisie rises. Now it's
their prime time---no wonder the hype is all in their favor.
It is an interesting thought that kingdoms faded, were replaced by nations. Perhaps now, nations are fading (slowly) and getting replaced with corporations?
Imagine a future were your primary allegiance is to your corporation, and the nation of old, just exists in the background as a faint humming sound, that no
one really cares about.
What do you think?
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> writes:
If you're thinking, you're using language....Anyway, this lack of
intellectual abilities, which boils down to language, grammar skills
has crept up even in the computer science graduate group, which is
appalling.
The other side of the coin is people with the skill (or learned,
calculated ability) to persuade millions of others to do stupid stuff
using semantically vacuous language. Now (YADATROT) you can devise
by trial and error algorithms or neural net constructs to do it for
you.
Thirty years ago, I made jokes about "epistemogical engineering". Now epistemological engineering has probably doomed the world's most
powerful nation to chaos.
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:
We even got a guy with a PhD in CS from a university that I had previously >>> thought reputable who had never used a command line and who just could
not understand how make works in spite of the O'Reilly book.
What O'Reilly book? Are you saying the PhD was an O'Reilly-published >>author? That would be literally incredible.
No, I mean that when he didn't know what make was, we handed him the
O'Reilly book about make. Because that's how you learn things that
you don't know in the Unix world. It did not seem to help.
He continued trying to write sequential build scripts using make.
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Tue, 25 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Mon, 24 Feb 2025, Rich wrote:
[...]
I often 'frustrate' my wife by going off the beaten path (major roads) >>>>> onto back roads (I'll admit, sometimes done specifically for the value >>>>> of the 'frustration' part) to get "there" from "here" with no GPS nav >>>>> or pre-planning at all and in almost all instances I get "there" even >>>>> though the entire route is brand new for me.
This is excellent! Always going the same way, or driving the same route gets
very boring after a while. Sometimes when I walk a new path, I discover a new
store I didn't know existed.
That really happens when you walk instead of driving. Not to mention
that if you're walking, it's okay to stop by at a store. If you're
driving, it's not okay because (at least where I live), it's never easy
to find a parking place. And you might not want to interrupt the song
that's playing or get out of the air conditioning.
This is the truth! I like walking. It is one of the few forms of
exercise I engage in. =) It is also relaxing and can almost be a bit
meditative if you get into it.
I agree. :) What I often do at the beach is actually just walk it end
to end. The beach I always go to has about 1 km in length. But lately
I've been trying to swim in the ocean as well. I've taken swimming
classes for various years and I didn't have the energy to continue when
I joined graduate school. Now I'm out and I have been trying to
continue, but after two months swimming in a gym, I decided to quit it
and move to the beach. I'm happy to announce that lately the water has
been crystalline around here. The news called it Caribbean today.
I have been using some fins to give me some ``self confidence''. It's
fairly scary to swim the beach end to end. You need to distance
yourself from the shore to stay a bit away from the waves and even other people. And you can barely see much while swimming: even with
crystalline water, visility is still very limited.
But it's really more pleasurable to be at the beach than at the gym.
Sure, when the water gets pretty dark, I will probably not swim. I hope
I'm lucky enough so that such conditions don't last too long when they arrive.
These days, even computer science departments are completely based on
Google services, say. Students don't even have the chance to run the
local mail server. It's appalling.
On 2025-02-24, Rich wrote:
D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
On Sun, 23 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Not compared to git. They did not get to see git. They just hated
fossil to the point of almost giving up on the whole course altogether.
Very likely they knew that other courses would give them the same
credits and they could try it afresh on the next semester.
Ahh, got it! Yes, sadly this happens to me as well. At the slightest
hint of difficulty or effort, about 20% of the class riots, complains
to the school that the teacher is evil, that the difficulty level
should be lowered etc.
The result of 20+ years of "everyone gets a participation trophy, and
no winners are declared" parenting.....
They do not realize, that the only ones they are cheating by doing
that are themselves.
They lack the wisdom that comes with age to recognize this fact.
Some of them will wise up early enough to be able to succeed. The
rest will be set for "table waitress with master's degree" careers.
One guy told me he had no idea and it was amazing the day he
understood the terminal concept. He went on to become a rock star!
Those students are what makes it worth it for me.
And he was someone who *should* have been in that course. Many of the others were likely only present because they had been told the degree
was a magic paper towards a big salary (while omitting that they have
to know what the F they are doing for the magic paper to gain them the
big salary).
On Wed, 26 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
These days, even computer science departments are completely based on
Google services, say. Students don't even have the chance to run the
local mail server. It's appalling.
Not all hope is lost! ;) My courses are based on linux and for the cloud part,
they are based on our own OpenStack environment! =D
On Thu, 27 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Excellent! I wonder if it can replace mbsync nicely as well? Would be nice to
have fdm handle both my mbsync (so sync imap folders to local
laptop) _and_ to
take care of news posts! I can easily see how the filters would take care of
sorting the posts from various newsgroups into their respective folders in my
mail client.
I'm not a user of mbsync, but if you use mbsync just to download mail
from an IMAP server, then certainly fdm can replace it.
Excellent! As an added bonus, I would then get off mbsync. I think the creator
of mbsync was woke, and changed master/slave to something I no longer remember
in the code, in order not to offend people. Complete nonsense!
daemons. But it turns out that's the only thing about systemd that I
ever liked. And even then I changed my opinion. Daemons are not really >>>> meant to be managed by regular users; if there's any user that should
have the right to run a daemon, then they should have sysadmin powers, >>>> even if specifically just for the task at hand. Bottom line: it's a
neat thing that it does, but it might not quite be a real need.
I agree! That's the problem, it tries to be too neat, and to do too
much. In the
end you have this horrible monolithic kludge that will probably
crash due to its
complexity, and take the system with it.
Another thing I intensely dislike with it is the long and
convoluted syntax of
the commands. I mean just look at "ls"... it's beautiful! And "l"
followed by an
"s"! =D
Now look at this horrible mess: "systemctl list-timers" Yuck!
Yeah---there's a fine line between incrementing language and sticking
with the previous, well-established vocabulary. That's particularly
important for hackers because they have an imense amount of vocabulary
to manage and great fluency is essential to their day-to-day operations.
Another example from hell for me is powershell. I've never seen such long command! Microsoft powershell gurus must really enjoy typing!
to discuss the operational details of a specific system or software.
Certainly a UNIX system has its own particularties in their rc scripts,
but I would spend more time looking at POSIX-sh semantics, style,
philosophy and history because it's primarily sh scripts that engineer
the start-up schemes of UNIX systems. Because then every hacker can use
that kind of culture to investigate whatever system he's interested in.
Oh believe me... I've had to _fight_ to keep any resemblance of
teaching basic bash scripting in the linux course. At first students
hate it, but the brilliant ones later on tell me that they actually
picked up a lot of linux while bash scripting, instead of if we used
python or something else. This makes me happy and works as intended!
;)
In other words, I'd go for depth, not immediate working knowledge.
Every system administrator will have to grind through the manuals
anyway. Knowing how to start or stop daemons, say, in a particular
system would not be terribly useful in a classroom. Of course, we would
see how run the commands in whatever system we're using for the
illustrations at the black board or at the computer lab, but merely to
see things in motion.
I wish we could do that... but the amount of teaching hours and focus
on the vocation schools make that very difficult. =(
And this, in turn reminds me of the decades-old "two mathematicians
and a waitress" joke; see, e. g. (URI split for readability):
http://web.archive.org/web/20190622112330/ http://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/jokes1/joke-086.html
On Thu, 27 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
...But sadly I have also heard that polarization and leftists vs rightist
has infiltrated brazil as well. =( I hope it won't become as bad as
the US, that would be really bad for the country.
You can definitely say that. This theme is very interesting for people
interested in Brazil or perhaps the US. The US has a huge influence in
Brazil today.
Thank you! Very interesting, I had no idea!
I also imagine that it would be difficult to work from the beach. Too many >>> beautiful women, it must be very distracting!
You're quite right. It is indeed *very* distracting. In fact,
observing such things has given the conclusion that visual stimili (at
least in myself) is a really strong physiological thing: it seems quite
I also imagine that in south america it is still fashionable for women to be women, and that women are feminine? I hope so... I like that!
stronger than any will power. I started out reading at the beach so I
would have something to do there, staying longer in the sun. So my slow
reading doesn't defeat that purpose. I also often go during week days,
when the beach is not crowded with people. It worked out so well that
Aha... so that's how you get any work done! I imagine if you would go during beach rush hour, you'd not get a lot of things done. ;)
it seems to work like a second phase of my work schedule. I write in
the morning and read in the afternoon, intermixed with walking,
swimming and biking. I cannot do it *every* day because I need to
[be] ``the office'' some days.
Sounds like you have a very nice job there!
Bad coffee?? Doesn't brazil have the best coffee in the world?? Be
thankful that you don't have to drink the crap I have here in
europe. ;)
I think we produce wonderful coffee, but I also think that wonderful
coffee is mostly exported. Makes perfect sense: you sell your best
products to your best customers (those that pay more). That's a sorry
thing when living in a country with too many poor people: the industry
brings the cheapest things for you.
Ahhh.... never thought about that. On the other hand, there are
counter examples. When I went to japan, I had the best green tea I
ever had! Up until that point, I thought I didn't like green tea. It
always tasted horrible. Then in japan I went to some kind of luxury
tea tasting, and it was really, really good!
And what about beef? I heard there are wars in south america over
whether argentina or brazil has the best beef? Who is right?
But I consider coffee---no matter how good quality if might be---a drug
to be totally kept on a leash. I don't think we should make regular use
of any stimulants---of any drug at all.
Ahh... and here I drink between 0.5 and 0.7 liters per day! ;)
But I don't have to drink it... from time to time I just stop when I
get tired of it and move to tea instead, and never experience any
negative withdrawal symptoms. My favourite tea is Lapsang.
I am probably a naturalist. If coffee ``accelerates your physiology'',
then we can say that such ``speed'' is not the natural way of your body.
If you do it every day, you're totally not respecting the natural way of
the system. Not a religious thing at all---recall that perspective I
had on tattoos. So this is another illustration of why I find myself
more religious than the vast number of very religious people I've ever
met.
Well, maybe principled? I think religious has many supernatural connotations that I find nto so good to mix up in these kinds of discussions.
If you don't completely, then at least stop as you already do but then
Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.netREMOVE.invalid> writes:
[...]
And this, in turn reminds me of the decades-old "two mathematicians
and a waitress" joke; see, e. g. (URI split for readability):
http://web.archive.org/web/20190622112330/
http://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/jokes1/joke-086.html
Lol. I don't get the joke. What's up with the joke? I'm slow. The waitress has a hard-science college degree but can't get a job in her
field? That's not a joke. I don't get the joke. Please explain? :)
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.netREMOVE.invalid> writes:
[...]
And this, in turn reminds me of the decades-old "two mathematicians >>> and a waitress" joke; see, e. g. (URI split for readability):
http://web.archive.org/web/20190622112330/
http://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/jokes1/joke-086.html
Lol. I don't get the joke. What's up with the joke? I'm slow. The
waitress has a hard-science college degree but can't get a job in her
field? That's not a joke. I don't get the joke. Please explain? :)
The joke is that the second mathematician, who should know better, gave
the waitress the wrong answer to repeat.
The waitress pretends to be dumb when he gives her what will be the
wrong answer to his question.
Then, when he asks the question, she repeats his incorrect answer
flawlessly, and adds in the correction he should have known himself.
I.e., the joke is that the mathematicians were not quite as "smart" as
they thouoght they were.
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Wed, 26 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
These days, even computer science departments are completely based on
Google services, say. Students don't even have the chance to run the
local mail server. It's appalling.
Not all hope is lost! ;) My courses are based on linux and for the cloud part,
they are based on our own OpenStack environment! =D
Yay---a 4-leaf clover. :P Seriously, though: good job.
Yeah---there's a fine line between incrementing language and sticking
with the previous, well-established vocabulary. That's particularly
important for hackers because they have an imense amount of vocabulary
to manage and great fluency is essential to their day-to-day operations.
Another example from hell for me is powershell. I've never seen such long
command! Microsoft powershell gurus must really enjoy typing!
Besides, it's yet another shell. Even if it were really great... Have
you seen Plan9's rc? It's a very neat shell. But it's not Bourne's sh.
It's hard to overcome the inertia of a large body moving at high speed.
Oh believe me... I've had to _fight_ to keep any resemblance of
teaching basic bash scripting in the linux course. At first students
hate it, but the brilliant ones later on tell me that they actually
picked up a lot of linux while bash scripting, instead of if we used
python or something else. This makes me happy and works as intended!
;)
No shell scripting? Okay---let's investigate a bit how the system
works. ``What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.'' That's from a teacher I had called Juliet---she was pretty
In other words, I'd go for depth, not immediate working knowledge.
Every system administrator will have to grind through the manuals
anyway. Knowing how to start or stop daemons, say, in a particular
system would not be terribly useful in a classroom. Of course, we would >>> see how run the commands in whatever system we're using for the
illustrations at the black board or at the computer lab, but merely to
see things in motion.
I wish we could do that... but the amount of teaching hours and focus
on the vocation schools make that very difficult. =(
I know.
I also think that we shouldn't interfere so much with nature's course.
It's not that we don't care---it's that we respect the group. Let's let
the group follow its ``natural'' course. It's different when we're the captain; we then steer as we like.
You can be the captain
And I'll draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart
-- Neil Peart, Peter Talbot, 1977
Thank you! Very interesting, I had no idea!
An excellent reference to how it got where it is is
United States Penetration of Brazil
Jan Knippers Black,
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977
ISBN 0-8122-7720-1.
You're quite right. It is indeed *very* distracting. In fact,
observing such things has given the conclusion that visual stimili (at
least in myself) is a really strong physiological thing: it seems quite
I also imagine that in south america it is still fashionable for women to be >> women, and that women are feminine? I hope so... I like that!
Lol. A declaration like that won't get much support around here. :)
We're living in a globalized world. Even news casters now use words
like ``spoiler''. Literally---no translation needed. My geography
teachers in elementary school now seem like prophets.
stronger than any will power. I started out reading at the beach so I
would have something to do there, staying longer in the sun. So my slow >>> reading doesn't defeat that purpose. I also often go during week days,
when the beach is not crowded with people. It worked out so well that
Aha... so that's how you get any work done! I imagine if you would go during >> beach rush hour, you'd not get a lot of things done. ;)
Lol. You're quite right. One thing that's happening is that I'm a very approachable person and being there nearly every day brings new friends.
Now every now then there appears someone to chat. I feel unable to tell anyone to go away, even because---when people approach for chat---it's evidently the case that they're in need of something. (They might also
think that I'm killing time.) I never really tell them to go away.
That doesn't help the work much. Nevertheless, one of my deadlines got extended by a week and so I was able to get a project's phase done---I'm
on time!
it seems to work like a second phase of my work schedule. I write in
the morning and read in the afternoon, intermixed with walking,
swimming and biking. I cannot do it *every* day because I need to
[be] ``the office'' some days.
Sounds like you have a very nice job there!
It's my favorite ever. My at-the-office phase restarts in two weeks.
And what about beef? I heard there are wars in south america over
whether argentina or brazil has the best beef? Who is right?
I never quite heard of wars, but surely Argentina is known as one of the
best bovine meat producers. And so in Brazil's south. Historically,
they have a lot of tradition (and still do). So Argentina or not, it's
that whole region, going beyond Brazil and Argentina.
As a teenager (with my family), I traveled once to a beach place in the
state of Rio de Janeiro and one thing got stuck in my memory about a
dinner we had an Argentine restaurant. The (small) place was run by the owner himself, who was an Argentine. The meat was unforgettable.
Brazil's south is known as people who know how to barbeque like no one.
I'm sure the same applies to the Argentines.
But I consider coffee---no matter how good quality if might be---a drug
to be totally kept on a leash. I don't think we should make regular use >>> of any stimulants---of any drug at all.
Ahh... and here I drink between 0.5 and 0.7 liters per day! ;)
That's a huge quantity.
But I don't have to drink it... from time to time I just stop when I
get tired of it and move to tea instead, and never experience any
negative withdrawal symptoms. My favourite tea is Lapsang.
If you don't completely, then at least stop as you already do but then
don't substitute it for tea or any other caffeine or theobromine intake
(such as cocoa products like chocolate). Let your system rest from
these substances. The less you take in, the more tolerant you become.
The more you do, the less you get.
I am probably a naturalist. If coffee ``accelerates your physiology'',
then we can say that such ``speed'' is not the natural way of your body. >>> If you do it every day, you're totally not respecting the natural way of >>> the system. Not a religious thing at all---recall that perspective I
had on tattoos. So this is another illustration of why I find myself
more religious than the vast number of very religious people I've ever
met.
Well, maybe principled? I think religious has many supernatural connotations >> that I find nto so good to mix up in these kinds of discussions.
``Principled'' it is. Words don't really matter. We need them here,
but they're just the tags on the pointers. Remember Juliet? ``What's
in a name?''
On Fri, 7 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Wed, 26 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
These days, even computer science departments are completely based on
Google services, say. Students don't even have the chance to run the
local mail server. It's appalling.
Not all hope is lost! ;) My courses are based on linux and for the
cloud part, they are based on our own OpenStack environment! =D
Yay---a 4-leaf clover. :P Seriously, though: good job.
Thank you! =) I'm hoping that I will be able to convince another
school to dump Azure in favour of our OpenStack environment. Would be wonderful to have combatted the forces of darkness, and won, at two
schools! =)
They like the fact that I can give them a fixed price per student and
month, instead of the shitshow that is Azure pricing. They also like
that the school gets a dedicated server, so should someone break in
and do crypto mining, they won't get a large bill like they do with
Azure.
More often than you would think, do student credentials leak to github
and then they pay for someone crypto mining. That problem they won't
have with my environment. =)
On Fri, 7 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Yeah---there's a fine line between incrementing language and stickingAnother example from hell for me is powershell. I've never seen such long >>> command! Microsoft powershell gurus must really enjoy typing!
with the previous, well-established vocabulary. That's particularly
important for hackers because they have an imense amount of vocabulary >>>> to manage and great fluency is essential to their day-to-day operations. >>>
Besides, it's yet another shell. Even if it were really great... Have
you seen Plan9's rc? It's a very neat shell. But it's not Bourne's sh.
It's hard to overcome the inertia of a large body moving at high speed.
Never seen. How does it differ from plain old bash?
Oh believe me... I've had to _fight_ to keep any resemblance of
teaching basic bash scripting in the linux course. At first students
hate it, but the brilliant ones later on tell me that they actually
picked up a lot of linux while bash scripting, instead of if we used
python or something else. This makes me happy and works as intended!
;)
No shell scripting? Okay---let's investigate a bit how the system
works. ``What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.'' That's from a teacher I had called Juliet---she was pretty
True. I'm currently discussing the course plans for the autumn, I think I have a
good chance at sneaking in some good old shell through the backdoor. Keep your
fingers crossed! =D
Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
The joke is that the second mathematician, who should knowhttp://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/jokes1/joke-086.htmlLol. I don't get the joke. What's up with the joke?
better, gave the waitress the wrong answer to repeat.
Why was it the wrong answer? Isn't
(1/3) x^3 + c
the integral of x^2?
The waitress pretends to be dumb when he gives her what will be theThat's a mean waitress.
wrong answer to his question.
I.e., the joke is that the mathematicians were not quite as
"smart" as they thouoght they were.
On Fri, 7 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Thank you! Very interesting, I had no idea!
An excellent reference to how it got where it is is
United States Penetration of Brazil
Jan Knippers Black,
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977
ISBN 0-8122-7720-1.
Thank you for the recommendation. Sadly I do not think my schedule allows it at
the moment, I have way too many philosophical topics on my plate at the moment.
=(
You're quite right. It is indeed *very* distracting. In fact,I also imagine that in south america it is still fashionable for women to be
observing such things has given the conclusion that visual stimili (at >>>> least in myself) is a really strong physiological thing: it seems quite >>>
women, and that women are feminine? I hope so... I like that!
Lol. A declaration like that won't get much support around here. :)
We're living in a globalized world. Even news casters now use words
like ``spoiler''. Literally---no translation needed. My geography
teachers in elementary school now seem like prophets.
What!?! Please don't spoil my dreams of travelling to Brazil meeting
loads of beautiful brazilian women who would be naturally interested
in a swede with blue eyes! ;)
stronger than any will power. I started out reading at the beach so I >>>> would have something to do there, staying longer in the sun. So my slow >>>> reading doesn't defeat that purpose. I also often go during week days, >>>> when the beach is not crowded with people. It worked out so well that
Aha... so that's how you get any work done! I imagine if you would go during
beach rush hour, you'd not get a lot of things done. ;)
Lol. You're quite right. One thing that's happening is that I'm a very
approachable person and being there nearly every day brings new friends.
Now every now then there appears someone to chat. I feel unable to tell
anyone to go away, even because---when people approach for chat---it's
evidently the case that they're in need of something. (They might also
think that I'm killing time.) I never really tell them to go away.
That doesn't help the work much. Nevertheless, one of my deadlines got
extended by a week and so I was able to get a project's phase done---I'm
on time!
Amazing! You couldn't get further from the swedish folk psyche. In sweden two people could sit next to each other for years, and at most nod to each other. Maybe after a year or two, a small conversation might start.
In the subway, no one talks to each other. People mainstain silence and look at
their phones. Only people who know each other talk on the subway. Definitely not
strangers.
it seems to work like a second phase of my work schedule. I write in
the morning and read in the afternoon, intermixed with walking,
swimming and biking. I cannot do it *every* day because I need to
[be] ``the office'' some days.
Sounds like you have a very nice job there!
It's my favorite ever. My at-the-office phase restarts in two weeks.
Ouch! Hopefully it will not last too long!
And what about beef? I heard there are wars in south america over
whether argentina or brazil has the best beef? Who is right?
I never quite heard of wars, but surely Argentina is known as one of the
best bovine meat producers. And so [is] Brazil's south. Historically,
they have a lot of tradition (and still do). So Argentina or not, it's
that whole region, going beyond Brazil and Argentina.
As a teenager (with my family), I traveled once to a beach place in
the state of Rio de Janeiro and one thing got stuck in my memory
about a dinner we had [at] an Argentine restaurant. The (small)
place was run by the owner himself, who was an Argentine. The meat
was unforgettable. Brazil's south is known as people who know how to
[barbecue] like no one. I'm sure the same applies to the Argentines.
Another dream! Except for the women, above, I dream of going to brazil and argentina for a beef and bbq safari! This would be excellent! Maybe I would never leave again? =)
But I consider coffee---no matter how good quality if might be---a drug >>>> to be totally kept on a leash. I don't think we should make regular use >>>> of any stimulants---of any drug at all.
Ahh... and here I drink between 0.5 and 0.7 liters per day! ;)
That's a huge quantity.
Really? Just regular coffee. No espresso! ;)
But I don't have to drink it... from time to time I just stop when I
get tired of it and move to tea instead, and never experience any
negative withdrawal symptoms. My favourite tea is Lapsang.
If you don't completely, then at least stop as you already do but then
don't substitute it for tea or any other caffeine or theobromine intake
(such as cocoa products like chocolate). Let your system rest from
these substances. The less you take in, the more tolerant you become.
The more you do, the less you get.
Interesting experiment! I've tried it due to chance a couple of times, but then
I get so tired in the evening, so I won't get as much quality computer time in
when the wife sleeps. ;)
Thank you! =) I'm hoping that I will be able to convince another
school to dump Azure in favour of our OpenStack environment. Would be
wonderful to have combatted the forces of darkness, and won, at two
schools! =)
They like the fact that I can give them a fixed price per student and
month, instead of the shitshow that is Azure pricing. They also like
that the school gets a dedicated server, so should someone break in
and do crypto mining, they won't get a large bill like they do with
Azure.
More often than you would think, do student credentials leak to github
and then they pay for someone crypto mining. That problem they won't
have with my environment. =)
Wait---is that service you provide yourself for a price?
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Fri, 7 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Yeah---there's a fine line between incrementing language and sticking >>>>> with the previous, well-established vocabulary. That's particularly >>>>> important for hackers because they have an imense amount of vocabulary >>>>> to manage and great fluency is essential to their day-to-day operations. >>>>Another example from hell for me is powershell. I've never seen such long >>>> command! Microsoft powershell gurus must really enjoy typing!
Besides, it's yet another shell. Even if it were really great... Have
you seen Plan9's rc? It's a very neat shell. But it's not Bourne's sh. >>> It's hard to overcome the inertia of a large body moving at high speed.
Never seen. How does it differ from plain old bash?
The thing I recall was that rc had a native list data structure. I
don't recall much more than that; the feeling was that it was neat,
tidy, more concise, more elegant. It felt closer to a general-purpose programming language, while still supporting the loved Bourne syntax.
Oh believe me... I've had to _fight_ to keep any resemblance of
teaching basic bash scripting in the linux course. At first students
hate it, but the brilliant ones later on tell me that they actually
picked up a lot of linux while bash scripting, instead of if we used
python or something else. This makes me happy and works as intended!
;)
No shell scripting? Okay---let's investigate a bit how the system
works. ``What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.'' That's from a teacher I had called Juliet---she was pretty
True. I'm currently discussing the course plans for the autumn, I think I have a
good chance at sneaking in some good old shell through the backdoor. Keep your
fingers crossed! =D
Fingers crossed. :D
Lol. A declaration like that won't get much support around here. :)
We're living in a globalized world. Even news casters now use words
like ``spoiler''. Literally---no translation needed. My geography
teachers in elementary school now seem like prophets.
What!?! Please don't spoil my dreams of travelling to Brazil meeting
loads of beautiful brazilian women who would be naturally interested
in a swede with blue eyes! ;)
Lol. I think they would be. :) But let me tell you that everywhere in
the world I went I found as many beautiful women as I find over here.
Amazing! You couldn't get further from the swedish folk psyche. In sweden two
people could sit next to each other for years, and at most nod to each other.
Maybe after a year or two, a small conversation might start.
That's horrible.
In the subway, no one talks to each other. People mainstain silence and look at
their phones. Only people who know each other talk on the subway. Definitely not
strangers.
Reminds me of New York City.
I don't think it's too different here in Rio. But I often greet people
as a gesture of recognition of their existence. It turns out people do
like that. At first you greet people alone; it's too unexpected for
them to react. (This makes the greeter feel odd and so people usually
stop on the first attempt.) Little by little, though, things change.
You need to be okay to do this properly. (If you don't feel like
talking to people, you will likely not work.) People like respect. Recognizing their existence is an important gesture. There are psychoanalytical explanations to all of this, but, since it's not
obvious, it would take a while to build the result from first
principles.
At the beach, I don't mean that random people come over for a chat. I
mean people who often find me there---people who work there or who often
go there as well. They're all used to me being there. And every now
and then a friend meets me by chance or knew they would find me there.
It's my favorite ever. My at-the-office phase restarts in two weeks.
Ouch! Hopefully it will not last too long!
Two mornings per week. I still to get lunch at home---thankfully.
Another dream! Except for the women, above, I dream of going to brazil and >> argentina for a beef and bbq safari! This would be excellent! Maybe I would >> never leave again? =)
I wouldn't. :) I really love this place.
And I agree about the women---we really don't have any shortage of
beautiful, caring women. But the fact is that that's true anywhere else
in the world. It is true that women and men are losing their health
early in life, which doesn't favor their looks; still, everywhere I go I
am often hypnotized by feminine natural enchants.
That's a huge quantity.
Really? Just regular coffee. No espresso! ;)
Huge. If it were espresso, it'd be much worse. Remember the American
actor Philip Seymour Hoffman? He likely died out of some drug-related
abuse back in 2014. It seems in those days his morning routine included
a quadruple espresso.
I know kids drink it, but coffee is a drug and it has very strong
effects. It seems people hardly notice it. I conjecture that it's
because people start with very little and increase it over time. To see
the effects, I think you need to start cutting it out, spending a long
time off all kinds of drugs and bad food, and then taking it again.
(Also, get rid of bad quality coffee. There is no reason we can't roast
our own coffee at home, by the way; it's a super simple thing.)
You've mentioned being tired without it. There's no miracle when you're under the influence of coffee. You'll pay for it one way or another;
that's very certain.
Hey, you know where the expression ``coffee break'' comes from? It
comes from World War II---reference below. Factories implemented the
coffee break so that they could get coffee into people's systems.
Coffee (like all drugs) are desensitizers, excellent for war time, in
the factories and in the battle field.
--8<-------------------------------------------------------->8---
Drugs and War: What Is the Relationship?
Peter Andreas, 2019.
Annual Review of Political Science. Vol. 22:57-73 (Volume publication
date May 2019) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051017-103748
https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051017-103748
--8<-------------------------------------------------------->8---
Interesting experiment! I've tried it due to chance a couple of times, but then
I get so tired in the evening, so I won't get as much quality computer time in
when the wife sleeps. ;)
I had a girlfriend once who lived with me. Our relationship lasted for
about 3 years and we lived together for 2. I did this, too---she'd go
to bed earlier and I'd work until a few hours later. I regret all of
that. If I were really serious about my work, I'd wake up a few hours earlier (than her). It's not like I was more productive. What was
really happening was that work was also working like a drug---and I was definitely under the influence of coffee and other nutritional life
killers.
Not going to sleep with your wife is definitely a missed opportunity.
If you don't love your wife, you can split; but if you do, you should go
to bed with her. (Wny wouldn't you? For work? Nonsense.) In fact,
you probably should even be the first to go to bed (and then call her).
Without coffee, I'm sure you get to bed very early (though it's not
gonna happen overnight). And I wouldn't be surprised if you
(eventually) find enough energy to be up first, too.
In comp.misc, Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
The joke is that the second mathematician, who should knowhttp://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/jokes1/joke-086.htmlLol. I don't get the joke. What's up with the joke?
better, gave the waitress the wrong answer to repeat.
Why was it the wrong answer? Isn't
(1/3) x^3 + c
the integral of x^2?
The answer given to the waitress, who pretended not to understand it,
didn't include the +c hence was incorrect.
I'd say the joke is mathematician incorrectly assumes a blonde woman
can't do math.
I.e., the joke is that the mathematicians were not quite as
"smart" as they thouoght they were.
Not smart because they fall for tired stereotypes.
Elijah
------
but would mathematicians really stoop to doing simple calc?
On Sat, 8 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Thank you! =) I'm hoping that I will be able to convince another
school to dump Azure in favour of our OpenStack environment. Would be
wonderful to have combatted the forces of darkness, and won, at two
schools! =)
They like the fact that I can give them a fixed price per student and
month, instead of the shitshow that is Azure pricing. They also like
that the school gets a dedicated server, so should someone break in
and do crypto mining, they won't get a large bill like they do with
Azure.
More often than you would think, do student credentials leak to github
and then they pay for someone crypto mining. That problem they won't
have with my environment. =)
Wait---is that service you provide yourself for a price?
Yes, I do. =) Are you interested? ;)
Yes, I do. =) Are you interested? ;)
Not quite. :) I like to run my own stuff. But I'm happy to see that it
works over there. It seems like a pretty nice business. I would really
love to run a business like that. And I would be able to if I we were
back in the 90s, I guess. Am I too off the facts?
On Mon, 10 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Yes, I do. =) Are you interested? ;)
Not quite. :) I like to run my own stuff. But I'm happy to see that it
What a shame. =( Would have been great to add a Brazilian school to my customers!
works over there. It seems like a pretty nice business. I would really
It's alright. It's more of a side business actually. The main business
is consulting as teachers, and we then have the lab environment as a
nice value add service that we sell when we get the consulting gig as teachers.
The challenge is inertia and trust. There are a lot of schools who run
azure, are unhappy, and refuse to change because the alterantive is
not azure. So they end up paying 10x or more, because they do not
trust small business. It is very sad. =(
love to run a business like that. And I would be able to if I we were
back in the 90s, I guess. Am I too off the facts?
I think you could do it today if you dedicated a couple of months to
building up the environment. OpenStack has come a _long_ way and is no
longer the enormous beast to setup that it once was.
On Sat, 8 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Amazing! You couldn't get further from the swedish folk psyche. In sweden two
people could sit next to each other for years, and at most nod to each other.
Maybe after a year or two, a small conversation might start.
That's horrible.
Well, it can be nice too, if you're an introvert or not in the mood
for talking. =)
Usually there is a talk about the swedish ketchup effect, when
foreigners move to sweden.
They try to get to know swedish people, and they get nothing, nothing, nothing, and then everything at once. It can take years to get to know
a sweden, but once they consider you a friend, it is a deep
connection.
I found this difficult when I was living in the US for a year. It was
super easy to go by myself to a bar, and talk to some people. It was impossible to get to know someone below the shallow facade.
In the subway, no one talks to each other. People mainstain silence
and look at their phones. Only people who know each other talk on
the subway. Definitely not strangers.
Reminds me of New York City.
Maybe... I haven't been there for probably 25 year or more. I imagine that smartphones have infected them as they have infected almost everyone. =/
I don't think it's too different here in Rio. But I often greet people
as a gesture of recognition of their existence. It turns out people do
like that. At first you greet people alone; it's too unexpected for
them to react. (This makes the greeter feel odd and so people usually
stop on the first attempt.) Little by little, though, things change.
You need to be okay to do this properly. (If you don't feel like
talking to people, you will likely not work.) People like respect.
Recognizing their existence is an important gesture. There are
psychoanalytical explanations to all of this, but, since it's not
obvious, it would take a while to build the result from first
principles.
It is interesting. Your life situation can also determine how open you
are.
My father is a widower, and I live in a different country. So he has
been quite alone but he has started to get involved in 2 retired
peoples associations, and also has a weekly game of boule/petanque as
well. That has become his social world, and he has met many new people
that way.
I think, when people reach retirement age, a lot of the facade drops naturally and they become more open perhaps.
And I agree about the women---we really don't have any shortage of
beautiful, caring women. But the fact is that that's true anywhere else
in the world. It is true that women and men are losing their health
early in life, which doesn't favor their looks; still, everywhere I go I
am often hypnotized by feminine natural enchants.
This is the truth. A very interesting phenomenon at the moment is the
global fertility crisis.
My bet is that it is a complex phenomenon consisting of chemicals,
unhealthy lifestyles, shifting norms, feminism and demographics.
Interesting experiment! I've tried it due to chance a couple of
times, but then I get so tired in the evening, so I won't get as
much quality computer time in when the wife sleeps. ;)
I had a girlfriend once who lived with me. Our relationship lasted for
about 3 years and we lived together for 2. I did this, too---she'd go
to bed earlier and I'd work until a few hours later. I regret all of
that. If I were really serious about my work, I'd wake up a few hours
earlier (than her). It's not like I was more productive. What was
really happening was that work was also working like a drug---and I was
definitely under the influence of coffee and other nutritional life
killers.
Not going to sleep with your wife is definitely a missed opportunity.
If you don't love your wife, you can split; but if you do, you should go
to bed with her. (Wny wouldn't you? For work? Nonsense.) In fact,
you probably should even be the first to go to bed (and then call her).
Well, what I do, to be more precise, is that when she goes to bed, we
usually talk for half an hour or so. Then she goes to sleep, and then
I get 2-3 hours to myself.
I need time for myself and my interests, since she is not into
technology and science fiction so the evenings I spend pursuing my
hobbies and interests she has no interest in, so that we can do things
we both enjoy during the days.
Without coffee, I'm sure you get to bed very early (though it's not
gonna happen overnight). And I wouldn't be surprised if you
(eventually) find enough energy to be up first, too.
Waking up early is physically and mentally painful for me. It is
torture. Coffee or no coffee, I have always been a night owl.
I have been know to pay 200 USD more for plane tickets in order to not
have to wake up before 10 in the morning.
Now I am in the blessed situation to live +1 hour time difference from
my main customers, so that allows me to wake up at 10:00 every day,
and start working at around 10:05. =D
I don't know if I would ever be able to wake up at 07:30 to be at an
office at 09:00, then space out for at least an hour before fully
awake, and zombie walk through the day.
I remember when I was young,
I used to sleep 5-6 hours per night,
to still keep my night time hobby time, while having to wake up at
7:30 and go to work. I shudder at the memory and hope I will make it
to retirement age, with my current lifestyle! =)
Calculus is for engineers and physicists, mathematicians want to be
doing things that are not Solved Problems.
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote or quoted:
Calculus is for engineers and physicists, mathematicians want to be
doing things that are not Solved Problems.
The basics of calculus were hammered out ages ago, but it's still
a big deal for pushing the envelope in pure and applied math.
These days, researchers often mash up calculus with other fields.
Take the I-functions of Calabi-Yau manifolds, for instance.
There, they're throwing calculus together with differential
equations and algebra to get a handle on geometric structures.
These matter for string theory, but still are mathematics.
Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> writes:
but would mathematicians really stoop to doing simple calc?Didn't get your question, although I understand every word in it.
On 2025-03-08, Rich wrote:
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.netREMOVE.invalid> writes:
http://web.archive.org/web/20190622112330/
http://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/jokes1/joke-086.html
Lol. I don’t get the joke. What’s up with the joke? I’m slow. The
waitress has a hard-science college degree but can’t get a job in her
field? That’s not a joke. I don’t get the joke. Please explain? :)
The joke is that the second mathematician, who should know better,
gave the waitress the wrong answer to repeat.
The waitress pretends to be dumb when he gives her what will be the
wrong answer to his question.
Then, when he asks the question, she repeats his incorrect answer flawlessly, and adds in the correction he should have known himself.
I. e., the joke is that the mathematicians were not quite as “smart”
as they thought they were.
On 2025-02-27, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
But I consider coffee—no matter how good quality if might be—a drug
to be totally kept on a leash. I don’t think we should make regular
use of any stimulants—of any drug at all.
I am probably a naturalist. If coffee “accelerates your physiology”, then we can say that such “speed” is not the natural way of your body. If you do it every day, you’re totally not respecting the natural way
of the system. Not a religious thing at all—recall that perspective
I had on tattoos. So this is another illustration of why I find myself
more religious than the vast number of very religious people I’ve ever met.
These findings justify the assertion that very numerous individual
blood differences exist in man, too, and that there are certainly
other differences which could not yet be detected. Whether each individual blood really has a character of its own, or how often
there is complete correspondence, we cannot yet say.
His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, “A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems”, and Erdős drank copious quantities;
this quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdős, but Erdős himself ascribed it to Rényi. After his mother’s death in 1971 he started taking antidepressants and amphetamines, despite the concern
of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could
not stop taking them for a month. Erdős won the bet but complained
that it impacted his performance: “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like
an ordinary person. You’ve set mathematics back a month.” After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his use of Ritalin and Benzedrine.
I first got into speed because it was a utilitarian drug and kept you
awake when you needed to be awake when otherwise you’d just be flat
out on your back. If you drive to Glasgow for nine hours in the back
of a sweaty truck you don’t really feel like going onstage feeling
all bright and breezy. […] It’s the only drug I’ve found that I can get on with, and I’ve tried them all – except smack [heroin] and morphine: I’ve never “fixed” [injected] anything.
What a shame. =( Would have been great to add a Brazilian school to my
customers!
You can still add a Brazilian school to your clientele. I'm just not a school. :)
works over there. It seems like a pretty nice business. I would really
It's alright. It's more of a side business actually. The main business
is consulting as teachers, and we then have the lab environment as a
nice value add service that we sell when we get the consulting gig as
teachers.
So the main service is what? A set of teachers to give a school the
ability to teach computer courses? Suppose I'm a high school. How do
would you offer to me your services? I currently have a single teacher
who teaches a Python course---the teacher is a math teacher.
The challenge is inertia and trust. There are a lot of schools who run
azure, are unhappy, and refuse to change because the alterantive is
not azure. So they end up paying 10x or more, because they do not
trust small business. It is very sad. =(
That made me think your service is just a cloud-like service---storage, office-like web applications, mail, calendar, video conference et
cetera. Are there teachers involved?
love to run a business like that. And I would be able to if I we were
back in the 90s, I guess. Am I too off the facts?
I think you could do it today if you dedicated a couple of months to
building up the environment. OpenStack has come a _long_ way and is no
longer the enormous beast to setup that it once was.
That's interesting. But tell me about the teachers because I didn't get
the whole thing yet. I would think a service like that would require a
24-7 support as the most challenging part.
That's horrible.
Well, it can be nice too, if you're an introvert or not in the mood
for talking. =)
I'd say it can be less scary or more comforting. I don't really believe
that any human deep down prefers to be left alone. My first hypothesis
Usually there is a talk about the swedish ketchup effect, when
foreigners move to sweden.
Ketchup effect? Wow. I had never heard of that. I get it. The whole
thing comes down at once. :)
I found this difficult when I was living in the US for a year. It was
super easy to go by myself to a bar, and talk to some people. It was
impossible to get to know someone below the shallow facade.
I observed the same. I also observed this in other cultures. For
example, the Dutch culture. I found the Americans way more honest and
close than the Dutch. My hypothesis for explaining this was that the
United States offers a more trusting community; the Dutch deal with lots
of in and outflows of people from all over Europe. Europe has much more loose frontiers, say, than the United States. I think I'm trying to say
that the United States is more homogeneous. The Dutch are more smiles
on a first encounter and the Americans less so. But beneath that the Americans are really more friendly.
Other things I've noticed. The Americans easily trust what you say.
(Some will be mildly outraged if you don't trust what they're saying.)
The Dutch are so not like that and you can observe that in commerce.
Now, having said that, it's one thing to talk of Americans in the
Midwest, say. It's another thing to talk of Americans on the East
coast, say. The parallel I make here is between small city and big
city. It's not unusual for us to find people more friendly in small
cities.
Try to ask what is it to a local on 5th Avenue, New York City. They are
not even going to look at you---you'll likely feel like a ghost.
In the subway, no one talks to each other. People mainstain silence
and look at their phones. Only people who know each other talk on
the subway. Definitely not strangers.
Reminds me of New York City.
Maybe... I haven't been there for probably 25 year or more. I imagine that >> smartphones have infected them as they have infected almost everyone. =/
My observations are pre-smartphones. Before smartphones, people's faces
were buried in books on the subway. They've just replaced the book with
the phone.
This is the truth. A very interesting phenomenon at the moment is the
global fertility crisis.
Are we talking about male fertility? I'm gonna follow that one very
closely.
My bet is that it is a complex phenomenon consisting of chemicals,
unhealthy lifestyles, shifting norms, feminism and demographics.
I agree. It seems that way. Although I'd remove feminism if we're
talking about male fertility. But surely women is also involved in
men's everything (and /vice versa/). There's really no separation.
There never was.
There has ``always'' been a war between men and women. It's a pretty
sad one, in fact. It is---to me---much more serious than military wars.
Well, what I do, to be more precise, is that when she goes to bed, we
usually talk for half an hour or so. Then she goes to sleep, and then
I get 2-3 hours to myself.
I need time for myself and my interests, since she is not into
technology and science fiction so the evenings I spend pursuing my
hobbies and interests she has no interest in, so that we can do things
we both enjoy during the days.
Of course, it all makes perfect sense. The burden of the proof is
totally mine because I am the one speaking out unreasonable things. But
I'm not trying to prove anything---it's too hard. So stay alert. :) You don't need time for yourself and your interests. That's actually false.
Time for yourself and your interests is likely a way for you to feel
like that day was worth it. But most likely the reason you feel that
way is because there's something wrong already, before that. You're
living with the assumption that you need to /have fun/ or something like that.
Human life does not really require having fun. Fun is not really
something we need. There's nothing wrong with having fun. One thing I
observe in very young kids is that they need no toys. A little ant,
say, is quite a toy. But then they're given a bunch of toys. You know
those those eye-candies that are hung above a craddle? Babies likely
feel enchanted by them, as they move and shine. I claim they need none
of that. In fact, that's too much stimuli.
You don't need your science and your interests. And I also claim that
you would in fact have a lot more with science and your interests if you
stop pursuing them. Do your work. That's healthy. You do need to
study it. But guide yourself only by a very rational thing. If there
is no time for your science, then there is no time for it. It's not a
bad life. A bad life is an unnatural life. We've distanced ourselves
quite a bit from nature; it's all very seductive. Now we need to really
walk in a different direction in order to get out of this.
Waking up early is physically and mentally painful for me. It is
torture. Coffee or no coffee, I have always been a night owl.
I was a night person as a teenager and carried that on for many years.
I never thought I'd say otherwise. But I can easily say it now. If I
were to go back in time, I wouldn't lose a single night for any reason---except to stay with someone in the hospital, say. It's just
not worth it. Hppainess is physical disposition, which requires
impeccable health.
I have been know to pay 200 USD more for plane tickets in order to not
have to wake up before 10 in the morning.
That's worth it. :)
Now I am in the blessed situation to live +1 hour time difference from
my main customers, so that allows me to wake up at 10:00 every day,
and start working at around 10:05. =D
Enjoy. :) That's also good.
I remember when I was young,
You're still young. :)
I used to sleep 5-6 hours per night,
That's little sleep.
to still keep my night time hobby time, while having to wake up at
7:30 and go to work. I shudder at the memory and hope I will make it
to retirement age, with my current lifestyle! =)
I'm sure you want to keep all the health you have and even recover
anything you've temporarily lost. And it's worth it! That's your best retirement plan. Happiness is health in every sense of the word. Do
not believe the happy people who've lost their health or youth, which is
the same thing.
On Mon, 10 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
The challenge is inertia and trust. There are a lot of schools who run
azure, are unhappy, and refuse to change because the alterantive is
not azure. So they end up paying 10x or more, because they do not
trust small business. It is very sad. =(
That made me think your service is just a cloud-like service---storage,
office-like web applications, mail, calendar, video conference et
cetera. Are there teachers involved?
No, just virtual machines. Too much trouble and too little profit in delivering
office 365 equivalents, calendar and email. We could if we wanted to, but that
would probably require an entire school shifting from Microsoft to us, and I doubt it will happen. It also probably would mean that we would need to hire another person to spread the admin and support load, and that would probably not
make it worth it. I'm not ruling it out, but I'm not actively selling it either.
That's interesting. But tell me about the teachers because I didn't get
the whole thing yet. I would think a service like that would require a
24-7 support as the most challenging part.
No, the lab environment has no SLA:s, since it is just a lab environment, so if
it goes down for 15 minutes the students just shrug their shoulders and try again later. But, to be honest, there is very little downtime, and we also have
3 regions/servers. So in case of downtime, first fix is to shift a
student to another
region/server. That usually solves the problem 9 out of 10 times. If that doesn't work, reboot the 3 servers and wait for 5-10 minutes. If that doesn't work, reinstall the enviroment which might take 20-40 minutes.
On 2025-03-08, Rich wrote:
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.netREMOVE.invalid> writes:
http://web.archive.org/web/20190622112330/
http://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/jokes1/joke-086.html
Lol. I don’t get the joke. What’s up with the joke? I’m slow. The
waitress has a hard-science college degree but can’t get a job in her
field? That’s not a joke. I don’t get the joke. Please explain? :)
The joke didn’t seem obscure to any degree to me, TBH, not
requiring much context aside basic calculus knowledge, which
is something I think anyone interested in CS should posess.
Quite unlike, say, “For the umpteenth time, Sam! It’s not
Palantír, it’s Pentium!” Or “Lysenko’s own arrogance was his
undoing: he climbed a pine tree to gather apples, and was killed
when ripe coconuts fell from it.”
The joke is that the second mathematician, who should know better,
gave the waitress the wrong answer to repeat.
The waitress pretends to be dumb when he gives her what will be the
wrong answer to his question.
Then, when he asks the question, she repeats his incorrect answer flawlessly, and adds in the correction he should have known himself.
The way I read it, the waitress doesn’t know the question at
first, so cannot decide whether the answer she’s asked to give
is correct or not. Once she does, she adds the correction.
I. e., the joke is that the mathematicians were not quite as “smart” as they thought they were.
There’s an added irony that even though the second mathematician
insisted that “most people can cope with a reasonable amount of
math,” he evidently didn’t quite believe it himself.
A while ago, I’ve been told that a story like that happened at
the university I’ve graduated from. The students were spending
a break between classes outside, and so was one of the professors.
Hearing them complain of how hard their (fairly basic) math was, the
professor commented something along the lines of “that’s everyone’s
knowledge.” So, he called a guy loitering nearby who looked like
a common tramp and asked him to solve a simple algebra or calculus
problem; thinking for a bit, the guy gave the correct answer.
(Or something like that; my recollection of it is rather vague.)
What I take from the joke is: do not underestimate average Joe.
(Or Jane, as the case might be.) A sentiment that is also at
the core of G. K. Chesterton’s “The Trees of Pride”,
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Trees_of_Pride .
On Mon, 10 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Ketchup effect? Wow. I had never heard of that. I get it. The whole
thing comes down at once. :)
Exactly!
I found this difficult when I was living in the US for a year. It was
super easy to go by myself to a bar, and talk to some people. It was
impossible to get to know someone below the shallow facade.
I observed the same. I also observed this in other cultures. For
example, the Dutch culture. I found the Americans way more honest and
Ahh, the dutch! The most loathed culture in europe. They are a pain in the ass
generally. Cheap, painfully direct and besserwissers. No one likes dutch people.
close than the Dutch. My hypothesis for explaining this was that the
United States offers a more trusting community; the Dutch deal with lots
of in and outflows of people from all over Europe. Europe has much more
loose frontiers, say, than the United States. I think I'm trying to say
that the United States is more homogeneous. The Dutch are more smiles
on a first encounter and the Americans less so. But beneath that the
Americans are really more friendly.
Never trust a dutch guy. He'll happily stab you in the back. I trust americans
infinitely more than I trust dutch people.
Other things I've noticed. The Americans easily trust what you say.
(Some will be mildly outraged if you don't trust what they're saying.)
The Dutch are so not like that and you can observe that in commerce.
They are a cheap and suspicious lot.
In the subway, no one talks to each other. People mainstain silence
and look at their phones. Only people who know each other talk on
the subway. Definitely not strangers.
Reminds me of New York City.
Maybe... I haven't been there for probably 25 year or more. I imagine that >>> smartphones have infected them as they have infected almost everyone. =/
My observations are pre-smartphones. Before smartphones, people's faces
were buried in books on the subway. They've just replaced the book with
the phone.
Same here. Or no, actually I think the first smartphones had appeared perhaps. I
feel very old. ;)
This is the truth. A very interesting phenomenon at the moment is the
global fertility crisis.
Are we talking about male fertility? I'm gonna follow that one very
closely.
I think both actually. Not sure however. Maybe you found something?
My bet is that it is a complex phenomenon consisting of chemicals,
unhealthy lifestyles, shifting norms, feminism and demographics.
I agree. It seems that way. Although I'd remove feminism if we're
talking about male fertility. But surely women is also involved in
men's everything (and /vice versa/). There's really no separation.
There never was.
My thought about feminism is more about decreasing social fertility.
The argument, based on my own experience and observation goes like
this. Modern, european feminism is competitive by nature. It makes men
and women competitors and antagonistic. Women start to dress and act
as men in order to make an name for themselves in the workplace.
Men, like me and many others, find this not very attractive and are turned off
those women. The ones who do meet a man, end up being focused on work and not having time for children.
Most, I think 90% of my acquaintances in sweden have wives from southern europe,
eastern europe or south america or asia, where women are more feminine, behave
like women and want to form families.
This is why feminism contributes to less children being born.
There has ``always'' been a war between men and women. It's a pretty
sad one, in fact. It is---to me---much more serious than military wars.
I disagree. I know many people who live in loving relationships full of harmony
and respect.
Well, what I do, to be more precise, is that when she goes to bed, we
usually talk for half an hour or so. Then she goes to sleep, and then
I get 2-3 hours to myself.
I need time for myself and my interests, since she is not into
technology and science fiction so the evenings I spend pursuing my
hobbies and interests she has no interest in, so that we can do things
we both enjoy during the days.
Of course, it all makes perfect sense. The burden of the proof is
totally mine because I am the one speaking out unreasonable things. But
I'm not trying to prove anything---it's too hard. So stay alert. :) You
don't need time for yourself and your interests. That's actually false.
Haha, well, this is about what I subjectively value and enjoy doing in my spare
time. So you'll have a tough time trying to "prove" to something else. ;)
Human life does not really require having fun. Fun is not really
something we need. There's nothing wrong with having fun. One thing I
Fun, or rather happiness, is for me probably the strongest reason for existence
I know. I believe that the reason for ones existence is entirely subjective and
different from person to person. I do not believe science can say anything final
about it, except perhaps to inform us when we select our reason for existence or
grow into it.
observe in very young kids is that they need no toys. A little ant,
say, is quite a toy. But then they're given a bunch of toys. You know
those those eye-candies that are hung above a craddle? Babies likely
feel enchanted by them, as they move and shine. I claim they need none
of that. In fact, that's too much stimuli.
Oh, but we must make a difference between long term happiness, short term destructive happiness, and avoidance of pain. Too many toys can give short term
happiness, but long term might not be for the best. I agree with you here!
You don't need your science and your interests. And I also claim that
you would in fact have a lot more with science and your interests if you
stop pursuing them. Do your work. That's healthy. You do need to
study it. But guide yourself only by a very rational thing. If there
For me, guiding myself based on what gives me joy is the rational thing to do.
is no time for your science, then there is no time for it. It's not a
bad life. A bad life is an unnatural life. We've distanced ourselves
quite a bit from nature; it's all very seductive. Now we need to really
walk in a different direction in order to get out of this.
I think that natural life is a happy life. I think unhappy lives are unnatural
lives.
I remember when I was young,
You're still young. :)
Really? ;)
No, the lab environment has no SLA:s, since it is just a lab environment, so if
it goes down for 15 minutes the students just shrug their shoulders and try >> again later. But, to be honest, there is very little downtime, and we also have
3 regions/servers. So in case of downtime, first fix is to shift a
student to another
region/server. That usually solves the problem 9 out of 10 times. If that
doesn't work, reboot the 3 servers and wait for 5-10 minutes. If that doesn't
work, reinstall the enviroment which might take 20-40 minutes.
Oh, I see; now I got a better view of the business. Congrats---I think that's a pretty nice job. I would like to have a job like that.
Ketchup effect? Wow. I had never heard of that. I get it. The whole
thing comes down at once. :)
Exactly!
I'm gonna smile when I get an opportunity to use that expression. :)
Other things I've noticed. The Americans easily trust what you say.
(Some will be mildly outraged if you don't trust what they're saying.)
The Dutch are so not like that and you can observe that in commerce.
They are a cheap and suspicious lot.
All the things I said sort of implies more or less the same thing about
most countries that fit more or less the reality of Holland. But I once heard that the Dutch have a history of commerce---that they were an
important piece in the distribution of goods to the rest of Europe (from overseas) in, say, the 16h, 17th century and perhaps 'til recent times.
I think commerce is a pretty mistrusting activity and perhaps the Dutch
could be reflecting that still in their current culture. Big cities are
full of people trying to scam you; it's no wonder you can give someone a 10-second attention in the tourist sides of NYC. I'd believe life in commerce is also full of delicate relationships (for lack of a better
word).
I agree. It seems that way. Although I'd remove feminism if we're
talking about male fertility. But surely women is also involved in
men's everything (and /vice versa/). There's really no separation.
There never was.
My thought about feminism is more about decreasing social fertility.
Okay, I see now. (But I'd be much less concerned about that than physiological fertility, if you know what I mean.)
I honestly don't worry much about these social aspects of feminism,
although I feel very sorry for women---who are now even wishing to join
this other world without getting much of any break from the previous
world. And---the subject is quite complicated---but I have a certain argument that puts forth the proposition that feminism is now in vogue
due to industry interests. (Both parents may be earning a salary now,
but they still have the same needs as ever---so we can take a part of
the money given to the man and pass it on to the woman. And ``that's wonderful''---says the industry---because now I work force that's almost
the double as the previous.)
The argument, based on my own experience and observation goes like
this. Modern, european feminism is competitive by nature. It makes men
and women competitors and antagonistic. Women start to dress and act
as men in order to make an name for themselves in the workplace.
Men, like me and many others, find this not very attractive and are turned off
those women. The ones who do meet a man, end up being focused on work and not
having time for children.
Most, I think 90% of my acquaintances in sweden have wives from southern europe,
eastern europe or south america or asia, where women are more feminine, behave
like women and want to form families.
This is why feminism contributes to less children being born.
I hear that. I think this is real, but I think that's a more
surface-real phenomenon. Deep down, I don't think women or men are too
much like that. I could /try/ to compare this to the Donald Trump phenomenon. It's a bit frowned upon to support Trumpism, say, but in
the privacy of one's mind, people do support him. It's frowned upon not
to ``side with women'' (obviously), but in the privacy of their minds,
it could be that the vast majority of women doesn't quite think that
things are going pretty well in that regard.
There has ``always'' been a war between men and women. It's a pretty
sad one, in fact. It is---to me---much more serious than military wars.
I disagree. I know many people who live in loving relationships full of harmony
and respect.
Of course you're right. But I also think we've historically a problem
there, which I'm calling a ``war'' here. And the reason I consider it
pretty bad it's because it's an inner war. When men and women don't get along, that's because they're not getting along with themselves.
I don't really separate men and women. I think of them as two sides of
the same coin.
Of course, it all makes perfect sense. The burden of the proof is
totally mine because I am the one speaking out unreasonable things. But >>> I'm not trying to prove anything---it's too hard. So stay alert. :) You >>> don't need time for yourself and your interests. That's actually false.
Haha, well, this is about what I subjectively value and enjoy doing in my spare
time. So you'll have a tough time trying to "prove" to something else. ;)
It'd be a useless attempt as well. A proof is not a unilateral thing.
A common system must be set up---language, definitions, a deducting apparatus. For instance, one thing I quickly notice is our different definitions of words such as ``happiness'', ``enjoy'' and so on.
So, a proof could never be means for a dispute; on the contrary, a proof
of anything implies a joint work.
Human life does not really require having fun. Fun is not really
something we need. There's nothing wrong with having fun. One thing I
Fun, or rather happiness, is for me probably the strongest reason for existence
I know. I believe that the reason for ones existence is entirely subjective and
different from person to person. I do not believe science can say anything final
about it, except perhaps to inform us when we select our reason for existence or
grow into it.
Here in my notebook, I don't bundle ``fun'' and ``happiness''. I also
don't bundle ``fun'' with ``joy'', say. It's complicated, of course.
If were disputing something technical here---like a lawsuit---, a
statement like ``the reason for ones existence is entirely subjective
and different from person to person'' seems to easily complicate your
life. I'm sure Socrates could throw into wild contradictions because of this. I'm unable to because I'm just the student, but you should see my
teachers. :) (Life cannot be quite subjective. Of course people can
have wild interpretations of their own, but even interpretations fall
into few categories. We could call these categories ``diseases'' and
then proceed to argue that people tend to have one of these few
diseases, showing clearly how reality is not subjective at all.)
observe in very young kids is that they need no toys. A little ant,
say, is quite a toy. But then they're given a bunch of toys. You know
those those eye-candies that are hung above a craddle? Babies likely
feel enchanted by them, as they move and shine. I claim they need none
of that. In fact, that's too much stimuli.
Oh, but we must make a difference between long term happiness, short term
destructive happiness, and avoidance of pain. Too many toys can give short term
happiness, but long term might not be for the best. I agree with you here!
You don't agree with me. :) Here in my notebook the word ``happiness''
could not even be further qualified as you're doing it. It's not your
fault, of course---I never clarified any of this.
You don't need your science and your interests. And I also claim that
you would in fact have a lot more with science and your interests if you >>> stop pursuing them. Do your work. That's healthy. You do need to
study it. But guide yourself only by a very rational thing. If there
For me, guiding myself based on what gives me joy is the rational thing to do.
To translate your comment here to fit in my notebook's framework, I'd probably need to substitute ``joy'' for ``pleasure''. And it would
violate one of my theorems---the pursuit of pleasure is not a rational
thing to do and it's not even quite pleasurable.
is no time for your science, then there is no time for it. It's not a
bad life. A bad life is an unnatural life. We've distanced ourselves
quite a bit from nature; it's all very seductive. Now we need to really >>> walk in a different direction in order to get out of this.
I think that natural life is a happy life. I think unhappy lives are unnatural
lives.
Now we totally agree.
I remember when I was young,
You're still young. :)
Really? ;)
Really. :) That's what I meant with the Linus Torvalds story above.
On Fri, 14 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
No, the lab environment has no SLA:s, since it is just a lab
environment, so if it goes down for 15 minutes the students just
shrug their shoulders and try again later. But, to be honest, there
is very little downtime, and we also have 3 regions/servers. So in
case of downtime, first fix is to shift a student to another
region/server. That usually solves the problem 9 out of 10 times. If
that doesn't work, reboot the 3 servers and wait for 5-10
minutes. If that doesn't work, reinstall the enviroment which might
take 20-40 minutes.
Oh, I see; now I got a better view of the business. Congrats---I think
that's a pretty nice job. I would like to have a job like that.
Yes, it is quite a nice job! =) Well, you could have a job like that!
Maybe you could start looking around your school for opportunities to
sell teacher consultants? I'd say that would probably be the easiest
place to start looking for opportunities. =)
On Fri, 14 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Ketchup effect? Wow. I had never heard of that. I get it. The whole >>>> thing comes down at once. :)
Exactly!
I'm gonna smile when I get an opportunity to use that expression. :)
The latest expression I learned was "keeping up with the Joneses".
You learn a lot of odd stuff of usenet and mailinglists! ;)
Other things I've noticed. The Americans easily trust what you say.
(Some will be mildly outraged if you don't trust what they're saying.) >>>> The Dutch are so not like that and you can observe that in commerce.
They are a cheap and suspicious lot.
All the things I said sort of implies more or less the same thing about
most countries that fit more or less the reality of Holland. But I once
heard that the Dutch have a history of commerce---that they were an
This is the truth! See the east india expansions.
important piece in the distribution of goods to the rest of Europe (from
overseas) in, say, the 16h, 17th century and perhaps 'til recent times.
I think commerce is a pretty mistrusting activity and perhaps the Dutch
Depends. Business builds trust. But it does need a substrate of some
kind of "basic" trust before anything can happen. That is why
dictatorships and authoritarian regimes never do well in
business. They are cut throat, lawless and the rule of the strong
applies there. That is basically the worst possible place to do
business.
The more trust, the more business and the easier it is. Of course it
takes time to first build some trust, then business is built in that
trust, which builds more trust.
I honestly don't worry much about these social aspects of feminism,
although I feel very sorry for women---who are now even wishing to join
this other world without getting much of any break from the previous
world. And---the subject is quite complicated---but I have a certain
argument that puts forth the proposition that feminism is now in vogue
due to industry interests. (Both parents may be earning a salary now,
but they still have the same needs as ever---so we can take a part of
the money given to the man and pass it on to the woman. And ``that's
wonderful''---says the industry---because now I work force that's almost
the double as the previous.)
I heard the other day the theory that the rich created feminism in
order to increase the number of consumers, and the government happily
agreed in order to be able to tax the other half of the population!
The argument, based on my own experience and observation goes like
this. Modern, european feminism is competitive by nature. It makes men
and women competitors and antagonistic. Women start to dress and act
as men in order to make an name for themselves in the workplace.
Men, like me and many others, find this not very attractive and are
turned off
those women. The ones who do meet a man, end up being focused on work and not
having time for children.
Most, I think 90% of my acquaintances in sweden have wives from
southern europe,
eastern europe or south america or asia, where women are more
feminine, behave
like women and want to form families.
This is why feminism contributes to less children being born.
I hear that. I think this is real, but I think that's a more
surface-real phenomenon. Deep down, I don't think women or men are too
much like that. I could /try/ to compare this to the Donald Trump
phenomenon. It's a bit frowned upon to support Trumpism, say, but in
the privacy of one's mind, people do support him. It's frowned upon not
to ``side with women'' (obviously), but in the privacy of their minds,
it could be that the vast majority of women doesn't quite think that
things are going pretty well in that regard.
Could very well be. The problem with the privacy of the mind, type of arguments
is that it is difficult to prove anything.
There has ``always'' been a war between men and women. It's a prettyI disagree. I know many people who live in loving relationships full
sad one, in fact. It is---to me---much more serious than military wars. >>>
of harmony and respect.
Of course you're right. But I also think we've historically a problem
there, which I'm calling a ``war'' here. And the reason I consider it
pretty bad it's because it's an inner war. When men and women don't get
along, that's because they're not getting along with themselves.
Interesting. Could you give an example?
I don't really separate men and women. I think of them as two sides of
the same coin.
I think of them as individuals.
The logical end point of "woke" when they realise that all groups
eventually boil down to unique individuals. Welcome to libertarianism!
=D
Of course, it all makes perfect sense. The burden of the proof isHaha, well, this is about what I subjectively value and enjoy doing
totally mine because I am the one speaking out unreasonable things. But >>>> I'm not trying to prove anything---it's too hard. So stay alert. :) You >>>> don't need time for yourself and your interests. That's actually false. >>>
in my spare time. So you'll have a tough time trying to "prove" to
something else. ;)
It'd be a useless attempt as well. A proof is not a unilateral thing.
A common system must be set up---language, definitions, a deducting
apparatus. For instance, one thing I quickly notice is our different
definitions of words such as ``happiness'', ``enjoy'' and so on.
True. This is a common culprit. When I say happy, I tend to mean long
term contentment. When most people hear me, they tend to hear
hedonism.
If were disputing something technical here---like a lawsuit---, a
statement like ``the reason for ones existence is entirely subjective
and different from person to person'' seems to easily complicate your
life. I'm sure Socrates could throw into wild contradictions because of
this. I'm unable to because I'm just the student, but you should see my
Complicate? How come? To me it is one of the most liberating realizations of my
life. =) For me it is I guess an honest life, a life where you think through your values and goals, and then strive to realize them and maximize the amount
of long term happiness you can get.
teachers. :) (Life cannot be quite subjective. Of course people can
have wild interpretations of their own, but even interpretations fall
into few categories. We could call these categories ``diseases'' and
then proceed to argue that people tend to have one of these few
diseases, showing clearly how reality is not subjective at all.)
Oh, this might get complicated. Lived life, as in my subjective experience, I would argue, can never become objectively analyzed, since it is impossible for
descriptive science to "get" what it's like to be the subjective me.
Life, descriptive, external, life, as understood by science, can definitely be
categorized and analyzed. In terms of happiness, you can go so far as positive
psychology and statistically analyze "happy" people and draw conclusions about
what life factors tend to contribute to their happiness.
You don't agree with me. :) Here in my notebook the word ``happiness''observe in very young kids is that they need no toys. A little ant,
say, is quite a toy. But then they're given a bunch of toys. You know >>>> those those eye-candies that are hung above a craddle? Babies likely
feel enchanted by them, as they move and shine. I claim they need none >>>> of that. In fact, that's too much stimuli.
Oh, but we must make a difference between long term happiness, short term >>> destructive happiness, and avoidance of pain. Too many toys can
give short term
happiness, but long term might not be for the best. I agree with you here! >>
could not even be further qualified as you're doing it. It's not your
fault, of course---I never clarified any of this.
As you said above... our definitions probably differ, which would lead us to talking in circles. What are your values and goals in life? Why don't you strive
for happiness? Tell me! =)
You don't need your science and your interests. And I also claim that >>>> you would in fact have a lot more with science and your interests if you >>>> stop pursuing them. Do your work. That's healthy. You do need to
study it. But guide yourself only by a very rational thing. If there
For me, guiding myself based on what gives me joy is the rational
thing to do.
To translate your comment here to fit in my notebook's framework, I'd
probably need to substitute ``joy'' for ``pleasure''. And it would
violate one of my theorems---the pursuit of pleasure is not a rational
thing to do and it's not even quite pleasurable.
Why not? And what is the rational thing to do according to you? And how did you
reach that conclusion?
is no time for your science, then there is no time for it. It's not a >>>> bad life. A bad life is an unnatural life. We've distanced ourselves >>>> quite a bit from nature; it's all very seductive. Now we need to really >>>> walk in a different direction in order to get out of this.
I think that natural life is a happy life. I think unhappy lives are
unnatural lives.
Now we totally agree.
Amen! =) But the problem is then to define "natural". ;)
And why is the natural good? Isn't that a value statement that we
cannot answer by science?
I remember when I was young,
You're still young. :)
Really? ;)
Really. :) That's what I meant with the Linus Torvalds story above.
Ahh... got it!
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Fri, 14 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
No, the lab environment has no SLA:s, since it is just a lab
environment, so if it goes down for 15 minutes the students just
shrug their shoulders and try again later. But, to be honest, there
is very little downtime, and we also have 3 regions/servers. So in
case of downtime, first fix is to shift a student to another
region/server. That usually solves the problem 9 out of 10 times. If
that doesn't work, reboot the 3 servers and wait for 5-10
minutes. If that doesn't work, reinstall the enviroment which might
take 20-40 minutes.
Oh, I see; now I got a better view of the business. Congrats---I think
that's a pretty nice job. I would like to have a job like that.
Yes, it is quite a nice job! =) Well, you could have a job like that!
Maybe you could start looking around your school for opportunities to
sell teacher consultants? I'd say that would probably be the easiest
place to start looking for opportunities. =)
I'll keep that in mind. :)
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Fri, 14 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Ketchup effect? Wow. I had never heard of that. I get it. The whole >>>>> thing comes down at once. :)
Exactly!
I'm gonna smile when I get an opportunity to use that expression. :)
The latest expression I learned was "keeping up with the Joneses".
Why "Joneses"?
You learn a lot of odd stuff of usenet and mailinglists! ;)
Indeed. I often recommend it to people who study a foreign language.
Writing it each day is a very efficient way to get the language into
your memory. With the tools we have now, it's even pure joy. But, you
know, so far, I've never seen *anybody* following my advice in this
matter. (I've been making this recommendation for some two decades.)
order to increase the number of consumers, and the government happily
agreed in order to be able to tax the other half of the population!
I wouldn't quite say the rich *created* feminism. But, surely, like
every agent would do, when they see something (that they didn't create)
can help them in their quest, they use it. Obviously. Rulers often
look into philosophy, say, as an accomplice.
What is your USENET client or text editors? Look above---your client or
text editor almost does what's called ``embarrassing line wrap''. It's
quite it because it doesn't mess up quote attribution, but it doesn't
know how to fill the paragraph properly. Perhaps your client could
invoke the GNU EMACS so that you can handle this with the GNU EMACS (or
vim). But your client must leave the message alone after you're done.
I think you use alpine, right? Can it do a better job?
(I often fix your quotes, but I won't fix it this time to let you see it clearly.)
Could very well be. The problem with the privacy of the mind, type of arguments
is that it is difficult to prove anything.
Proving anything is quite useless for regular people. Proving is useful
in math, less in science and that's just about it, I think. (By the
way, when I see people saying things like ``scientifically proven'',
they have no idea what they're talking about.)
Of course you're right. But I also think we've historically a problem
there, which I'm calling a ``war'' here. And the reason I consider it
pretty bad it's because it's an inner war. When men and women don't get >>> along, that's because they're not getting along with themselves.
Interesting. Could you give an example?
Can we begin with women in some Arab cultures? Some don't even let them drive. Doesn't this suggest a certain battle between the sexes?
But let's look at our own culture. Here's a true story. I have a
friend who is considered very sweet and polite by everyone who meets
him. He tells me about all of his dates and girlfriends and whatever.
I never told him because I don't even think he would understand it, but
he objectifies women quite clearly (to me). For instance, he was
chatting with a girl on an app some time ago and they were talking about meeting up. The girl was a bit unstable with the commitment to meeting
in person and he was losing a bit of patience; another girl came up and agreed to meet him. As he was telling me the story, he made remarks
such to the effect of---whatever; I get the problem solved.
In other words, he is looking for services; if one company doesn't
satisfy him; he goes with another and that's it. What looks like
someone's impatience with people's complications might actually be
hiding a certain outlook on life, which I call materialism. He can't
see that he's getting involved with people. His outlook is not that of someone who sees oneself intertwined with everybody else. He seems
himself quite separate from everybody else.
While people often remark how polite and sweet he is---and I like him
too---, I actually say that he has a health problem that makes him quite insensitive. Who is suffering the most? Himself. His insensibility,
for example, blinds him even to his own nutrition. He's losing his
health slowly year after year.
What about women? Same thing. People are very insensitive because
their sensors are all turned off or broken. (And the mystery goes away
when watch them closely: nearly everyone is drugging themselves daily
with coffee, processed foods, medicine and all the rest of it.)
And that's the case with the most of the world.
Oh, here's an example from today. Today I woke up with my neighbor
having a little party in his house early morning---that means it
probably started a night out. He lives in his house with his wife. His
wife was not in this party. It was actually a two-couple party.
Believe it or not, my bedroom faces his pool directly. (Not much
privacy for sure.) I got up, saw what was going on and did not even
open my window to give him a bit of privacy in his little party.
Chatting went on for a while and then suddenly silence. So I looked and
then his friend was likely inside the house and he was having sex in the pool.
And that's the second time I spot something. The first was months ago
in a similar situation. Night out followed by coming home with some new friends. This time the girl was actually cute and perhaps didn't sleep
with him, but he seemed to enjoy kissing her.
I figure he thinks he's enjoying life, but I actually think he doesn't
like his wife at all. So why are they together? There are no paradoxes
in this world. There's some business going on; there is a contract
there. His wife must be getting something from the deal and he's
getting something else.
That's not affection.
Where does this come from? I don't know the beginning of it all, but
surely this goes back to thousands of years. Recently, I learned that archaeologists discovered human civilizations in the tropical forests
150,000 years ago. Was men and women at war back then? I don't know,
but I would easily guess so. I think the problem goes way back.
I don't really separate men and women. I think of them as two sides of
the same coin.
I think of them as individuals.
I know. But we are not individuals. Even evolutionary biologists are getting there already [1].
The logical end point of "woke" when they realise that all groups
eventually boil down to unique individuals. Welcome to libertarianism!
=D
You lost me there.
Today I read for the first time the essay called ``Politics and the
English Language''. I thought I was reading a blog post from last year
or something. At the end of the essay, I saw the author's name and the
date of 1946. I was so amazed! :) I felt so current, so relevant. That author was George Orwell.
True. This is a common culprit. When I say happy, I tend to mean long
term contentment. When most people hear me, they tend to hear
hedonism.
When you say that happiness is long term contentment, I wonder what long
term contentment is. :) (But surely you don't have to answer that.)
Complicate? How come? To me it is one of the most liberating realizations of my
life. =) For me it is I guess an honest life, a life where you think through >> your values and goals, and then strive to realize them and maximize the amount
of long term happiness you can get.
An expert could likely complicate your life by trying to show that it's either false or meaningless. (Don't ask me to do it---I'm just the
student.) They could attack ``reason for one's existence'' as
meaningless and they could certainly attack ``subjective'' by claiming
that the vast majority of the world is quite objective.
Oh, this might get complicated. Lived life, as in my subjective experience, I
would argue, can never become objectively analyzed, since it is impossible for
descriptive science to "get" what it's like to be the subjective me.
To your content perhaps, but people can infer what's in you by looking
from the outside. The inner /is/ the outer. You're a human being.
Everybody else knows what's like to be a human being.
You can deny it all 'til the end of times.
Life, descriptive, external, life, as understood by science, can definitely be
categorized and analyzed. In terms of happiness, you can go so far as positive
psychology and statistically analyze "happy" people and draw conclusions about
what life factors tend to contribute to their happiness.
Freud observed himself and made conclusions that apply to everyone else.
Like everyone else, he perhaps made mistakes in the fine details of
things, but he also made huge contributions---from a unitary sample
space.
As you said above... our definitions probably differ, which would lead us to >> talking in circles. What are your values and goals in life? Why don't you strive
for happiness? Tell me! =)
In my notebook, if you ``strive'', you've already lost a bit of your health---meaning you're not happy.
Happiness is what I value the most because health is what I value the
most. My happiness has increased considerably because (over the years)
I've recovered a lot of health I had been losing year after year. I've
spent countless nights awake having ``fun'', for example.
In my notebook, I have no values and no goals, which is all very
liberating. I've had lots of them. They were no good.
What I do each day is the right thing. What's to do the right thing? Impossible to tell because I don't have a method to say what it is. I
know only what the right thing is when the moment of doing it arrives
and I see only a single possible thing to do---the adequate one.
People often ask me---what would you do in that situation? The answer
is always---I don't know. I might know *then*, but certainly not now.
``Oh, come on; please answer it.'' I could give you an answer, even a serious one; but the fact is that I really only know what I'm going to
really do at the moment I'm doing. (Humorously, if you want to play
around with fiction, I can come up with lots of answers for you.)
This is also very liberating. I make no choices anymore. I only need
to wait, but the wait is not a passive sitting around; the wait is work,
but it's a work with no striving; it's a work in attention, which is not concentration. This way I have never been happier.
And why is the natural good? Isn't that a value statement that we
cannot answer by science?
Oh, I think that's easy. The natural is good because bad, by
definition, is anything that lost equilibrium. Why does sugar taste
good? Because it is actually good. You developed your taste through zillions of years: it was made to feel good when the thing is good for
you. If you have too much of it, it will feel bad and the bad feeling
will push you to come back to equilibrium.
Nature is the current stability of things. Interfere with that
stability and you're off of the natural course of things. If the interference is small, things naturally come back to their equilibrium
(as the system is ``designed'' [if I may] to do that---you can remove
the word ``designed'' but it is a fact that the behavior is to come back
to the equilibrium); if the interference is big and the equilibrium
isn't restored quickly enough, things break.
So the smart thing is to look closely and see what is the equilibrium so
that you can let it be restored when you lose it.
Watch yourself at work: you'll get tired and you're tired you then work
a little more---losing the equilibrium. It's a little bit, so it's
quite unnoticeable until decades later. (And you do this little bit of
this sin against nature precisely because you're already a bit sick.
Your sickness makes you more sick. A natural thing is all quite
balanced: tired, rest; rested, move.)
I remember when I was young,
You're still young. :)
Really? ;)
Really. :) That's what I meant with the Linus Torvalds story above.
Ahh... got it!
And you can get younger. Physiological age goes both ways---forward and backward.
(*) Footnotes
[1] A Radical New Proposal For How Mind Emerges From Matter https://www.noemamag.com/a-radical-new-proposal-for-how-mind-emerges-from-matter/
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:
D <nospam@example.net> writes:
On Fri, 14 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
Ketchup effect? Wow. I had never heard of that. I get it. The whole >>>>>> thing comes down at once. :)
Exactly!
I'm gonna smile when I get an opportunity to use that expression. :)
The latest expression I learned was "keeping up with the Joneses".
Why "Joneses"?
Because that was the name of "the other family" from the 1910's comic
strip that created the idiom:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_joneses
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