3 ms·

FA is the first thing that anyone who remotely googles for "identifying music technical implementation" pops up. The idea that someone couldn't figure this out

FA is the first thing that anyone who remotely googles for "identifying music technical implementation" pops up. The idea that someone couldn't figure this out on their own just because they didn't have rich parents who could afford to send them to some school is quite mistaken. Put yourself in their shoes. You're you. You weren't sent to a school. What would you do to figure out the problem? Would you really hack around for years without success, or would you look up related material, read, study the problem, and check for existing solutions and scholarly articles on the topic? You know, all the things that a Real Engineer does. And you'd get results quickly. Because you are a real engineer regardless of whether you went to a school.

codeisawesome 9y ago
I’d just like to add to all the people responding with “google didn’t exist back then” in the comments here, that libraries did exist. I found a great wealth of usable and applicable information in mathematical encyclopaedias, handbooks and software engineering books and journals (even 5 year old ones) in the public library where I live.
WalterBright 9y ago
Let's say you did some research that suggested FA was the right solution. Now what? FA is not a freshman topic, it's a senior topic. You've got 3 years of math background you'd need to learn first to get to the point of being able to properly understand it (rather than blindly using it as a canned formula).
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  I'm speaking from experience. It's a generational gap, I think, which is why it's hard to understand. But it's true. FA is using cosines up and down the spectrum to convert a set of samples (audio, image, etc) into a frequency spectrum (the magnitude associated with each cosine). I didn't have to look that up. I just know it. And I'm no genius. This isn't nearly as difficult as it seems. Especially because universities usually spoonfeed you information at an absurdly slow rate. There's value in that – I'd wager you could whip me if we have to bust out some paper and solve some integrals. But then again, I can just get a computer to do that hard work for me. I know what integrals mean and why they're useful, which is far more important than the rote memorization of techniques to solve them. Now, if you want to argue that there are specializations that you can only learn in university, you'll get no disagreement from me. Distributed systems is a perfect example. On the other hand, I know those fundamentals too because I completed 6.824 on my own time. It's freely available. And yeah, matrix math is a piece of cake too. The world has simply changed. Information used to be valuable and guarded. Now all that matters is raw talent and motivation. And credentials, sadly. But the world is slowly learning those aren't a great proxy for talent. It's probably hard to empathize because you were well off enough to go to university. But you have to remember that intelligence is mostly genetic (probably), so talent can come from all walks of life. What would you have done if your parents had a massive divorce and someone squandered what little your family had? Are you sure you would have gotten a scholarship? When your parents never instilled the value of university into you from a young age?
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    > universities usually spoonfeed you information at an absurdly slow rate I have to chuckle at that. I went to Caltech. A year of high school physics went by in about 4 lectures. I had to study about 40-50 hours a week just to keep from drowning. I would not have survived without help from the professors, TAs, and fellow students. I don't disagree that a motivated, talented person can learn all that on their own. I've seen it happen, exactly once. The rest just employ ad-hoc hacky workarounds. BTW, at the time Caltech had a specific policy that financial means would be no barrier to admission or attendance. They'd do what it took to make it work. I attended a very ordinary public high school in a working class neighborhood. > matrix math is a piece of cake too. But you have to know what it is to even recognize that it is the path to a solution.
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      Slow relative to learning the interesting bits. It took three years to get to FA? Seriously? That's a glacial pace relative to solving real world problems. I agree you came out of it far better prepared, but drowning you in math for math's sake was merely hazing. Mostly. Regarding your financial point: it's remarkable how hard it is for the upper echelon to empathize. It's not about the money. The money doesn't matter. It's the whole way of life leading up to college that kills you. The mindset. The motivations. The infighting. Being sent to some small religious school in the middle of nowhere because your dad thought religion was going to take over the world and it was super important for you to know a thing or two about god, then being tormented there because you're the only one in a school of 300 with an intellectual curiosity. You think you would've stood a chance in an unfair fight? :) Your mom and dad are owed a debt of gratitude. Family structure is the basis of power in life.
      - WalterBright 9y ago
        > glacial pace relative to solving real world problems / hazing Sorry, I can't agree. My experience in post college real world problems was I was very well equipped to do so, compared with other newly minted engineers. And the techs who didn't have degrees weren't even on the radar. > the only one I was regularly assaulted in public school for being a nerd. Does that count? > mom and dad Mine were very special to me. But they were mine, and I'm heavily biased. Stepping back a bit, I don't believe they were exceptional, or better than the parents of my friends, etc. > empathize Get up and go comes from within, it is not installed by parents. I wanted real bad to be a ham radio operator as a teen. I could not remotely afford to buy the equipment. I tried to build my own, but utterly lacked the skills, and could not get either the tools or the parts. Nobody helped me. I didn't know any hams, or anyone who knew anything about electronics. It was extremely frustrating. For me, being at Caltech was very much like someone turning the lights on. I was around people with similar interests, classes were fun (despite being terrifyingly hard), lab equipment was all available, it was heaven. Nothing like public high school.

codeisawesome 9y ago

I’d just like to add to all the people responding with “google didn’t exist back then” in the comments here, that libraries did exist. I found a great wealth of usable and applicable information in mathematical encyclopaedias, handbooks and software engineering books and journals (even 5 year old ones) in the public library where I live.

WalterBright 9y ago

Let's say you did some research that suggested FA was the right solution. Now what? FA is not a freshman topic, it's a senior topic. You've got 3 years of math background you'd need to learn first to get to the point of being able to properly understand it (rather than blindly using it as a canned formula).

sillysaurus3 9y ago
I'm speaking from experience. It's a generational gap, I think, which is why it's hard to understand. But it's true. FA is using cosines up and down the spectrum to convert a set of samples (audio, image, etc) into a frequency spectrum (the magnitude associated with each cosine). I didn't have to look that up. I just know it. And I'm no genius. This isn't nearly as difficult as it seems. Especially because universities usually spoonfeed you information at an absurdly slow rate. There's value in that – I'd wager you could whip me if we have to bust out some paper and solve some integrals. But then again, I can just get a computer to do that hard work for me. I know what integrals mean and why they're useful, which is far more important than the rote memorization of techniques to solve them. Now, if you want to argue that there are specializations that you can only learn in university, you'll get no disagreement from me. Distributed systems is a perfect example. On the other hand, I know those fundamentals too because I completed 6.824 on my own time. It's freely available. And yeah, matrix math is a piece of cake too. The world has simply changed. Information used to be valuable and guarded. Now all that matters is raw talent and motivation. And credentials, sadly. But the world is slowly learning those aren't a great proxy for talent. It's probably hard to empathize because you were well off enough to go to university. But you have to remember that intelligence is mostly genetic (probably), so talent can come from all walks of life. What would you have done if your parents had a massive divorce and someone squandered what little your family had? Are you sure you would have gotten a scholarship? When your parents never instilled the value of university into you from a young age?
- WalterBright 9y ago
  > universities usually spoonfeed you information at an absurdly slow rate I have to chuckle at that. I went to Caltech. A year of high school physics went by in about 4 lectures. I had to study about 40-50 hours a week just to keep from drowning. I would not have survived without help from the professors, TAs, and fellow students. I don't disagree that a motivated, talented person can learn all that on their own. I've seen it happen, exactly once. The rest just employ ad-hoc hacky workarounds. BTW, at the time Caltech had a specific policy that financial means would be no barrier to admission or attendance. They'd do what it took to make it work. I attended a very ordinary public high school in a working class neighborhood. > matrix math is a piece of cake too. But you have to know what it is to even recognize that it is the path to a solution.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Slow relative to learning the interesting bits. It took three years to get to FA? Seriously? That's a glacial pace relative to solving real world problems. I agree you came out of it far better prepared, but drowning you in math for math's sake was merely hazing. Mostly. Regarding your financial point: it's remarkable how hard it is for the upper echelon to empathize. It's not about the money. The money doesn't matter. It's the whole way of life leading up to college that kills you. The mindset. The motivations. The infighting. Being sent to some small religious school in the middle of nowhere because your dad thought religion was going to take over the world and it was super important for you to know a thing or two about god, then being tormented there because you're the only one in a school of 300 with an intellectual curiosity. You think you would've stood a chance in an unfair fight? :) Your mom and dad are owed a debt of gratitude. Family structure is the basis of power in life.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      > glacial pace relative to solving real world problems / hazing Sorry, I can't agree. My experience in post college real world problems was I was very well equipped to do so, compared with other newly minted engineers. And the techs who didn't have degrees weren't even on the radar. > the only one I was regularly assaulted in public school for being a nerd. Does that count? > mom and dad Mine were very special to me. But they were mine, and I'm heavily biased. Stepping back a bit, I don't believe they were exceptional, or better than the parents of my friends, etc. > empathize Get up and go comes from within, it is not installed by parents. I wanted real bad to be a ham radio operator as a teen. I could not remotely afford to buy the equipment. I tried to build my own, but utterly lacked the skills, and could not get either the tools or the parts. Nobody helped me. I didn't know any hams, or anyone who knew anything about electronics. It was extremely frustrating. For me, being at Caltech was very much like someone turning the lights on. I was around people with similar interests, classes were fun (despite being terrifyingly hard), lab equipment was all available, it was heaven. Nothing like public high school.