veddox

35 ms·

301.
by veddox 8y ago
> my old university buddy who's from Zambia, jokes with me that the Chinese are colonization 2.0 Lived there myself, can confirm.
302.
by veddox 8y ago
> Yes, that’s kind of my point: The introduction of the scientific method fundamentally changed research, and Universities as institutions. Hm, perhaps I misunderstood you? I fully agree that the rise of the scientific method around the
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by veddox 8y ago
First of all, universities are not per se linked to the scientific method as we understand it nowadays. (Also, assuming that the scientific method is the only valid way to achieve knowledge completely ignores almost everything that is not
304.
by veddox 8y ago
Hm, I thought the claim that newspapers are funded by advertising was wrong, but apparently you're right after all - at least historically: - https://www.nytimes.com/projects/2020-report/index.html - https:&
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by veddox 8y ago
> Seems like this would be an interesting experiment in itself. And one we have already carried out many thousands of times. Just ask a classicist or a medieval historian ;-)
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by veddox 8y ago
Good article! I just have one nag: although the science behind it is good, the history is less so... > “Of course, for an experiment to go on like this, I’m assuming that science still looks somewhat like today, in the sense that univers
307.
by veddox 8y ago
Guess what? The first pitch-drop experiment is mentioned in the article... ;-)
308.
by veddox 8y ago
Could you elaborate on Mastodon? I've been following it for some time, wondering whether it's worth the effort to join? (And try and drag some of my friends along as well ;-) )
309.
by veddox 8y ago
> If you find yourself five levels deep in this process and still unable to comprehend what you’re reading, you need to take a step back and ask yourself if you do in fact have any real understanding of the technology you’re using. ... i
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by veddox 8y ago
You know, I'd completely forgotten about forums? I used to be active on two. Doing a quick search now: one seems to have disappeared, but I managed to log in to the other one for the first time in nine years! (Those were the days befor
311.
by veddox 8y ago
> The one thing I might say is that it starts with realizing that people actually matter. A big, big plus to that! That's the major lesson I had to learn these past two years. Smart people can achieve clever things. Smart people who
312.
by veddox 8y ago
Looks interesting, but I'm too ignorant to understand it... What is the practical significance of this? Is this the design for the processor that was used in the actual Lisp Machines, or a design for a hypothetical processor?
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by veddox 8y ago
The second link is interesting: HN's original announcement ( https://news.ycombinator.com/announcingnews.html ) Especially the point that they tried to build a community where people would actually get to know each other
314.
by veddox 8y ago
Mendeley is (or at least, was) a great software. It works on Linux and did exactly what I needed. Half a year ago, I suddenly couldn't open my PDFs anymore from within the desktop app. Web interface still worked, mobile still worked, j
315.
by veddox 8y ago
I used ReadCube several years ago when it was still really new (and free). Great program, very pretty interface - but it didn't work on Linux. When I switched from Windows, I had to let it go.
316.
by veddox 8y ago
Sorry to continue, but could you elaborate on that? I understand both concepts, but not their relative merits...
317.
by veddox 8y ago
I have enjoyed many of PG's essays, but I am somewhat upset by this one. I'm not too keen on his throwing theology into the same pot as alchemy, labeling it an "obvious waste of time", and implying that only crazy people
318.
by veddox 8y ago
Here's their privacy policy: https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/ Their service is good, but as far as I can see, they're willing to sell just about everybody's data to just about anybody.
319.
by veddox 8y ago
This is a beautiful (and very true) passage: "Among Nigerians, complaining about our problems is an art form. Most conversations quickly become a litany of complaints – about government corruption, no light, no water, etc. But if a for
320.
by veddox 8y ago
Thank you for Unity! I was really sad when Canonical dropped it - it's taken a lot of hate over the years, but I have yet to find a desktop manager I like better... (And I'm still using it.)
321.
by veddox 8y ago
Considering the fact that so much of programming is error finding, it's useful (and probably necessary) to have a solid heuristic for quickly determining causal relationships.
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by veddox 8y ago
I had a philosophy lecture last year that included a lot of epistemology (Theory of Knowledge). We talked a fair bit about justified true beliefs, but Gettier only came up in a side note - the professor being more interested in skepticism a
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by veddox 8y ago
Oh, technology is absolutely needed! But simply "dumping a load of machinery" on Africa doesn't work, or at least not for long, if one doesn't consider the social and cultural ramifications.
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by veddox 8y ago
While agreeing with your first point, I strongly object to the notion that China is trading fairly with Africa. I've known the Zambian Copperbelt (the major industrial province) for over twenty years. In the last ten years, and especia
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by veddox 8y ago
Author here :-) > find an up-and-running NGO (charity) and support them with cash money and referrals to other potential supporters. That is good advice. The most effective aid projects I have seen are small organisations built on local
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Solutions to social problems must consider the human perspective(terranostra.one)
31 points by veddox 8y ago|12 comments
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by veddox 8y ago
Thank you for this much more nuanced response. Your original post was very critical of SICP in a way that didn't seem to do it justice - I think that's what set of much of the debate in this thread. But if what you say in this com
328.
by veddox 8y ago
Of course these decisions matter, but not in the way you mean. The biggest hurdle to learning programming is not the syntax, not even when you're starting out with C++. It's learning to think like a programmer. One needs to learn
329.
by veddox 8y ago
From the preface to the first edition: > we believe that the essential material to be addressed by a subject at this level is not the syntax of particular programming-language constructs... The whole preface talks about how the aim of th
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by veddox 8y ago
I like the German system: We have university CS courses, which tend to be more theoretical, but also universities of applied sciences as well vocational training in IT for the more practical approach.

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