I received my first donation on my open-source side project

One could cut out the middle man, but at the same time, it's a prettier interface to look at specifically made for the purpose of donations.

Mathematics is a bit like art. There is no functional purpose to art, people just do it for the sake of itself, and for the intellectual stimulation. Likewise, mathematics deals with building theory on top of previous theory, with no real purpose other than for the sake of building theory and getting intellectual stimulation.

Think of this: Where did that previous theory come from? It was built on top of previous theory, etc. Mathematics is pretty much a never-ending stack of things built on top of each other for the sake of building things on top of each other.

Every now and then (quite often actually), there is some really useful stuff that can be done with this enormous stack of theory, with applications in practical fields like computer science or engineering. In fact the computer was invented as a result of a lot of merely theoretical contemplations about the nature of logic. But for a "pure" mathematicians, the applications are not the main focus of mathematics. For a forum like HN where a lot of folks are driven by doing stuff, this idea might seem rather strange, but it is the same motivation that drives artists and probably many other things.

Then there's of course the applied mathematicians who try to use everything they know about math to work on some real-world problem. Theoretical computer science is often a good example, where we build algorithms that try to improve performance for some practical problem by using mathematical insights into the properties of the problem. But there's also less applied computer science, where algorithms are built merely because they are interesting or beautiful or whatever, and then maybe someone finds a need to apply them, or not.

For those without any formal education in mathematics, here's a little problem that will help you understand what a mathematical proof actually is: Consider some set S containing some elements (anything really, just some stuff). For any elements a, b in S, we define an operation: a + b yields some other element of S (+ here is just a symbol, not necessarily addition). The operation + has only the following properties:

  - (0) a + b is another element of S
  - (1) For any c in S, we have (a + b) + c = a + (b + c)
  - (2) There exists a special element in S, written as 0, such that a + 0 = a, for any a in S

----

Solution: This structure (a set with an associative operation and a neutral element) is called a monoid. We are proving that the neutral element of a monoid is both "left-neutral" and "right-neutral". The proof proceeds as follows:

By (1), we have 0' + 0 = 0', but also 0' + 0 = by our assumption of 0. Hence 0' + 0 = 0' = 0, which was to be shown.

This solution is fairly straightforward. The next step is to try your hand at something a little more complicated: Define a second operation (-a) which takes an element of S and returns an element of S called the inverse of a, with the property that a + (-a) = (-a) + a = 0, for any a in S. Prove that (-(-a)) = a.

The mathematician was tasked with calculating the areas of manhattan that would be hit during stormy weather and give a rough estimation of the required drainage for the water to seep away.

That's the rough details, can't remember exactly. However, it always struck me as a job where the "mathematician as a job" fit really well.

Economists are not generally mathematicians, any more than physicists are. I draw that analogy intentionally because in both cases there are subsets of the areas where the lines get a little bit fuzzy and individuals are doing a bit of both.

Second to your question. The shortest answer is that mathematicians create mathematics.

There are significant distinctions in how they typically think about world (e.g. discrete vs continuous) or what motivates/justifies the work (i.e. pure vs. applied) but underlying it all at the core is the act of creation, and of understanding those creations and how they relate to other things.

Many non-mathematicians use some mathematics routinely as a means to an end, but for mathematicians it is much of the end itself.

A couple of people have commented on the ways in which it is like art, and aesthetics is important. Hardy said "Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics." , and I can't think of mathematician who would disagree. Applied mathematicians tend to take motivation from a problem from somewhere else, but also value aesthetics of the solution.

By the way, this spam filter is one of the things I want to fix when I resume work on this project again. Currently, it blacklists IP addresses whereas ideally it should be blocking certain type of content only.

In my experience, this additional overhead comes with hosting a live service that allows user-generated content. Other types of projects where the tool is run offline or where the users take the tool and host it themselves are fine.

People think it needs a shitload of extra functionality, when in reality it just needs some minimal perks and a tag with a LARGE price written on it.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/Z/Zawinskis-Law.html

It lets you crowdfund bounties for outstanding issues on a repo. And whoever resolves the issue earns the bounty.

VSCodium is recommended as an alternative https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium

[0] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/47284

I count the FSF as an exception here, since they provide additional guarantees with their CLA, and it is primarily for enforcement: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html

I wish for people to be informed, not to care. What matters to someone is an individual decision.

Do you get in trouble with the Tax Man because you tip your server at a restaurant or gives some spare change to the someone on the street?

As someone who's primarily a creator, I find it often eye brow raising the kinds of complicated rules which tax authorities create to "level the playing field". Definitely tread carefully.

I am however confused about how payouts happen with GH Sponsors — I feel like every time I take a look at the sponsors dashboard it says the payout will be next month. Haven’t received one yet.