Please share your knowledge | Hacker News Reader

Please share your knowledge

41 pointsaerovistae17 comments

I saw this highly-upvoted submission earlier today and was blown away; in which the author explains sophisticated data mining techniques in ways even a non-technical individual could understand on first read.

http://rayli.net/blog/data/top-10-data-mining-algorithms-in-plain-english/

I never understood k-means before nor cared to. I don't see posts of this quality very often, that make complex topics accessible and interesting to outsiders of that field.

There are a lot of very skilled people here on HN, and I want to ask you all to think, "what do I understand very well that many others don't?"

Even if it's just a really clear explanation of a single algorithm, security technique, hardware component, equation, biological phenomena, what have you-- share your knowledge!

And if English is not your first language, please don't let that stop you! I have read many articles with imperfect English that were nonetheless EXTREMELY interesting and informative. And there are also many of us willing to translate articles if necessary and worthwhile!

One of my goals for the next few years in my life is building a proper personal knowledge system, combined with everything that is needed for something like that to work. Mostly online, but there might be access from desktop/mobile apps. Included system like Anki. Wiki-like website for everyone with good tagging/linking between each posts. You can then make each piece of content accessible for everyone, behind a password or just accessible for you. Additional features like daily journal, todos, short/long range goals, asking you for permission to open all your content to the public if something happens to you/or you decide to not pay(small monthly charge for hosting and maintenance), of course if you want you are free to not allow that.

I feel a lot of people on HN have great and organized knowledge system and open sourcing the system with the knowledge/the knowledge part is important/ would be great. Of course it will take some time and effort, but I would love to have access to such system of some users like patio11 for example and gladly will pay money for something like that.

P.S Feel free to copy the idea, I am pretty sure that it is not unique anyways, though I am not aware of something that has done a good job in this area. Think of it like an open source knowledge system with a hosted version.

My contributions probably wouldn't be quite appropriate for this particular audience, but I've gotten pretty adept at explaining technical concepts to laypeople, particularly in the context of "WAI AINT MAH CUMPYOOTER WORKIN?????!!!". This comes from years of desktop support for friends, family, and paying customers.

Some examples:

* "Well John, computers sometimes overheat just like people do. If you wear a parka in 100-degree weather for a day, you'll probably get pretty sick. So do computers, which is why your computer was acting up. I'd blow out the dust every few months and make sure your computer has plenty of room to breathe; do that, and it'll be happy and healthy!"

* "Well Susan, a computer stores numbers in a certain number of 'bits', which are like our digits. However, most programs are written with a specific number of these digits in mind for a particular number, not unlike a mechanical odometer in your car. Computer numbers - just like an odometer - will roll over once they grow big enough, and funny things will start happening once that happens, like programs crashing. I think that's what's happening here; let me collect some data and send a bug report to the vendor."

* "Well McCready, computers are like gremlins: bad things happen when you expose them to water. Worse things happen when you expose them to whiskey on the rocks, so please stop pouring your booze into the Chess Wizard!"

The common theme here is to reinforce computing concepts with other not-necessarily-computing-related concepts and giving your audience the tools to base their understanding of those concepts around those metaphors.

When you are cooking, and your recipe calls for transferring a pan from the stove to the oven for finishing, do not forget that the handle to said pan will indeed get very hot while in the oven, and you should wear oven mitts when retrieving said pan.

Source: I am very skilled at burning the palms of my hands.

I know a ton about how to get paid for sharing. Pay me and I'll tell you.

Admittedly funny.

I know how to being funny to anyone. Give me your paypal account.

I have a fairly good understanding of colors, light, and how our eyes process them, including things like "why are wet spots on cloth darker?" and "why does mixing blue and green light yield cyan but mixing blue and green paint yield black?"

These are all things that can be wiki'd, and somewhat simple to understand, but I think wrapping one's head around the first principles so you can answer any related question on human visual interpretations of light is valuable, and something I can try to explain if anyone is interested.

What's in it for me? Why would I invest some time writing articles to share my knowledge instead of doing something else?

Not sure why this got downvoted. I am serious. It is easy to seat at your keyboard and demand for people to invest time to write articles/posts etc but why would they? Wouldn't they be better off learning new things, spending time with friends/family, working for money?

"Why are there volunteers in the world? Why does anyone volunteer? Why does anyone ever help anyone when there's nothing in it for them?"

"nothing in it for them" is debatable, depending on who you ask. The feeling of pride/fuzzies/etc. felt when doing something on a volunteer basis, the inflence over / trust from someone you've volunteered for, going to heaven, earning good karma, etc. could be counted as "something in it for [the volunteer]".

He is not demanding. He is pleading/asking politely. "Please". It is totally up to you whether you want to do what he asks for you.

Granted, I agree with you to a point and I don't see any reason you are downvoted/beside the obvious "don't be so negative" point, though I will upvote you, I feel this conversation is important/. At the same time it is extremely easy for you to use these articles/posts even in your CV and in building in your brand. Of course, you might not need that, but there are still a lot of uses including showing them to your future kids or thinking about how your writing changed someones live.

Leave that, there are specific content, which I have no issues being behind a paywall. You might put it behind a paywall/e-book/, show me that your content is useful to me, I will pay you in a heartbeat. Of course this is something that will take even more time.

To your point above spending time with new things or friends/family/working, I don't think that the author wanted you to stop doing them. Again he is asking you politely, do that if you have free time AND you are willing to help some complete strangers online. It is not something everyone would want to do and this is completely okey.

Why does anyone comment on the stories posted on HN? Why do we have leisure activities? I don't think that anyone is commenting on HN in lieu of learning, spending time with family or friends, or pursuing a career. (Though many may be procrastinating at work!) I think the request was a less a demand, and more a polite suggestion for more content of this nature. No one will banish you from HN if you don't participate, but the site and its users might reap the mutual benefit if you do.

Also, I think there is something to be said about the whole "learning as you teach" mentality. Often times I find myself explaining something (which I've done a hundred times) to someone (who has never done it before) and I catch myself saying things that I had not paused to reflect on before; or, I find myself finding even better ways to do things as I explain them to someone else. Those are the sorts of benefits that might be in store for yourself, without any consideration to mutualistic benefits.

> Though many may be procrastinating at work!

Guilty as charged :)

My 2 cents

I think that one of the best ways to learn things in depth is to share and discuss it with other skilled professionals who can share their thoughts based on other points of view.

There is always something new to learn from the others, and even if you know more than them, remember that it doesn't matter if you know 100% of something if you don't know how to communicate in a clear and concise way.

"Writing is nature's way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is." -Richard Guindon

I would really want to read same-style articles on the Linux kernel.

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