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WhompingWindows

5,415 karma · joined March 12, 2018

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WhompingWindows··on Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom
I have a BA in Music Theory, I think maybe you should consider again. First off, Jazz relies on the same fundamentals and extends them, everything from Classical music is somewhat relevant in Jazz. So if it's only Jazz theory exclusive to classical, it'd be an advanced book indeed.

Second, it literally has a chapter on Popular Music and another on Jazz Theory, and "Classical" is not found in its chapter titles. So I don't think your critique is accurate.

Third, history and time matter. "Theory" came first in "classical" contexts, with codified rules pre-dating even Bach. Jazz was a much later invention that built upon these and other traditions. Both of the Jazz theory books I used in my BA in Music Theoryhad many elementary topics already covered in Classical contexts.

WhompingWindows··on Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives
Probably won't happen for many years, they need quite a lot of power to use the current AV tech.
WhompingWindows··on The turbulent AI era is here
They probably didn't read it. The Parent comment suggests Bill is saying AI is wildly powerful, more precisely Parent comment is implying Bill has ulterior motives because AI isn't that powerful yet as he fear-mongers.

The actual text Bill wrote is more about highlighting upcoming problems and convincing governments to work together on potential harms coming soon.

WhompingWindows··on I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch
His writing was overrated: It's that simple. People now see his blog posts for what they are: decent blog posts.
WhompingWindows··on To become a better writer, read as much as you can
Counterpoint: To become a better writer, write as much as you can.

Reading gives you a flavor, a taste, a style, it allows you to occupy the thoughts of another human.

But getting your thoughts written down? That's writing, not reading. Actually practicing the art of writing is better for your craft than reading someone else's writing.

Matthias Wandel a famous woodworker on YT says it: most of his audience are watching for fun, they don't actually build projects. Would we expect a woodworker to get practically better by not woodworking, but by sampling others work? You might gain a little knowledge, but you'll never see your own limitations and where to grow if you never do it yourself.

Since music comes up in this thread, it's an even better counter example. The act of practicing technique shows you the idioms of each instrument, it shows you HOW to compose for that instrument much more than listening to 100's of recordings. Chopin's genius was knowing the human hand and how it conforms to the keyboard, he knew how to compose for it better than perhaps any other, because he was practical and a virtuoso himself.

When you touch and hear the instrument as you play, when you satisfy your own ear and judgment as Chick Corea says, then you're able to then better mimic others and create new fusions. Just listening to others "as much as you can" isn't going to make you a better performer or technical player at all.

Save the time for doing, not using. Use the time for production, not consumption. Practice makes perfect.

WhompingWindows··on Reducing tick density along recreational trails in Ottawa, Canada
Do you eat meat? Do you use a car and create carbon emissions? That's destroying ecosystems all around the world, and yet here we are doing nothing about it. Ticks aren't even the base of the pyramid, as others have stated, they're one of many choices for those creatures. Can you name a single creature who relies solely on disease-carrying ticks for food?
WhompingWindows··on Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?
Reading a dozen comments here, the AI seems to blow peoples mind most often in domains they're less familiar with. Repairing furnaces, HVAC, towing hitches, camper van interfaces, printer debugging. It wasn't the user's career to do these things, it gave them a bump from very novice to intermediate level.
WhompingWindows··on Ask HN: Sorry, what Was FiveThirtyEight?
Silver bulletin is like it - probably a lot of similar methods given it's also Nate Silver making the models.
WhompingWindows··on Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid
Your revisionist history isn't on point for US slavery.

Industrialization actually increased slavery in the South. Demand for cheap cotton came from English and then American industrialization. A machine, a product of industrialization, the cotton gin, shackled the chains of slavery ever tighter in the South, as it increased the processing speed of raw cotton. Combine that with acquisition of huge swathes of Mexican territory via unjust conquest, and you had industry demanding cotton and lots of new territory for slavery to potentially move into.

What ended slavery in the USA was the military necessity to free the slaves to save the Union in 1863. Lincoln would've ended slavery earlier or later if it could've saved the Union, he explicitly writes this in a public letter.

The government needed to destroy the rebellion, and slavery was the backwards un-economic stultifying institution enforced by a different culture, a different people: Southern Aristocrats. They used the psychology of emergency and fear to propagandize Southern nationhood and militarism, motivated their anti-democratic notions of "freedom" and "property rights".

This system needed to be torn down militarily and culturally, economically and politically it was probably stuck in place, because it was held in place by corrupt aristocracy.

Does the US have a corrupt aristocracy now holding other things in place that ought to be abolished?

WhompingWindows··on Following 35% growth, solar has passed hydro on US grid
Parent didn't mention either capacity or utilization? The article itself is mentioning generation. Not sure where you're getting what you're responding to?
WhompingWindows··on How to stop being boring
The author seems more about authenticity than boring-ness. And using the label boring vs bored, it comes to a similar outcome.

If I say, that guy is boring, he's inauthentic/poser/wanna-be, in my opinion I've failed that interaction. I am not engaging with him, I label him too mundane.

Yet, every person has genuine authenticity and need for connection, if you're attentive and patient enough to see it.

If you go around being frank and blasting your true opinions and true passions at everyone, you may miss a chance to learn more about them themselves, and move past the "boring" label you're putting, to see the real, struggling, suffering, but inherently interesting person underneath.

WhompingWindows··on How to stop being boring
Boredom is actually a good thing to experience. Modern life seeks to devour every morsel of our attention.

Are you able to sit motionless looking at a tree for 3 minutes? Can you read a book for an hour? Can you focus intensely on a work project for 2-3 hours?

If not, you may need more boredom to enhance your connection with "mundane" things. Trying to be interesting/authentic/not boring may lead to cheap thrills and provocative experiences moment by moment, which de-train your focus and attention for those very hard tasks you need/want to do in life.

WhompingWindows··on How to make a living as an artist
You said it yourself: he was primarily a professor, not an artist. His position being a "luxury" is another argument. Anyway, He taught languages to brilliant students and created a highly respected translation of Beowulf. LoTR, Silmarillion, Hobbit, and all of it, were his hobby, a secondary but burning passion.

I'm sure many on this forum have secondary passions, be it music, visual art, writing, or anything else. Yet most of us realized we need to make money, and that those pursuits can be done at a fairly high level in our leisure time.

WhompingWindows··on The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory
If everyone chose to eat veggie burgers and seitan steaks instead of using beef, the climate's trajectory would immediately improve. For all the responsibility of industry, many individual world citizens could, and many have, changed their lifestyle due to the moral issue of climate-changing emissions.
WhompingWindows··on MIT Technology Review has confirmed that posts on Moltbook were fake
Whether or not the posts are fake on this particular project, the mere concept that we could have thousands of AI bots using climate-changing energy to have bot conversations is mind blowing. AI is an insanely interesting area, and things like GasTown and Moltbook come in and use tons of tokens as a lark. Maybe they can spawn more useful projects in their wake?
WhompingWindows··on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
It's not just numbers or speed. It's the shape of the population pyramid. Around the world except Africa, populations are aging. This means less taxes will come in, less workers of prime age, much more healthcare and elder care will be needed, and thus less of the valuable workers in other sectors.
WhompingWindows··on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
It's actually not a good trade at all, you need a balanced population pyramid if you want a functional economy in the future. The housing stock is behind due to financial crisis in 2007, as well as lots of other factors, and population decrease won't solve most of those.

In fact, declining population could make the housing problem worse, if there's far fewer workers to make the new housing.

WhompingWindows··on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
If someone sees the world around them getting worse, I think it's pretty logical to not bring a child into that society.
WhompingWindows··on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
What a bizarre comment. Who cares about their genetic line? Are you evolution itself? Do you have stakes in making sure your genes make it to the future?
WhompingWindows··on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline
You're not alone, Kraig911. It's very hard to be a parent in modern society. My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way. They say they do, but they rely on us to take the initiative and make social things happen. After dozens of rejections or silence from dozens of them, it's rejection fatigue with the friends...unless they also have kids, in which case we play DnD together when the kids go to bed.

Going out to eat? Going on vacations? Sleeping? Your own health? Your finances? Say goodbye to all of that for 5+ years if you have kids, even more if you have a special needs child.

And despite all that, we love them and we want to have them, and probably the vast majority would do so again. And we will have our children to keep us young-at-heart, learning, active, and to help us in old age. Many of our child-free friends are going to go through a lot of loneliness when they're old, while we'll have the vibrancy of a family life.

WhompingWindows··on Show HN: isometric.nyc – giant isometric pixel art map of NYC
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Massive kudos to you. I am forwarding to all NYers I know. It gives me chills to relive specific places, though I'm far from the city now.
WhompingWindows··on How the US defense secretary circumvents official DoD communications equipment
Sorry, you think it's impossible to hurt Trump? Are you forgetting the bullet that passed an inch from his brain? A crazy person with a gun can change history in a second, and it would've been a terrible violent occurrence throughout society if it had come to pass.
WhompingWindows··on Ask HN: New to US, puzzled why tech hasn't simplified health insurance
Actual healthcare programmer here. Healthcare tech is not designed to employ more people, as stated by another comment. Healthcare tech is in fact designed conservatively by its nature, because lives are on the line. This tech needs to be on 24/7/365, or death might result. Furthermore, any move towards technological innovation gets incredibly bogged down with HIPAA regulation, data must stay private far more than most industries. Combine this with overall expensiveness reducing availability for tech innovation, and the fragmentation of the system into hundreds of companies by lack of universal health care like in UK or Europe, and boom: insane complexity, always-on requirements, very high privacy concerns, fragmentation and lack of inter-connection. It's an incredibly hard space, but incredibly rewarding to get Wins in this space too.
WhompingWindows··on Ask HN: Is it possible to work and play at the same time?
Look up Cal Newport's Deep Work book, he's writing one now Deep Life that you'll probably want to get as it will deal with this very subject.

The idea of working and playing at the same time is a bit fantastical. It's true you can flow, you can be creative, while working, but that's not play, and for probably >95% of workers, work won't be play. Work may be meaningful and purposeful, but really it pays the bills and provides meaning/purpose.

Play is something we associate with children and puppies/kittens, with games and sports and make-believe. Play is an enjoyable amusement which might mimics real-life tasks and skills in a safe environment. Work is real, and it isn't going to be low-pressure and fun for almost all jobs, otherwise why would they have to pay us to do it?

I'd look at finding true depth in the work you do, so you're finishing projects on-time, with high quality, in a non-distracted way that enhances your meaning/life. Then you use the ample spare time left to play.

WhompingWindows··on Nature’s Ghosts: The World We Lost and How to Bring it Back
Non-sequitur. You want to be crushed to death in 900 F heat on Venus? Or frozen in no atmosphere on Mars? I doubt many people reading the journal Nature would view "the wild" and "wilderness" as referring an extreme environment or another planet. It's not like we're talking about the Marianas Trench or the inside of a volcano crater here either.

It's about wilderness areas where people hope to see pristine nature, and how humans have tramped all over the world including what we now think of as "pristine".

WhompingWindows··on Breaking Down OnlyFans' Economics
Let's investigate that claim. Does OF physically and emotionally abuse its creators? Does it perpetuate human trafficking? Does OF create drug addiction and use that to control its creators? Does OF force its creators to have sexual contact with potentially violent or diseased/depraved individuals?

Ask yourself, would you prefer your family members to be under an IRL pimp or run their own OF?

If you look at this realistically, OF is not nearly as morally reprehensible as an IRL pimp.

WhompingWindows··on Citrix acquired and merged with Tibco for $16.5B
What does TIBCO do? Well, I know their product WebFocus, curious if anyone else here uses it. It's basically an online platform for making charts, dashboards, scheduling data extracts for clients, etc. I'm in the healthcare domain, we use WebFocus to power a bunch of clinicians' products.

I will say, I think the product's technical underpinning is not ideal. Instead of just using SQL, they have a proprietary language built in which has similarities to SQL but is much less easy to read and use. For instance a lot is stored in Metadata tables that are many clicks away from the report they're referencing. Also, there are a few cryptic keywords and things specific to WebFocus, which is obviously not that widely used and doesn't have many S.O. posts about it. So you're left staring at some various mysterious keywords or specific-syntax and thinking, do I learn anything more about this than what I need to, since this product is probably not going to last and will end up in the dust-bin like many other proprietary products. And it's just not a very employable skill like SQL.

Overall, I don't like WebFocus, I think Tableau must be a couple notches better. But hey, my org is under-staffed and we don't have the manpower to change systems, so we're stuck with this.

WhompingWindows··on Plastic might be making us obese
What a low effort comment - as if burgers and cheese and big ole pieces of meat didn't exist before plastics? HN's comments are supposed to make the conversation more interesting and more engaging.
WhompingWindows··on Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok
Plagiarizing aka Parent Comment just made an Open Source "library". What's wrong with using those??
WhompingWindows··on I regret my website redesign
Maybe there's a distribution of talent and skill in orgs, and it's nearly impossible to see if your new business partner will be great or terrible unless you have expertise in what they do...which you most likely don't if you're hiring them.

Further, how do I know if the web designer or plumber or mechanic is overcharging me, diagnosing problems I don't understand, or doing work that's not really needed?

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