aethertap

Yeah, it's really hard to keep pushing honestly. I have no idea where this is going to end up, but I think there will still be space for higher-quality, more interoperable tools for quite a while. I'm also coaching them to treat software as a thing they can use to boost their real careers, not as a thing that will be a career.

This is an issue that's very real for me right now because I'm in the middle of teaching my own kids programming, and we've been working on it for years at this point. I'm watching AI seemingly invalidate the premise behind learning all of it. It's been a pretty depressing change to be honest, because I love programming and watching this happen is hard.

So, I've changed my approach with my own teaching. I'm having them do three things that I'm hoping will prepare them to work in the world they're going to be entering soon:

1. Always have a handmade project going, and work on it without AI assistance even if it's painfully slow.

2. When working with AI, treat it as a compiler that operates on data structures, algorithms, and architectural requirements rather than source code. You have to understand the theoretical pieces of what you're building before you instruct it to assemble them.

3. Use the AI as a powerful tool to grow your own knowledge of algorithms and troubleshooting. Whenever a problem crops up, it's an opportunity to come up with a few hypotheses of what the actual issue is. Don't let the model do it first. I have them actually write these down in our custom kanban tool as issue cards, and then they use the model to investigate how close they came to the true issue.

I'm hoping this will give them something similar to my experience of debugging over a lifetime of coding. The knowledge that seems to be most valuable that I bring to the table when coding with AI is in recognizing quality/maintainable code architectures, and "seen that before" debugging experience.

We just started this so I don't have much in the way of results yet, and it feels risky to even allow it into the curriculum. I don't think that it makes sense to hide from it though, so this is our best shot.

Education isn't based on the premise that they'll never disobey. It's to help them recognize when things become dangerous or are getting to be a problem. Of course kids will do things they're told not to do - this is just helping them tap the brakes and understand how to recover. The attitude that the only solution is perfect enforcement is (in my opinion at least) partially to blame for the lack of self-awareness that makes the more vulnerable to later addiction problems in the first place.

This comment really hit me - I have a few things I've worked on but never released, and I didn't even realize it was basically because I don't want to deal with all of that extra stuff. Maybe I'll release them with this philosophy.

Yeah, the idea of getting to a viable income source for plugin writers is what I'm hoping for. I didn't know about the issue with Apple App store, that complicates things quite a bit.

Congratulations on your success with relay.md! It looks like a great tool.

I just wanted to drop in and thank you for posting this. I'd never heard of it, and seeing a plain page of actual web results was almost a visceral relief from irritation I wasn't even aware of.

This is how it was for me too, but I actually think the world has moved out from under us. The environment today is way more complex, and it's a lot harder to be proud of little things when you see people crowing about how they "wrote this little app over the weekend" and it's already polished and full of features. I remember being proud of my little unit converter that ran on the command line, and even more proud when I got an actual window to show up on a screen (GUI programming took a long time to get into). These days, those things just aren't special enough to keep them engaged. I don't know if it's just too commonplace now, or too complicated to get started, but it doesn't feel the same as it once did.

My kids have finally gotten hooked by godot, after a few years of building up a foundation with simple programming assignments. It's fun to see them digging in for hours to make something, but man, it was a long road to get here.

I think that any new tool just changes what's possible. At the start, we're all just rehashing the things we used to make, but faster (and possibly lower quality). This is the part that's scary for current practitioners, because the tools now do something basically for free that used to require a lot of human skill and it devalues our current skill set.

However, at some point there are people who really master the new tool and open up an entirely new range of possibilities because of what it can do. The value of craftsmanship just changes as the tools develop, it doesn't end. I don't know what new things will become possible with AI, but I'm confident that there are people with vision out there who will raise the bar on what can be created now that it's a thing.

Apparently it's done to dry out tough perennial weeds so that harvest can run more smoothly, and also for crop desiccation (getting the harvest to dry uniformly by killing all of the plants simultaneously).

https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2020/harvest-aid-herbicide-options...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_desiccation

I've been making a game system in which the core mechanic is using a limited language to describe magical effects, so it's a long way away from the intended purpose for both Toki Pona and Mini. However, I've found that Mini is far easier to work with and more expressive for my purposes because it's easier to put structure into the statements using the particles to indicate what part of speech is intended for each word. The selection of words also seems to be surprisingly well-chosen, because most of my use cases have been pretty straightforward to express.

I haven't really tried to limit the system to just Mini Kore (which is also 120 words, like Toki Pona, and would be a more direct comparison), mostly because Mini's current size actually seems to have the right feel. It might be an interesting experiment though.

Same as l3x4ur1n, I use Obsidian. Plain markdown, a simple directory system, and multi-device sync were the deciding factors for me. There are many other good tools out there though.

I've struggled with very similar issues for about 25 years. I finally started to break through it just recently, and I give credit to two basic things: Listening to the Huberman Lab podcast (which echoes a lot of good advice in this comment section, and focuses on physiology), and using the system from "Building a Second Brain" to get myself organized. I've always had a problem with having too many ideas and not enough time and energy to pursue them all. Having to choose between them leads fear of missing out on the others, and I never actually managed to finish (or even start, usually) any of them as a result.

The thing that the second brain stuff has done for me is to provide a place to keep those ideas in suspended animation so that I can revisit and touch them up over a longer time period. I can see them all laid out, with clear "do this next" breadcrumbs for myself. Nothing is getting lost, and I'm not missing out on anything. Since setting this up, I've made a ton of progress on a wide variety of things because it's easy to get started again, and I don't get sidetracked by other ideas. I just capture them, make a note to develop them further at a later time, and then get back to work.

I came here to basically say this same thing. I also use Obsidian with the "Building a Second Brain" system and I can't imagine trying to function without it at this point. Notes can be functional and useful if done well.

Does anyone have sufficient knowledge of these things to have a sense of how it is going?

Reading your comment made me realize another thing: Using rust often feels like the language is a successful attempt to take the best parts of a lot of other languages and put them together into a single, rational collection of features. Most of what's in there isn't new, but it all fits together well in one place so I don't feel like I have to make a devil's bargain for important features when I start out.

In my case, I use it because it is dead simple to get a standalone, lean, fast, native executable (on top of the other functional programming features). Cargo is a huge part of what I love about rust.

I've been homeschooling my children for about four years, and figuring out how to achieve experiential learning has been a primary goal for the entire time. It has been very tricky for me to get it right, because there is a constant need to balance between over- and under-challenging them, and the process of struggling that's so crucial to learning is also self-defeating because it generates so much frustration. Emotional resilience is a skill that I think is foundational to being able to learn in this way, but it's been glossed over in the materials I've read on constructivist learning. The closest I've seen is the material about growth mindsets, but it's generally vastly oversimplified in my opinion.

The approach I'm currently working with is to ask them to do difficult tasks (such as math problems that don't have a straightforward, mechanical process to produce an answer), then I watch them work. When they get stuck, I try to get them to explore what they know and think about what would help them break a bit of new ground, but so far it's been very hard to guide without showing. Generally, they struggle for a bit and then I show them a couple of ways in which they could make progress. This seems to have very good results, but I can't imagine how it could be institutionalized effectively when you start to get beyond the most elementary topics. Even with only two students it's challenging to manage.

Another related strategy: Pay an extra month on any recurring bills at the start (for services that allow you to maintain a credit balance). Then, just pay your bills as normal, except that you have an automatic one month of grace period for everything because you have a credit balance. This has saved me numerous times because of absentmindedness.

No, I've done this with my mask (n95, same one I use for wood working) four times now and it appears to be fine.

I will often use things like this, not because I don't know how it's done, but because I have a hope that whoever made it will maintain it and keep it working properly under future changing conditions. Today, it's easy to see if the platform is windows. Later, that may change, and if this code is maintained it will save me headaches. If lots of other people are also using it, there's a very good chance that it will be updated quickly and that weird corner cases I'm not aware of will be already taken care of.

I've only been actively teaching (at home, no less) for a couple of years, but I can definitely identify with this. I make index cards with each kind of question we encounter in the curriculum, then I draw some random cards from the deck in order to pick questions going all the way back to the start. We do a quiz every week for every subject that's made up of those questions.

It always comes down to time though, it seems like you can use all these ideas and teach for mastery, but it costs about 30% in terms of forward motion through the material. I'm lucky in that that I can just decide to pay that price, but it would be a real stretch to put all this into practice in a place where you have a coverage deadline that's already hard to hit.

Resilience Thinking, by Walker and Salt, is a concise and clear presentation of what makes complex things resilient, and how it can go wrong. I see the ideas from there everywhere from ecosystems to business. This one really made it much easier to think about the big picture and the long tail of consequences in otherwise messy systems.

Complexity, by Mitchell, is an introductory look at complex systems that changed the way I see the systems in the world and sent me off on a long tangent to learn more.

Life's Ratchet, by Hoffann, is just plain mind-blowing, or at least it was for me. It's about the inner mechanics of living cells, and does a really good job of conveying how insanely complex life is.

Yes, that's absolutely correct, and is actually part of the point I was attempting to make. I grow vegetables and fruits at small-farm scale (1-3 acres in production generally) in a way that I'd call organic if the term wasn't already taken - I don't spray anything at all, and use no concentrates for fertility or weed control. This has the predictable effect of reducing my overall yield in the short term, but I've found that I can still produce well as long as I'm careful to choose crops that are adapted to my region and use high biodiversity insectary plantings and trap crops for pest management. Weeding is done mechanically (usually with a hoe or a wheel hoe, occasionally with the walk-behind tractor for large areas).

I know many organic farmers who follow practices similar to mine as well. The organic name is really more of an indicator of intent for a lot of people - you can get away with a lot of things and still be certified, but most of the growers I know actually do make a strong effort to find another way. So, the organic label does actually carry some weight with me despite the fact that it can be abused.

Slightly tangential, but regarding the definition of "natural," I personally prefer to think in terms of concentrates. The chemicals in question exist in nature in many cases, or at least there is a similar naturally occurring compound. The main thing that I think makes a useful distinction is the concentration level. Like other drugs, the danger is in the dose, and the extreme levels of potency we can get with a little chemistry is what makes them "natural" or "synthetic" in my opinion (regardless of their actual origin). I'm more cautious accepting highly concentrated substances than I am accepting the same thing diluted with the thousands of other naturally occurring substances that accompany it "in the wild."

I have a spice blend that I made for flavoring beans that has kind of become a new staple at the table. It's about half tomato powder, maybe a quarter hot red chile powder, and equal parts cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, and oregano for the balance. I'm thinking about switching some of the chile powder out for chipotle to see how that goes for the next batch.

Two teaspoons in a bowl of beans makes some nice ranch-style beans, but we've been using it in lots of other places as a shake-on spice (eggs are particularly good). It's a pretty decent dry rub for meat on the smoker or grill too.

I use 'nuke anything' for the gray screens. Click the stuff you never want to see again and it's gone forever.

There are still choices to be made with finite time. Do you spend extra time helping your son understand his algebra and let the laundry accumulate for a day? Do you spend the time to cook from scratch or spend the extra money to buy prepared food? Economics applies everywhere, including the running of a household and use of time.

Personally, I've found a couple of things that probably aren't what you're looking for, but have been important lessons for me. The first thing is that I found that pushing too much too early is a lot of work and has very little benefit over the long term. If you wait until they're ready to learn a concept and put it to use, picking it up is so much faster and easier that the marginal return of all that early work seems to be near zero.

That said, if it's fun then there's no harm in it and keep it up. If it ever gets to be no fun though, my advice would be to let it go until they actually need it.

As far as games go, look for something that's fun first and mathematical second. I like pencil and paper games for this. We play them together often while waiting for meals at restaurants or during other down times. Rarely do I call attention to the mathy nature of the game, it's just a fun way to "be mathematical."

The other thing I think is important (that I still have a hard time living up to myself) is to really focus on things that need open-ended exploration. Particularly for children who are in school away from home, instead of trying to reinforce what the teachers are probably already doing a good job of teaching, find ways to get your kids to investigate things on their own. Games with known optimal strategies can be a fun way to get into this because they can then go dominate at school with their new knowledge. They don't get as much opportunity for this kind of thing at school because of the necessity of teaching the mechanics of computation, but keeping their curiosity alive is a great goal to strive toward.

Some resources I like:

Martin Gardner's books

Games from http://www.papg.com/

http://www.expii.com (this is advanced stuff, but can make for fun discussions because some of the situations are neat)

The Beast Academy math curriuculum from Art of Problem Solving (starts at second grade, but when you get there I really like it). http://beastacademy.com

I live in tick central, and for anyone else in that situation who doesn't already have a tick mitigation strategy, here's what I do (and I'd love to hear other things that work that aren't on the list):

1. Clear all debris (wood chips, leaves, etc) from places people frequent, and keep the grass cut short

2. Permethrin-laced cotton balls inside PVC tubes scattered liberally around the area. Small animals pick these up and make nests out of them, which kills the ticks while they're on the rodent hosts.

3. Permethrin on footwear, and safe insect repellent (DEET or picaridin, also geranium oil seems to help) on skin and lower-half clothing

4. Chickens in the yard seem to eat more than they host

5. Daily checks for everybody in the house

I probably have an unpopular view on this, but this isn't the point for me. I don't think people are evil for not working. In fact, if I could manage it, I'd skip it myself. Working is hard work, and I'd prefer to do less of it. The problem I have is that, in order to have productive output to give away, somebody has to work to produce it. If that somebody is me, and I'm producing enough for myself and another person+, then that means I have to work that much more to fund it. It chafes me to realize that I'm missing time with my family and friends in order to work for output that I don't even need.

I'm not an absolutist about it, and I'm happy to help people who need the help. However, I think it's reasonable to expect people who are able to pull their own weight.

+ just for the sake of simplicity, hopefully in a real system the fraction I'm supporting is less than one

Edit: Formatting