I'm just on page 4 of 426 and I've already got an intellectual boner for this book. Gleick's Chaos (technically perfect or not) was a huge revelation for me and gave me a truckload of rich metaphors to better understand the world. I'm expecting the same from The Information. AT&T in 1950 sounds a lot like Google. "[It] did not demand instant gratification from its research division."
Perhaps during the good times build a habit around grokking and/or math. Set an antecedent activity that is always followed by grokking. And a location in which grokking is done. Then when you're having trouble do that antecedent in that location with the paradoxical thought that you are not required to grok or calculate. But allow yourself to.
To paraphrase: When you understand why you don't believe in Zeus, you'll understand why I don't believe in your god. This author uses such loaded words about programmers: nerd rage, fear, panic. He just doesn't understand that his belief system doesn't hold up to basic logic. The level of thinking that accepts a religion as truth would not serve to get us across a busy street safely.
I'm sure there are the same percentage of excellent teachers as there are excellent members of any profession. But school isn't just teachers. It's part of a complex web of politics--with all the money, corruption and idiocy that involves. From textbook publishers paying off administrators, to regressive school boards who won't let evolution be taught, teachers are handicapped by the system they are part of.
So Leonardo was a defense contractor. I think the lesson is that no matter how big a genius you think you are you still have to get out there and sell something.
"They fused their secular expertise in social networks with a discipline culled from religious movements and combined the energy of soccer fans with the sophistication of surgeons. Breaking free from older veterans of the Arab political opposition, they relied on tactics of nonviolent resistance channeled from an American scholar through a Serbian youth brigade — but also on marketing tactics borrowed from Silicon Valley."
" the stories on the frontpage are not much different from those we'd have had in the first year."
This is the real story. I noticed that about 4 months ago the nature of Hacker News seemed to veer out of its original emphasis and now it's back to what it used to be.
Hindi doesn't even use the same alphabet. So there is nothing that looks like Gandhi or Ghandi in Hindi at all. The equivalent translations are the same for both spellings.
I signed up almost two years ago. Earlier this year I noticed that I had a karma of 11. I asked a few questions of the regulars about what karma was and how to get it. So I decided to contribute more and see what happened. I posted articles that I liked and the karma rose slowly. I found out that 200 points would get you the ability to downvote so I pursued that. My respect for the community grew so I focused on fewer articles of higher quality. After I got over 200 I found that I very rarely used downvoting but I enjoyed the "status" it indicated. Then pg raised the point level to 500 so that kept me active as a goal. I achieved that and then posted an article without much substance but popular that "earned" me over 400 points. That was fun. I still don't understand how articles make the front page, but that's okay. I've settled in to posting a certain kind of article only. And commenting more. The example set on commenting by others (and the occasional downvote received) taught me how to make a better contribution to the discussion. So it's been an informative year for me. Thanks HN.