eli_awry

Regret is different than doing something that didn't turn out well. I have made plenty of decisions that caused a great deal of suffering - but they made me who I am. I think what I would regret would be if I made decisions that didn't make me into a better, more interesting person. Better to have loved and lost, and all that. Whether regret-minimization is a useful framework depends on how precisely we define regret. I am risk-seeking and fail quite often, but I never regret anything.

Regret is different than doing something that didn't turn out well. I have made plenty of decisions that caused a great deal of suffering - but they made me who I am. I think what I would regret would be if I made decisions that didn't make me into a better, more interesting person. Better to have loved and lost, and all that. I guess that whether regret-minimization is a useful framework depends on how precisely we define regret. I am risk-seeking, I fall down a lot, but I never regret anything.

Because the algorithms determining the content we consume are incredibly important in understanding the systematic biases of the information we internalize?

I worked at a FedEx Kinkos part-time for a few months and was eligible. I think it kicked in after less than 6 months.

It is when trying to explain one's motivations in a structured and informative way. Not so much when trying to emotionally deal with a missed opportunity. But this is presumably meant to be a reasoned response.

In a way, the game is a collaboration between the judge and the truthteller - they both get the same number of points. The liar can definitely win, but the truthteller and judge can only tie. The fun part is, the judge is collaborating with someone - but who?

Yeah, I did create this account because this is an issue very dear to my heart.

I blogged about some of this when it happened about a year ago on livejournal, and that post made it to the front page of hn back then. I've experienced a lot of bullshit from brogrammer types. Of course, sometimes there's no bullshit. Some of my fellow CS grad students are awesome to work with. I'm dating one, and he's a champ. Others have 'calendar girls' up at their offices, or make lame jokes like "Do you taste pineapple? That's funny, cause I've been eating it all week." (Which is an oral sex joke, kids). When people gossiped that I'd been sleeping with the Algorithms prof (who was like 65) because I got into the class without taking the prerequisites, other guys came to my defense. There's good and there's bad, and it's certainly not all bad. But some people are really, really awful, even in the real world.

Edit: And to be fair, I go out to the bar on Fridays with my coworkers (fellow grad students), which is where some of these things happen. At my undergrad institution, some of this happened while bowling on our weekly bowling night. Most of this stuff didn't happen at work - it happens at events that are guy programmers and me. If I had kept in social circles outside of my field and only interacted with these people in a professional setting, and never ever networked, I would have been fine.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

This was by a grad TA (a school employee) in a public forum. The one female professor who expressed any concern was told basically to stop. If it was just students, that would be one thing. This kid continued to be employed by the department.

This problem starts early, too - in my undergrad institution, many of the lectures and programming assignments taught OOP with examples employing beer and women-as-objects-of-seduction. The lecturers - not just TAs, but also adjuncts - would go out drinking with guys in the class from their old frats while ( I was alerted ) speculating as to how I got into Algorithms by sleeping with the professor. TAs discussed with guy students which of the female profs were 'bang-able' and which 'needed to be laid' so someone would 'have to take one for the team.'

No wonder these same people think this behavior is acceptable once they enter the workforce. They're getting it from authority figures from day one. I never experienced anything like this in any other department at uni.