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fatalogic

40 karma · joined September 26, 2016

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fatalogic··on 2021 MacBook Pro will ditch the Touch Bar and bring back MagSafe, says Kuo
The stock Touch Bar is an absolute waste of time. However when you use something like better touch tools and their TB presets it actually becomes pretty useful. If they were smart they would take some inspiration from those presets and actually make it useful.
fatalogic··on Duolingo becomes first VC-funded $1B Pittsburgh tech startup
To add on to these great suggestions I'd also say speak to people. Go on Italki or HelloTalk. Caveman brute force a 5 min conversation if you have to but imo speaking asap is essential and using the resources above + a frequency list can get you through the the first 5 minutes of conversation very quickly.

I think a lot of language learns focus too much on vocabulary and grammar when starting out but they don't take the time to drill/ use the vocabulary they are learning in actual conversation. There is no point in passively knowing 1000 words if you can barely use 100 in an active conversation.

Another resource that I like but wouldn't recommend it unless it was on sale is the mimic method. Learning the phonetics and how to hear/create the unique sounds of your target language is really important but it's too expensive for what you get imo.

fatalogic··on Insured, but Still Owing $109K for a Heart Attack
As someone who used to work in the medical field it can be a pain to even know how much insurances will reimburse for procedures. Especially when it comes to smaller / union insurance providers, health care providers have to call and wait for a fax or snail mail for a reimbursement table. This leads to balance billing or the provider just eating the cost.

On the consumer side I just found out about healthcare blue book and they have prices for just about any procedure.

fatalogic··on Was Your Name Stolen to Support Killing Net Neutrality?
Looks like my name was used but I can't see the whole comment or address.
fatalogic··on Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
It would help some people but for most of the people I worked with money was more a symptom of their issues than a root cause.

Lets say we have a child who is in 5th grade who reads at a 1st grade level. Most programs will say oh well he/she just needs more education so they create after school tutoring. That's great but there are so many things that can be hindering that child's ability to read. The real root may be a medical issue, family issue, cultural issue, structural or a combination of one or more.

People aren't equations, you can't just input x and expect y.

fatalogic··on Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”
As a former social worker I think most social programs don't work because they try to deal with multifaceted problems from a single point of action. It's like trying to fix a suspension bridge by replacing one cable while all the other cables are broken.
fatalogic··on I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math (2014)
Read Mindset by Carol Dweck. She talks about what you experienced and how to overcome it. She also talks about how to shield children from that fixed mentality.
fatalogic··on The Mark Zuckerberg Manifesto Is a Blueprint for Destroying Journalism
I just wish it was easier to find unbiased news. Just a list of facts no slant either way.
fatalogic··on Software developers who started after 35, 40 or 50
I think it doesn't really matter. Programming is not a physical impossibility for a vast majority of people. Like I could train for years and never be able to bench press 400lb because of genetic limitation but learning to program doesn't have that limitation. Learning to program like most skills just takes time, effort and dedication. I think if you fail at it either you weren't as interested as you thought or you may have been trying to learn a language that just didn't vibe with you.

Programming also seems like the only profession people just assume they can pick up in a year. No one wakes up and says I'm going to quit my job and become a doctor, or a professor, or lawyer in 3 months to a year. If they are making that type of career switch they go in with the expectation that they will have a lot to learn and it is going to take more than a year of concerted effort. Not everyone is going to become a software engineer at google or apple but there are plenty of well paying programming jobs.

Sorry for the long post I just get frustrated when people want to look at others failures as a gage for their own capabilities. Believe in yourself and put in the work, the results will come.

“He who who says he can and he who says he can't are both usually right” – Confucius

fatalogic··on Software developers who started after 35, 40 or 50
You have to figure out your why. It also helps if you have something to remind you of your why every day like a picture or saying. Then it become a mantra. I started learning to program at 25. In my earlier years I wasn't very motivated but then I was faced with my mortality and that can be a pretty great motivator. You only live once so why not try to make the most out of every day.
fatalogic··on iPhone market share grows 6.4% in USA, takes share from Android in most markets
I was a diehard android user for a long time and I switched when the 7 came out. Ios has some annoyances and it is clearly not built for a phablet sized phone. However the battery life I get with the 7 plus makes it all worth it.
fatalogic··on If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will
On the other hand sports bring in insane amounts of money, publicity and status to colleges, especially state schools where without them they probably couldn't compete with private schools.

http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/ncaa-20-college-footb...

Also given the rising obesity rates and health concerns related to obesity I would say physical fitness is very important in today's society. Education spending should be improved but education isn't all about studying from books. We need mixture of arts, physical education and formal education.

fatalogic··on Choosing Functional Programming for Our Game
Whether this they stick with Clojure/FP or not, isn't it important for them to at least try. Sure maybe FP isn't the best tool for this job right now but maybe someday it will be. However as a development community if we don't even try to use it for real projects it will never get better.

Perhaps through their trials and tribulations they will gain the knowledge to aid in the development of Arcadia/ Clojure + Unity. I just feel like there is a lot of well meaning but discouraging comments here but I think people often forget the science part of computer science. Sometimes you just have to experiment and fail and experiment some more to push a paradigm farther.

I don't know how successful they will be with this approach and maybe they will end up ditching it but even if they fail the first time they have the opportunity to gain valuable experience.

fatalogic··on Diversity fatigue
Imo it's better because you have a different set of eyes and perspectives looking at a problem so you don't have issues the Kodak issue of the 70s or the recent google image search issues. A more diverse workforce may have caught these issues before they hit production. You can't see problems if you don't know they exist. http://petapixel.com/2015/09/19/heres-a-look-at-how-color-fi...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/1...