mvleming

How we could make it so that there could be the free movement of people? What would we need to do?

In my own personal experience I've crossed the US-Canada border many times, and I remember several times when the wait at the border was hours long. On top of that, I'm very frustrated with the immigration process to get into the US; it's something I think a lot about and I don't think this is for the better for anyone.

How could we make the free movement of people happen?

I'm going to think about this today and see what I come up with.

What's easier to do? Change the world or change yourself?

I just looked in clarity.fm. It doesn't look to me the mentors in Technical Advice are programmers but center more around business. Is this true? I'm looking for an 'engineer' not a 'salesguy'.

I'm looking for a tutor not to develop my skills just for the sake of it, but to develop my skills in certain areas of web development so I can build this website I want to build. So not so much as reviewing code or giving directed tasks but guiding me and giving me resources I can use to learn from. The arrangement would be over Skype, maybe once or twice a week for an hour. My timing is flexible.

I have quite a bit of experience with HTML, CSS, and a little of javascript. I've been exposed to Ruby on Rails. I want to learn server-side programming, how to add webcam chatting, for two.

I used teamtreehouse.com and codeacademy.com. I was saying in another comment I'm not a beginner anymore.

But I will look to meetups, I don't know why I hadn't thought of this.

I'm looking to have a lot of flexibility. I'm not interested in following a curriculum. I want to learn specific areas in web development (server-side programming, webcam chatting are two).

I use Stackoverflow very often. I've done tutorials at Codeacademy, Udacity, as well as others (Club Treehouse comes to mind). I'm not a beginner with web development anymore; I'm looking to go the next level.

I will look into clarity.fm, thank you.

I read the Count of Monte Cristo but I haven't met anyone who has. I'd like to talk about it with someone though. Do you want to read it and talk about it?

I've thought a lot about how we can seperate bicyclists and pedestrians from vehicles on the road. I think it would be amazing to have all roads completely underground and replace the roads outside with parks, for example. I can just see kids running up and down the grass 'streets' playing soccer with skyscrapers all around.

With underground streets you could even collect the pollution the vehicles emit and store it instead of releasing it into the atomsphere.

But the huge downside which I have no idea how I could make this practical with is the construction costs. Maybe the first city to do this could get an increase in tourism thus offsetting the costs?

Could it be the big sort?

"Armed with startling new demographic data, [Bill Bishop] made national news in a series of articles showing how Americans have been sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities -- not by region or by state, but by city and even neighborhood. Over the past three decades, we have been choosing the neighborhood (and church and news show) compatible with our lifestyle and beliefs."

http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Sort-Clustering-Like-Minded/dp...

I think these two commentators (TillE and hodder) have put into words what I have been grappling for many weeks now. And I give can you a specific example.

I've been trying to learn about GUIs and cloud computing. For GUIs, for weeks now I've been saying I know how to program, but I have no idea how I can make something visual. I used Processing, and that was excellent, but then it turned out that it wasn't what I needed (there was no 'delete', so if I rendered a circle, I couldn't delete it). I also looked into Quartz Composer and I thought it was called ngraphics, but Google isn't showing anything called that. It was a Graphics Library for C++. I even installed a VM and Linux (I had to learn how to install a VM and Linux) to try some open-source software instead of trying to learn about GUIs, but that didn't suit my needs either.

So that's GUIs. The other one is cloud computing. I want, say a website and an app, and I want them to submit a form, then the server would do some calculations with these forms and then send back the calculations. I have nothing to say about this. I have no idea where to start. I don't know what this is called. I don't know what to Google.

But having these two people put into words what I have been grappling with is a huge relief. I think I will take a step back and re-evaluate my situation.

I think we have to be careful when things like this happen. It's god-awful. I can't imagine if I was in third grade and a guy barged in and started shooting up the place. But this makes me think of "You can always find evidence for your beliefs." I could take this story as evidence that the world is such a crappy place, but I don't believe that so I won't.

Everything will be okay.

You argued that "who we have sex with is a choice we make by thinking about it, not something pre-encoded by our genes." I was trying to suggest maybe the opposite is true to some extent by sharing that study regarding the rats with you. Female rats unconsciously have sex with male rats whose pheromones smell like their immune systems are very different, in other words, who they select as mates is something pre-encoded in their genes.

Are you arguing that because we have brains we can 'override' what our genes would otherwise have us do?

There was actually a study that showed female rats are more attracted to (read: had sex with) male rats with very different immune systems. The way she senses this is by the pheromone (smell) he gives off and as a consequence, her offspring have stronger immune systems.

In other words, this study suggests at least to some degree we don't even choose who we have sex with. Haha.

I see what you're trying to get at. You're saying that "x% of children are not genetically related to their fathers because women have affairs to increase the competition for her egg" is a theory, not to be taken as something true.

I didn't mean to make myself sound like that I was saying it was. I was just suggesting something and I agree with you: it is plausible, but it is still a theory at the end of the day.

We're on the same page. :)

I completely agree with you. I don't believe that every action is correctly designed to optimize gene transmissions and I think you put it into very eloquent words with: "it is trying to say that we are at a global maximum in a space that is probably more nonlinear."

However, I think that there are certain actions that we take that are clearly defined by our genetics, like the fact that we eat, or that we have sex. And having affairs is one of those.

It does imply that. I know a lot of guys who have gone through a period in their life not being able to sympathize with women after learning about this. They would question why even bothering marrying a woman if she is just going to be a cheating whore?

The second point you make is very interesting and I have the perfect rebuttal. Unfortunately I don't have the book with me right now but a quote from a review on Amazon will suffice:

"And on pages 217-218 [Matt Ridley] explains why women cuckold their mates: "This is because her husband is, almost by definition, usually not the best male there is-else how would he have ended up married to her?" She wants the parental care of her husband and some other man's superior-she thinks-genes."

Here is the link to this book (one of the best I've read): http://www.amazon.com/The-Red-Queen-Evolution-Nature/dp/0060...

And although I haven't read this book (if you do, tell me what you think), I know that it talks more about how x% of children are not genetically related to their fathers: http://www.amazon.com/Sperm-Wars-Infidelity-Conflict-Bedroom...

If I asked you "Why do you take your hand off a hot stove?" you might say because it hurts. But the fact that it hurts for us when we put our hand on the stove is our genes trying to keep themselves alive, because otherwise they risk being killed.

In the same way, a person might say they had an affair for whatever reason, but really its their genes who want to be able to pass on themselves.

(Edited for clarity.)

The percentages I've heard are all over the place, but a decent number of children are actually not genetically related to their fathers. (I've heard anywhere between 3% and 30%.)

One theory that's been postulated is that women have affairs to increase the genetic diversity of the sperm that compete for her egg, thereby increasing the chances that her children will have good genes.

You're a good writer. And I can relate to what you say: if we raise our children to be so practically-minded, where's the space for them to be imaginative and dream? If they don't believe magical things can happen, they're certainly not going to make them happen.

Are you going to tell Sophie or will you let her figure it out on her own?

I think this is a nice gesture by a public figure. I don't think this is something to take seriously as an approach to a long-term goal, but instead as something to be inspired by. Thanks Larry Page. :)

Oh the irony.

I've never thought about the research component. I'll have to think about this and do some research. Do you know if universities make more money from research labs? Don't the professors and students make money if their research has commercial viability?

Mentorship is one of those pieces that the universities would innovate with. I totally agree with you on mentorship and I definitely think it comtributes to one's success. As a result, if universities implemented a mentorship program, they would make more money because their students would end up making more money.

And regarding the business men and lawyers and technology does not pay well, I just had another comment saying the universities would only churn out software engineers. Regardless of that, it's supply and demand anyways that corrects this.

I'm sorry I don't think I was clear on what I meant by percentage. All the students would pay for example 5% of their salary for 4 years regardless of their salary. So it's not a lump sum and it doesn't "make the cost of education higher for those who earn less" (the opposite happens actually, those who earn more pay more).

Moreover, if universities only churned out software engineers then the supply of software engineers would be very high. This would make the demand for them lower and thus their salaries.

Oh. I was under the impression you were saying the team behind Spaun found unexpected and unexplained results.

I was excited because I think we'll find unexpected and unexplained results when we create a model that brings together the constituents of whatever make up the brain; they'll rise up and create something 'magical'. It's like how the saying goes: the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

It's funny because just today I was feeling sad that software no longer feels magical to me anymore because I've learned so much about how it works. It makes me think of consciousness.

Whoa. I don't think society has taken a turn for the worst at all. I just found this really amusing.

I think there's definitely an aspect that the social norm or the way people were expected to behave was more classy or formal, however you want to define those words, in the Victorian era. But I think a new evolution of culture is just simply a new ice cream flavour: it's neither inherently good or bad, it's just the way it is. I know some people who take Jersey Shore as evidence that the world is going to hell. But in the grand scheme of things, on the bigger timeline, I feel everything's okay. I've spent 5 minutes trying to find another way to put it but I can't.

By the way I upvoted you.

Can you elaborate on the parts of what Spaun can accomplish that they can't quite explain? I'm very interested in this.

Awesome. I couldn't be happier with your response. I'll definitely keep Bitmaker Labs in mind for when I graduate next year, and in the meantime I'll spread the word!

That's good to hear.

It definitely looks like you guys have modeled yourself after them. I have a couple more questions:

- Are your curriculums the same?

- Do you also give a percentage back if the student is hired?

- And do you have long-term plans to increase the class sizes?

Thanks. :)

Hey tjarmain. I was actually looking into Dev Bootcamp but I decided not to follow through because it isn't where I am: Toronto. So to see Bitmaker Labs is exciting; it looks very good!

I have a question though. I'm looking at the Application form here and there aren't any cohorts starting after mid-August. Do you know if Bitmaker Labs will? I'll be graduating college around that time.