rosetremiere

Hard disagree:

I understand it's maybe a bit of an uphill battle to support a software stack that the OS/hardware vendor itself doesn't support, but:

1. telegram/whatsapp do, so it's definitely possible.

2. The point is not to add new features, but just to leave the current version be without deprecating it. There is probably a bit of a development burden in keeping old versions up, but I don't think it's that big: they could even let the community take care of that…

3. But most importantly, "the iphone 6 had a good run", so the natural continuation to that sentence is "so let's discard all those working devices" ? wtf? I think that from a company that defends "public interests", some more thought should be given to not wasting energy, time and money forcing people to upgrade working smartphones…

Yeah, i'm thinking of getting a oneplus 6 since it's kind of the best supported by pmOS, and I can also just install some privacy friendly android rom in the meantime.

I'm taking the VEG 1 supplements (https://www.vegansociety.com/shop/veg-1-supplements) as I believe they essentially cover everything I need to worry about on that front (I hope it does).

I'm confused too: my intuiton/understanding would be that:

* The total energy use would be lowered.

* The energy use of the neighbors would be somewhat higher.

Good to know, it might be me putting such thought in his mouth then!

Sorry, I didn't mean English more than British (the distinction being a bit too subtle for me to make). It's "par for the course" I guess for a national broadcaster, but:

* That doesn't mean it's not less than ideal.

* It's something one might want to bear in mind, when listening, since it might introduce some kind of a bias to the whole thing (maybe the other comment about number of episodes about european vs african history is a good argument in that direction)

One thing I am slightly wary about after listening to quite a few episodes is Melvyn Braggs seems to be a bit too patriotic oftentimes. It's nothing really obvious, but you hear a lot of "we" when talking about positive aspects of english history, and a lot of focus on all english innovations compared to other countries. Maybe I'm wrong though.

The faq helped, thanks! So, an example of typical use would be, say, as the internal ledger for a company like (transfer)wise, with lots of money moving around between accounts? But I understand it's meant to be used internally to an entity, with all nodes in your system trusted, and not as a mean to deal with transactions from one party to another, right?

It's hard to understand what tigerbeetle is about. Can anyone ELI5 it for me? As far as I can tell, it's some kind of a library/system geared at distributed transactions? But is it a blockchain, a db, a program ? (I did look at the website)

How tied are those two books to python? If very much, are there books covering the same content with a different programming language?

Can you expand on that last advice?

What course was that? Any chance it's publicly accessible?

> and have a lower environmental impact than small towns

Can you expand on that (or link to more) ?

There is an episode of 'In our time' more or less discussing this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vrx8g

In my opinion, having it baked it into a language you use allows a sort of internalization of the concept by practice/use. You don't just get the idea, but get a feel for it.

Is your claim still true when air filters are installed in the chimney?

I don't have a strong opinion on the subject, but I believe/hope it should be possible to be accessible and entertaining while still being academically "acceptable" in terms of references (which doesn't need to be of the form 1 claim, 1 reference) and without taking misleading shortcuts or trying to sell your new universal theory of history, but sticking to consensual understandings and/or prefacing your novel ideas adequately.

I guess it sells better if you can make your audience believe that your theory explains "everything". Having read the book, it's a better feeling to think that you now understand the gears of history through this new lens, rather than it being just a complex jumble of interconnected stories/phenomena.

It's a question I share, so I'm happy to see answers popping up.

As for my personal experience, I've read parts of "Philosophy before the Greeks. The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia" and "A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000 - 323 B.C" by Marc van de Mieroop and have quite enjoyed both. They both seem to have favourable reviews.

As far as I understand, Ian Morris's books are not taken very seriously in the academic world. I've read the first part of /Why the West rules/ and must admit that it reads a bit like trying to push a narrative: spinning up facts the right way to make them support his ideas and asserting universal truths without much backing… but I think I'm biased by the reviews I checked before reading the (first part of the) book.

what company is that?

I would guess that the difference native/foreign is simply due to the way language is learned: for native speakers, it's first and mostly orally. This doesn't explain a later appearance of mistakes though…

Are you sure your timeline is correct? Assyria as an empire is closer to -1400 to -700, with the dominant part coming after -1000. Similarly, there was no "Mesopotamian empire" in -4000 that I'm aware of: before -2000 I think it was mostly city states all around the near east.

I'm no expert… please correct me if I'm wrong.

You're right! Here is some more context:

* Bachelor in CS, and I kept an interest in computing/programming languages, although I don't have much to show for it. I do have some scientific julia code, but it's closer to the hackish academic-type dump of code than a well architected endeavour.

* I'm coming from pure maths, and I have very little experience with computational aspects of analysis/geometry. I also have pretty much no knowledge of probability/statistics.

* I _do_ feel like it wouldn't be too hard learning the prerequisites for the above, given a few months and a good textbook.

* Re what kind of maths/development I'd like to do: I guess pretty much anything where there is a relatively strong "research" component. Not necessarily meaning pure research, but where it's not just about applying methods, but also about developing them and understanding the problem and solution space before "rote application", if that makes sense. If I was super sold on the end goal of the company, then I guess I'd naturally put less weight on those "requirements".

* Typically, I've been interested in compilers/PLT for quite a long time, but that's typically the kind of thing relatively far from my field. There would probably be quite a steep learning curve, and I'd be in competition with people that actually studied that, hence little chances of success there.

* My university was a small European local university, with a small maths department (third tier, as some might say). I don't feel like I was a particularly bright student, and I also figured that PhD students weren't necessarily as intelligent/productive/creative as one might believe from outside.

Re game theory: I would have guessed it wouldn't be kind of useless! Doesn't it at least provide you with a good perspective/insight into plenty of real life problems?

Thanks!

Interesting, I didn't know about this side of blockchain.

Thanks!

GPU coding sounds very technical! But I'll read up on it :)

Thanks!

Re. uncomfortable with finance: I guess it's a mostly "intuitive" ethical concern. I don't feel like finance is very much part of a society I'd like to live in or contribute to. I have heard arguments that e.g. trading is a big part of making the economy fluid and optimizing throughput or something, but it sort of rings wrong to me. Maybe it's just preconceptions and I should learn more about it!

Re. significant learning: Indeed, and that's part of the problem: since I'm not entirely sure where I want to go, I don't really have the mind to invest too much time learning about fields I probably won't work in, which makes my profile less attractive I guess. I originally had hopes that I could learn on the job: you often hear people tell you that a math PhD is proof that you can learn efficiently and have the capacity to work any technical field, or something. But I see now that it's probably not how it works: hirers still want some proof you're competent in their specific field.

Re. postdoc: the problem here is that the competition is rather fierce and the work conditions not always optimal.

Thanks! What kind of uni is that? I'm from a local "no-name" university and feel like there is quite a difference in the prospects you get, depending on your uni's "ranking".

Indeed. My PhD was in pure maths, and I'm starting to realize that having a strong practical aspect to one's thesis is really a big help in selling oneself on the other side of the fence…

(Replying to bmitc too:)

Thanks! Indeed, software development seems like one of the most probable course (my bachelor was in CS, so that's not too far either) but I'd be worried to end up too deep in software development, with no "input" from what I learned studying maths. Ideally, I'd still put this background to good use.

BadCookie: isn't it possible to choose that as a short-term solution, and then slowly navigate to something closer to your strengths?

Thanks! Indeed, datascience/ML seem like interesting avenues. I'm not from applied maths, but have some julia experience, which could probably be somewhat helpful.