stanrivers

I’m scared for what happens ten years from now when none of the junior folk ever learned to write code themselves and now think they are senior engineers…

> There's a prediction for every outcome

Have never heard this phrase - stealing it!

I guess… how do we get people paid for reviewing? It’s an interesting point that the incentives are not helping us here.

Oh interesting - is this in any way related to why the Israel flag went with blue?

“ It's to the point where every journal publisher and every editor will tell you, if they're being honest, that they have been and are continually being offered bribes. I would be very suspicious if someone tried to act shocked at the question, as if they'd never heard of such a thing. This is the state of scientific publishing in the 2020s, and we have to realize it. What we don't have to do is accept it.”

Well… then start reporting it with names publicly and to authorities…

I think this accountability is a good point… if someone told me absent any other information that a company had the issues Boeing has been having, then I would assume they get shut down or forced into a restructured management with hugely increased regulatory oversight.

I think there is something very different about handwriting than typing. Like, listen to a lecture and write notes on a pad, and then go to the lecture the next day and type them on a computer.

Then, wait a week, and take a test without reviewing anything.

My money, based on my experience, is on you better remembering the handwritten notes. I think this is because you cannot write as fast as you type, so you have to hear, think about what is important, and summarize when handwriting. When typing, you can get almost all the words someone says typed out. So you switch to "hear-to-type" mode without thinking.

So, I think it is important for learning to have that skill. I think it is better in the real world too, for some use cases. If I am in a meeting with a counterparty, I take hand written notes. I rarely look at the notes after. Why? I remember what we talked about.

I used to bring a computer and type out notes - and I still do if I need perfect information to reference later - but when I do that, my notes take the place of my memory.

It seems more efficient to handwrite my notes and have my memory be my memory instead.

The other thing that is important about reading beyond brain development is the learning of lessons / history / culture. I can't remember who the quote is from, but something like "He who does not read lives but one life. He who reads can live thousands."

There is also something about forming your own identity that is important too - like understanding history tells you something about who you are and who you can become. Stealing from David McCullough [1]:

"History is philosophy taught with examples... First of all we have to get across the idea that we have to know who we were if we’re to know who we are and where we’re headed."

"The Greeks said that character is destiny, and the more I read and understand of history, the more convinced I am that they were right... It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed."

And so reading is much more than just developing skills around reading and focus, it is about learning and growing as an individual.

[1] https://www.butwhatfor.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-knowing-histor...

This is amazing; really puts in perspective how hard it would be to say you know someone sent a balloon exactly to you, or that they didn't mean to... its something you could plan for (like this shows) and something that probably is very fickle

Nice Latin; that's something I never learned.

I know, right? I don't loath him though... like, maybe I purposefully have chosen to not judge him, and maybe he is a bad person generally... but there is something human about the contradictions. You can hear in his writing the same things I feel when I am looking at the weights I bough downstairs telling myself I should work out, but then also watching myself walk upstairs to watch TV instead.

It's also hard because, it's like... are his ideas just made up and not possible to follow, then? or, can you learn from someone that failed at reaching their own "ideal," because everyone falls short.

He's an interesting study, for sure.

One of the things I like about Cicero is that he shows that event when one is not perfect, you can consistently improve yourself and others. Cicero was kind of a disgusting person, to me - he was very vain, easily influenced by popular opinion and wanting to fit in, wanted to be close to men of power, changed his position on topics based on what was politically convenient, and so on.

But he also was a great thinker. And as he aged, he was forced to confront his own declining capabilities. And I think some regrets around the above "failed" personality traits lead to him realizing that the only way to be "successful" in old age is to have been moral, as your own brain sees it, when you were young.

So it's interesting that so much of how we judge ourselves is based on what we ourselves believe is right and wrong... and you can't escape that, it seems.

I have found the idea of making the time for something, even if you don’t do that thing, is helpful; like, I started making myself sit in my mini gym for thirty minutes without a phone, and at first I probably only did fifteen minutes of stuff… now it’s a useful time

Kind of, but aren’t most things that talk about something someone made or did the same? Or if you reference a scientific journal and a study, is that all that different?

It’s a summary of the book and saying that these are the takeaways on how the brain works around habits. Does that maybe prompt people to buy it? Yes… but is that the purpose, probably not?

Ha - it is amazing how much of human history is just misery, isn't it? even for children growing up, there is always "evil" that is shared through stories like this as lessons. It's part of just being a human.

I think I agree with you - the song is more about the situation around the murder. I think in the past, that was a way to remember the victim for those that already knew everything about the victim because they were neighbors etc...

As time goes on, it becomes more a haunting performance using the murder as a playground for emotion...

Interesting

Oh interesting - thank you for sharing. I think I have heard of a podcast that did the same kind of thing... will circle back if I find it...

This is the terrible things about murders... their victims never have a voice going forward, but they do. Good observation - what do you think is the right thing... completely forget the event? completely hide the murderer? review the victim's life before the murder?

Its a hard one for sure... you don't want to make evil famous... you dont want to invade the privacy of the victim... but you need to prevent things in the future

I like that distinction - some people are victimized, but others are oriented towards life as if they were forever a victim - the latter is what is dangerous

Can confirm, I got through; so I am not sure what you did to upset the book reviewers in London, but I wish you the best getting that misunderstanding addressed

We've been here before... printing of significant amounts of money to solve big problems can work well to get through the problem, but the after effects can be painful.

>>[1]People in Paris were getting rich — and they were getting rich fast. In fact, it was so hard to describe how rich everyone was becoming that a new word was needed and the term “millionaire” was coined in 1719.

>>[1]The people of France could thank a Scotsman with a penchant for gambling, the printing of new paper money, and all the vast riches that surely would be found in the New World for their sudden wealth

>>[1]Realizing that the paper money was only going to continue being a problem, over a few months France again allowed transactions to be conducted in metal currency. Further, it limited the uses for paper money to buying government debt issuances, in this way, taking on debt from its citizens in order to prevent the financial system from collapsing completely. Through these actions, by the end of 1720, Law’s original money-printing bank shut its doors, with the Mississippi Company dwindling towards the same by the end of 1721.

Or fun stuff like the tulip mania, when supply and a little bit of euphoria made things silly:

>>[2]The Dutch Tulip Bulb Market Bubble was one of the most famous asset bubbles and crashes of all time. At the height of the bubble, tulips sold for approximately 10,000 guilders, equal to the value of a mansion on the Amsterdam Grand Canal.

>>[2]Additionally, because of the timing in tulip cultivation, there was always a few years of lag between demand pressures and supply. Under normal conditions, this wasn't an issue since future consumption was contracted for a year or more in advance. Because the 1630's rise in prices occurred so rapidly and after bulbs were already planted for the year, growers would not have had an opportunity to increase production in response to price.

[1] https://newsletter.butwhatfor.com/p/john-law-and-the-mississ... [2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dutch_tulip_bulb_market...

I would call Robin again and put this all back on them. In short, they stole money from someone else. They are the one that needs to payback Upwork or the card owner...

I laughed at your comment about "few (if any) friends of the same gender"

I have noticed the same problem. Interesting to hear someone else say that, too. I always thought it was a "native male" thing... women could make native women friends that were only friends. Any native men "friends" were roughly always trying to be slightly more than friends. Men could make native women friends and truly only be friends. Men didn't make friends with many native men, at least beyond superficial relationships...

Not to be depressing, but you could speak fluent Japanese and you will always be "my foreign friend" or "our foreign coworker" or "the white guy with really good Japanese" to, by and large, even your closest friends.

On average, the country and its people are incredibly inviting and kind to guests and appreciative of foreigners that learn Japanese. However, you will always be viewed, by the vast majority, as being a guest - even after many many years and fluent Japanese.

And some people are fine with that, and some people can't stand that.

Honestly, if your brain is still being bothered by those experiences, I have found it means that I have not dealt with those experiences enough. There is something "unfinished" with that experience that my brain can't figure out, so it keeps circle back through it. Especially for traumatic things or big events...

I'm just an average joe with no relevant background here, but I think the purpose of memory is to help you go through similar experiences in the future more efficiently / correctly / with good outcomes.

So I think that the brain is trying to learn from those experiences. And if it wont let go, you should help it. Sit down and write out what you are thinking. Talk out loud to yourself. or to someone else you trust. Think about that event a lot. Think about what it taught you. What you want to repeat in the future. What you don't. Write about it some more.

At least on my end, that helps. Good luck.

Feynman's fascination with basically everything is always so fun. Here is another, where he is talking about trying to figure out why ice is slippery...

https://newsletter.butwhatfor.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-richard...

Copy / Paste:

"But the problem, you see, when you ask why something happens, how does a person answer why something happens? For example, Aunt Minnie is in the hospital. Why? Because she went out, slipped on the ice, and broke her hip. That satisfies people. It satisfies, but it wouldn't satisfy someone who came from another planet and who knew nothing about why when you break your hip do you go to the hospital…

And you begin to get a very interesting understanding of the world and all its complications. If you try to follow anything up, you go deeper and deeper in various directions. For example, if you go, “Why did she slip on the ice?” Well, ice is slippery. Everybody knows that, no problem. But you ask why is ice slippery? That’s kinda curious. Ice is extremely slippery. It's very interesting. You say, how does it work? You could either say, “I’m satisfied that you’ve answered me. Ice is slippery; that explains it,” or you could go on and say, “Why is ice slippery?” and then you're involved with something, because there aren't many things as slippery as ice...

A solid that’s so slippery? Because it is, in the case of ice, when you stand on it (they say) momentarily the pressure melts the ice a little bit so you get a sort of instantaneous water surface on which you're slipping. Why on ice and not on other things? Because water expands when it freezes, so the pressure tries to undo the expansion and melts it. It's capable of melting, but other substances get cracked when they're freezing, and when you push them they're satisfied to be solid.

Why does water expand when it freezes and other substances don’t? I’m not answering your question, but I'm telling you how difficult the why question is. You have to know what it is that you're permitted to understand and allow to be understood and known, and what it is you're not. You'll notice, in this example, that the more I ask why, the deeper a thing is, the more interesting it gets. We could even go further and say, “Why did she fall down when she slipped?” It has to do with gravity, involves all the planets and everything else. Nevermind! It goes on and on."

Oh, interesting - from wiki -

"The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history, employing 21 Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the Mediterranean Sea.

The attack struck the battle fleet of the Regia Marina at anchor in the harbour of Taranto, using aerial torpedoes despite the shallowness of the water. The success of this attack augured the ascendancy of naval aviation over the big guns of battleships. According to Admiral Cunningham, "Taranto, and the night of 11–12 November 1940, should be remembered forever as having shown once and for all that in the Fleet Air Arm the Navy has its most devastating weapon.""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto

Oh - interesting, I never knew that was a claimed levied against him - that his history wasn't necessarily accurate. That is a bummer. Still like what he is doing for getting the concept out there that history is worth studying and should be "cool," and you can't blame a generalist for not being 100% up-to-date on the latest findings / understandings by experts... so if its just that, I get it - if its more storytelling and embellishment - that is unfortunate.

Agreed on whether or not the Japanese would have come up with their own strategy like this; it seems like the Japanese admiral was focused on air superiority anyway / if anyone studied the island for an extended period of time, the direction of the attack would make sense.

Good luck to your friend - sometimes it is not worth it, but the chances he has been taking and the suffering he has been going through in those trials where it is worth it is hopefully helping others in the future with the same disease.

Cancer sucks; why it is so hard for us to beat is so frustrating. need more research focused on this.