What could possibly go wrong with `interface{}` and reflection?
389 karma · joined July 1, 2018
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught...
Context is what gives art a lot of its power, the downside is that you need this context to understand it. I'm not a huge art person so I view most art superficially, but always enjoy when I get an opportunity to learn more.
The tour was a great deal, my buddy and I got a private car with two guides and a driver dedicated specifically to us, so they spoke great English. I was hoping to see them in the blog linked above, but the only person I recognized was a woman in a military uniform at the museum - she showed us around the USS Pueblo.
It's crazy you can go there for 500 dollars nowadays, I wonder how travel has changed.
Once people stop feeling the need to reach for third-party packages to accomplish day-to-day tasks maybe there'll be more freedom to move away from the way npm is the way it is today.
Two anecdotes:
1) I know someone who deals with legal documents for the Canadian federal government and she has multiple word processors (of various versions) for these documents. Since minor changes can affect the meaning of these agreements, they are only edited or amended in the software in which they were originally created. She is understandably very excited for when the ones created in old versions of Word Perfect expire and a new agreement is created in newer software.
2) Only in 2019 did the US Nuclear Command transition away from their own 50 year old technology: floppy discs from the '70s. [1]
It always fascinates me to see what sticks around, for what reasons, and how it affects people's work. I've heard stories of developers creating fancy UIs to cover up ancient Fortran software, so that it's less painful to work with, but they don't need to replace the underlying software.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/nuclear-weapons-floppy...
Some universities deal with this demand by offering a "Certificate" or something equivalent in tech for students so that they can learn the fundamentals even though they're from a liberal arts (or other background, but have a degree). Even going back like 50 years, my father studied liberal arts but was offered an opportunity to do an advanced degree in computer science, provided he completed core courses (in additions to the ones he'd already done).
I suppose my point is that this may not be as rare as it seems, and is increasingly common as a BA becomes a dime a dozen (although not intrinsically valueless) and the growth in tech jobs continues (for now).
And I respectfully disagree that the French here is "hilarious to listen to", and I am not Quebecois.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_ships_of_the_Ko...
What I'm trying to say is that you've made a good decision by jumping way back. Once thing I realized pretty quickly is that to do well in math, you need to know the prior content pretty well. And for the next thing, the current content pretty. And so on. If you can stay on top of it, it 's a lot less challenging (and more interesting).
A theme I've noticed in the comments, and in the public at large, is confusing learning history with learning to be an historian (or historical thinking).
During my degree, I obviously learned a great deal of history. However, a large portion of my time was spent on context-building, and attempting to understand sources on their own terms and to contextualize them into the broader world around them. For example, to study the famous historic period foo, you must first learn something of the period before it, bar. It's also important to understand its society and culture, as well as those of a place's neighbours (you can't learn English History without learning some French history).
It felt less like a degree in "history", and closer to a degree in context-building. This, in my mind, was the greatest value of it, as it wormed its way into my brain informs how I view new topics and ideas. It's something I've noticed is absent for many smart people when they talk about history specifically (although they may be excellent at it in other fields).
A high school history course's purpose is to teach a base set of facts, as well as to teach children the state's narrative of its own history (for better and for worse). These cirriculums are usually written by hsitorians to fulfill the state's needs. Youtube videos and podcasts contain many facts, but their interpretation of the sources lead to poor understanding of the topic, and factually incorrect statements (since they're lacking broader context to understand them). Both of these have flaws, and lead to individuals "learning" something that may be incorrect, or that they have misunderstood to the point that they have learned very little.
I suppose that the point I'm trying to make is that learning about history != historical thinking, and a lack of historical thinking can inhibit the learning of history.
As a side note, the Revolutions Podcast (and by extension I suppose the History of Rome, although I haven't personally listened to it) is the only popular history media that has actually impressed me with its methodology. /r/AskHistorians has a tendency to be excellent as well, albeit with some caveats.
However, studying history at a university is a different beast. My experience was an incredible focus on context-building to understand what the sources are actually saying. This usually means building up a large amount of background knowledge (historical, literary, cultural, etc.) before even beginning to study the target period. It also means more critical thinking when looking at the sources themselves.
I've found that most podcasts and youtube videos, although good entertainment and better quality than a lot of high school courses, deeply lacking in the kind of critical thinking and study it takes to make the generalizations that they're making.
This makes it difficult for me to listen or watch pop history video/audio, since the methodology they use is usually poor (the only exceptions I've found thus far are: /r/AskHistorians (usually, not always) and the Revolutions Podcast (his methodology is good)).
I suppose the point that I'm trying to make is that these popular medias are a good at what they do and function as a great starting point. However, they contain factual errors and conclusions, and they should not be confused with the study of history.