805 karma · joined September 5, 2010
PhD Student Social Science of the Internet at Oxford (topic attainment of Critical Mass)
Homepage: http://wybowiersma.net
The AgentBase library actually was a fork from the AgentScript library. See here for why I forked it (basically to keep it simple and to be able to apply basic minimum coding standards and add automated tests): https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/agentbase/4NicEY8B6W...
Happy tinkering!
Do save your model as a new one if you want, makes it a one-click experience for visitors.
(in an ideal scenario AgentBase would do this automatically, and for each edit provide a link to that version... gists don't fork, sadly)
You can try a template model here: http://agentbase.org/model.html?9d54597f7aafc995d227
AgentBase uses:
* HTML canvas, jQuery, etc
* CoffeeScript browser library, for compilation of CoffeeScript
* ACE editor for code editing
* GitHub gists, mini-repositories for storage of models
* NodeJS + Mongo for keeping a list of models
Comments most welcome!
As for solving traffic problems, they don't necessarily do this more so than public transport would, if Googlers took that.
I think the issue is more that MUNI might have to think about introducing first-class busses, or first-class sections, or something like that. Because many people don't like sharing a bus bench with smelly (homeless) people.
Private public transport can out compete public transport. But then school buses already do this as well (compared to Europe). Though I did commute using SF buses, and I fully understand why one would not prefer ones kids to travel on them, and even why one would prefer company buses.
As for rents, true, but can that not mostly be blamed on restrictive building regulations? Not so much with regards to standards as well with regards to limits to flats and highrise buildings. As there is an undisputed market demand for more housing in the bay-area.
Imho protesters are a tad misguided in who they are targeting.
Ethical? That's the question.
1) In the far future, when most direct hardships are a thing of the past our lives probably resemble those of Harvard students more, than those of a random population sample in the 1930's
2) It is relatively easy to think of things that may make poor, disadvantaged, discriminated against, etc. people unhappy. And there is some data on this. While it was/is less clear for the advantaged.
3) Mentioned elsewhere, a study can gain discerning power if variables that vary a lot are kept constant. Similarly to how when doing a scientific experiment, one wants to control most variables besides the one one wants to test (simply makes the study more narrow, but deeper).
4) Practically speaking, a lot of psychological research is done on students, simply because they are within easy reach for scholars. Why Harvard students? Because that's a place where they would embark on something long-term like this 70 years ago.
5) More cynically, the scholars behind the study, and even after 70 years still the most powerful social demographic group, and probably a large portion of the most well-read, are in the sample they picked. So they sort of wanted to scratch their own itch first...
Finally, see the lovely series 7UP for a more random sample (allbeit much smaller, and British...)
Exactly the way it should be for a hardware product like this.
So far I think the best in the series was Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (not Supreme Commander II).
I backed & am greatly looking forward to Planetary Annihilation (though not too excited about the cartoony art-work). Just made a donation to 0AD too.
Allows 'the market' for good education to operate, without bringing money into the equation.
Montessori, or Jenaplan (a Dutch/German thing, which was the one I went to).
There was a bit of 'prison' in that there was a certain number of fixed tasks to complete each week in areas such as Math, Dutch and English. But one could pick which, and mostly even check them oneself. Once done, the rest of the time was free to work on projects and things just like you described above (the carrot :-). Often by Wednesday afternoon I was done.
It thus worked wonderfully for me, though it may not be for everyone. But when I have kids they are definitely going to a Jenaplan-type school. As it never felt like a prison to me and instilled a love of learning, and ability to plan and reward myself (besides other positive things such as a sense of equality towards others, including bosses & profs)
School != School. Shop around before you reinvent.
And not about the current situation (+ the macho 'my hours are longer than yours' trap that most of the California Software world seems to be in...) that drains much of the possibility of having a life besides work.
One idea that crossed my mind when I still worked in the Vallley, was that the situation might be reversed by a 'Union' that only concerns itself with working hours. Leaving salaries up to everyone for themselves to negotiate as currently.
This would:
1) Allow people a coming-out in terms of favoring work-life balance. Which many people confessed to me in private, but did not dare say in front of their boss/team (has nothing to do with a lack of love for the job/project/company, even love itself you can't enjoy 10 hours a day 50 weeks a year, or that would be the length of billionaires honey-moons. Also what is wrong with loving your life and family/friends in addition to the job, and needing some time for that?).
2) Create a bargaining position and a public face for it.
3) Dispel myths of long-term productivity gains through longer hours. Especially in a creative industry like Software Engineering long hours reduce productivity (there are studies of this + the many self-evaluations on HN over the years of people being able to code consistently and productively 4 to 7 hours per day max).
Just an idea that crossed a mind.
> "For centuries cafes have been places where people go to meet, trade gossip, network and otherwise come together informally, and some coffee shops are trying to encourage that social interaction again by taking action against the laptop hobos."
Anyone who has done a bit of history (or can find WP) knows that coffee-houses and pubs used to be places where people used to read, work, play games, and hang out for hours on end, whole days or evenings; every evening. Why? Because it saved money on not having to heat ones own living-room in winter...
Using a bit of electricity on top seems relatively minor in comparison...
(though a shift in the relative price of space and drinks/food likely explains the current issues...)
2) I was talking about proper democracies (like Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands). I dislike the war in Iraq (and similarly ill-conceived wars) as much as (if not more than) you do.
As for the sanity check; Government only works if everyone in a certain community / market / area complies. Ceterus paribus if I am taxed and you are not, and you would be allowed to sell in the same market, I will be driven out of business. Similarly, if you hire educated employees, or even benefit of services provided by them, but did not pay taxes to fund their education, you are leeching on the state and I (& other citizens) have a right to (part of) your profits... we call this tax; and it only works if we all pay our fair share.
Also, in many older (& also modern Dutch & UK inner cities) we have a thing called Woonerf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf), which means a ~15 miles per hour maximum speed off the main roads inside residential areas, so pedestrians and kids can actually enjoy/play on the roads...
Government does not have unlimited power. Government is accountable, mostly democratically controlled power. It is, if there is a proper democracy (which there is in much of Western Europe, not the US so much) the exact opposite of unlimited power.
Anarchy on the other hand is (slightly) diffused unlimited power. And also power only dependent on wealth. And without anyone to protect the (financially) weak, without any laws or government-backed justice, this diffused power is much worse than anything a well-functioning democracy would come up with...
A nation/country is a bit like an ecosystem or a company, with its own interests, internal culture, customs, and market. Opening that market up to another country requires trust. If that trust is violated because one party is spying on the others internal negotiations, it makes sense to delay or cancel trade agreements.
You would not want everything you say in boardmeetings to be immediately passed on to competing startups/companies...
Also, trade-agreements do more than bring universal benefits. They also kill off companies due to increased competition. And given that Europe has quite different (labour) regulations, can even lead to unfair competition.
So please stop that anarchist BS about governments being bad, and them ONLY making peoples lives more complicated. Yes I know there are bad governments, but please speak for yourself instead of generalizing. In Western-Europe most people are pretty happy with their governments, because - quess why - these governments do a pretty good job most of the time...
Cars: In America/Golden Gate Park, people take their car into the park! They even park it right there, right next to where they have their picnic. Odd but understandable. In Europe cars are antithetical to nature and relaxation, something industrial you hide out of sight, while in the US they are (apparently) integral to it.
Hours. In the US/SF people 'like' to be in the office. It is practically their home when they are not commuting or sleeping. While on the weekends they go on trips to be away from home/the office (I could not imagine raising, rather than merely producing, a family in the US).
(all you say about the weather is true, unless you live in West SF. National parks are fabulous indeed!)
Poverty. Without being a Republican who believes the poor / racial minorities are to blame for their own d*mned fate, it is not possible to enjoy central San Francisco. Never seen so many homeless people in such horrible states of existence (and I am not a Republican but a social democrat, so I was not comfortable with US society...).
(the US is this odd mix between rich and modern and a 3rd world country... also with regard to infrastructure)
Traffic lights (and a lot of traffic) at almost every corner in the city. Perhaps nice if you are driving, but very annoying when you want to enjoy an uninterrupted walk.
Grid-pattern (mostly responsible for the former). Cities look like they were built on a chess-board. Nice if you want to go straight, but not good when you want to go diagonal (in Paris they solved this with diagonal avenues). And forget building diversity or atmosphere, especially in the suburbs (which are 97% of the city).
Houses are indeed quite flimsy. But in East SF there are at least some lovely pre-war houses that have atmosphere (I lived in a room in one, loved it...).
Business / startup opportunities; indeed, nothing beats California (never seen so many things bordering on the silly, fully funded...).
On balance, after a year in the US, I chose to go back to the old world when a great opportunity came up there. I'm a European again :)
Democratic control can provide equality and fairness, with every person one vote, rather than the market where some people having more impact than others, simply because they are richer.
Maybe because in America there hasn't been good governance for so long, trust is low, and the only solution many see is to simply chop down government to the minimum... but there are other solutions, actual democracy is one of them.
(ran by Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law prof who also founded the Creative Commons movement)
Most people, including most of the best, are simply more productive and creative if they want to make their time in the office count, rather than count their time in the office.
Having a life is the most important thing in life, and unless you are a founder or have significant equity and can reasonably expect your work to buy you retirement before you are 35-40, then you are exploiting yourself.
For all the talk about on-line degrees, I don't see them being a good replacement, unless as the cheap/distance option (makes more sense where tuition is high such as in the US), or for mature students with a job/family on the side.
Nothing can replace the full university experience (perhaps until somebody boots up a proper Matrix).
College is not just about book-knowledge, but also about being immersed in a new environment, meeting new people and developing new skills.
Naturally all this can be done in ones sleepy home-village, or on the 10/5-6 city job as well, but very few people find the time, or do the root-cutting necessary to be able to do so.
Ideally suburbia should become a thing of the past (and it might, with rising energy prices). But for now I'd say the best thing you could do is move back to the (inner) city (or back to uni for a post-grad).
It may be a hassle but being unhappy is a drain as well.
I can also highly recommend most European/UK cities, as their cores are where people actually live and thrive, rather than that odd mix of blitz corporate office guests and sniffling economic outcasts.
Most of the differences you describe I experienced as well, except that holidays could be planned at a much shorter notice at our company, even though workdays were considerably longer (10 hours).
I also had to argue for, and then introduce, automated testing, and some other good practices that I'd expected to be industry standard (was nevertheless nice there was room for this, and it was appreciated in the end...).
After a while, though, I missed the research, the self-development, the thinking about broader problems, and also, even though the team was great; the social side of things (especially as the hours left me exhausted in the evenings and even into the weekend). I guess I'm someone who is happiest and most creative when working 8 hours or so, and not tired. I also missed my friends in Europe, and the life-style there (walkable cities, no abject poverty, etc).
As for working on important problems, yes I loved what the product tried to accomplish, and our company mission, but 80-90% of most peoples time was spent on bug-fixing, repaying/circumventing technical debt, and at best relatively minor features that most users probably would/should never notice. So on balance spending 10-20% of ones time on a new real-world problem, versus, say 70-100% on a theoretical one, might still end up in favor of the latter as for making a difference...
Everybody should make their own decision on grad-school vs industry, but trying both is definitely a good idea.
And yes the hours may be long, but they are your hours, working on your self-defined project; and they are only as long as you want them to be (contrary to the private sector where 10+ hour days often are the norm, and leaving when you feel you've been productive for the day, even if it is past 6pm, leads to questions).
And don't forget the social life; shared dinners, clubs, balls, meeting interesting people on campus, not being too tired in the evening to hang out with friends. Great conversations into the night...
Also if you want to go for a walk in a college garden in the afternoon, or go to an interesting lecture at 11AM, you can. No questions asked. You can plan around your most productive hours. And reading, and developing your skills, is considered work here. While in the private sector you often need to do that after your 10-hour work-day...
So yes a PhD is not bad. Postdocs, and the tenure-race that ensues may be. But the PhD certainly is not bad...
They are switched in many Western European countries, and imho that works fine. Also because there generally is more public transportation and/or neighbourhood pubs/clubs.
(though some countries have raised the drinking age, making them come about at the same time, which is even worse)
A 16 drinking age, 18 driving age does create quite a different youth culture though. Less fuss about alcohol (though it differing more with parents permissiveness), more about cars, and early networks and contacts being more local.