frodetb · HackerTrans

3 lata temudiscuss

Agreed! I'm realizing that my comment came across as negative, but I did appreciate seeing a second path to the same place. I also agree that the expression x^(1/x) feels like a more natural place to start.

You often see this I think, in "pretty" proofs compared with the more direct approach. A clever early step or some bit of startling insight.

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

Logs will appear no matter what, at some point in the line of reasoning. They are only held back until differentiating in this approach. I think the expression for the derivative of logn/n was much nicer to grapple with.

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

"Catitude" is a good one. One might also say "felinity". Or "kittyhood". Or "purrsonality"!

I've only watched the movie version, but all these feel like they were words spoken by a character in CATS the musical.

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

Hey now, I turned out all right.

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

For the past decade there has here in Norway been a recurring news sensation surrounding the mountain Mannen[1] (literally "the man") located in Romsdal in the northernmost part of Western Norway. Geologists have found Mannen to be at high risk of a sudden and large-scale landslide, placing the local population at the base of the mountain at great peril. There have been several abrupt evacuations of the place over the years, whenever measurements indicate a sudden increase in risk, with great media exposure and public interest. However, The Man has still yet to fall as predicted.

A website was soon set up: "HarMannenFalt.no"[2] (Has the Man fallen?), displaying no more than the word "NEI" (No). The sentiment of the joke was felt by all, as many had grown tired of all this attention being directed at what was essentially, on its surface, just a mountain, standing there, doing nothing.

I was a student at the time, and remember many idle screens around campus set to this page, reeking of that sarcastic mock-worry only a student body could put on. But I suspect a lot of us were secretly waiting for the moment when the text would change into "JA".

And soon enough, something did in fact happen. A neighbouring mountain, Veslemannen (The Little Man), saw a considerable increase in daily movement in 2018, before finally there was a minor landslide in 2019. But this was not the landslide we had been promised and waited for, as The Man himself was still standing tall as ever. A "JA" was not really in order, but then perhaps neither was really a "NEI".

Instead, the website was updated to show "TJA", a Norwegian word somewhere between yes and no, with meaning closer to "Well, perhaps".

As an aside: A second website with identical design was also created: "HarDovreFalt.no"[3]. A play on the concept with allusion to the vow of our founding fathers: "Enige og tro inntil Dovre faller" (Agreeing and true until Dovre falls)[4]. The "NO" on this second site, I think, is far less likely to change any time soon.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannen

[2] https://harmannenfalt.no

[3] https://hardovrefalt.no

[4] https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enige_og_tro_inntil_Dovre_fall...

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

Right on point, "a blessing and a curse".

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

The tailoring was just for taper and length. The waist I didn't do much with so it's pretty loose. Besides, the pants are simply supposed to be worn with suspenders. I'm not sure as I haven't tried fitted high-rise trousers, but I think it would be hard to keep them in place otherwise.

As for my BMI, I'm 183cm at 85kg, which I understand nudges me just inside of "overweight".

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

I absolutely have! Didn't think it was worth the tangent so I'm glad you're bringing it up. Women's fashion is so much more varied in shape, size, style, and fit, and some of it even looks comfortable. As a matter of fact, if you search for high-rise trousers online, most of the results are precisely in the women's section. I think that will have to be my next stop, though it's a line to cross and somewhat of pill to swallow.

As an aside, I have said for a long time that I wish it was socially uncontroversial for a guy to wear a loose skirt or dress in public, and that if I found one I liked I would wear it all the time.

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

This is a premise I can get behind.

One of the silliest battles I have found myself fighting against society has been my search for comfortable yet attractive men's pants. I deeply dislike the restricting fit of modern pants, especially tighter fitting jeans, but also the semi-current fashion in suits and pants in general.

It may be that a catalyst for this conflict has been my anatomy. My thighs and butt are huge, compared to other guys of similar proportions, and so apparently they cannot be contained by modern fashions. Every time I try to put on a pair, they're either too loose in the waist, or too tight in the thighs, and always sit too low for my liking, digging into my groin if I force the belt to sit at my waist. And should i find a pair that feels acceptable at first, my optimism only lasts until I have to sit down and feel the edge of these clothes digging uncomfortably into my flesh, rekindling my hatred for these trends and their designers.

The current resolution to my woes has been Darcy Clothing's line of suspender pants[1], which I have had tailored after purchase to taper and fit my height. However, this look is quite jarring in a modern environment, so I tend to wear a sweater over the suspenders. Still, I sometimes need to take it off, and wearing something like this day in and out puts quite a label on you.

Still to this day I keep my eyes open, hoping that the pants of my desires will appear in a shop somewhere, or that trends will change, and we get style in service of comfort, instead of discomfort in service of style.

[1] https://www.darcyclothing.com/collections/mens-trousers

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

Me too, and I was disappointed to see this comment section mostly full of people either blaming the author or explaining why their experience actually makes sense.

It's like a positive feedback-loop (though I guess morally negative) between manufacturers, developers, and users, all three dragging/pushing on the other to roll down the hill of faster hardware and heavier apps, none of them really in control or able to stop, and therefore also not directly to blame. The upgrade-train to Waste City has no breaks. Still, it seems to me at least that the manufacturers are the only ones strictly happy about the situation.

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

"Permitted" is a strong word for activity enabled by a protocol. It implies some moral acceptance from the ones who designed the tool. I think a better word would be "possible". Similar to how e-mail makes it possible to send all kinds of content.

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

You are right to point that out, but I don't think the article is making a claim that its findings compose a recipe for exceptionalism. It actually seems very careful not to make any claims at all, except that it presents "a few of the patterns that have struck [the author] after having skimmed 42 biographies".

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

I've been surprised to find myself making multiple similar pivots over the years. A lot of what I dismissed in my younger years as lacking of intellectual merit, I have come around to value much more highly than I ever would have guessed.

It's funny, but dancing in particular has been my greatest fear for as long as I can remember, so I've always done my best to avoid situations where I'd be forced to do it. Not only did I not see the point or appeal, but I deeply dreaded the prospect of going on the dance floor.

As fears go, however, this one is quite innocent, and also fairly simple to face. And how empowering wouldn't it be, to overcome ones biggest obstacle? So not too long ago, when I was invited to a dance class by a group of friends, I decided I'd go, just the one time, as some sort of exposure therapy.

The dance was tango. As I had expected, I was anxious, stressed, and scared through the entire class (although it was very helpful having the excuse that it was my first day). What I did not expect was how fascinating the dance would turn out to be. How beautiful and elegant, yet also technical and structured. I saw our instructors dancing some dead simple improvised steps, and somehow, despite not being planned out at all, they were totally synchronized. There had to be some brain-to-brain communication going on, a sort of body language that I could not yet perceive or understand, but that I knew I wanted to learn.

That was six months ago, and since then I've gone to some sort of tango thing multiple times a week, every week I've been able to. I'm still nervous on my way to a class, and it takes a few dances to warm up and get loose each session, but I'm starting to enjoy it and feel like I'm actually dancing. In the process, I've come to understand more deeply what people mean when they say "there's more to life than X".

frodetb

3 lata temudiscuss

That's a pretty flimsy argument. Yes, you can map mathematical ideas onto concepts within different fields of study, but that's kind of the point. Mathematics aims to abstract away any such notions of where you might encounter the natural numbers or the reals, "in reality" or elsewhere. All you've persuaded me of here is that philosophy has a use for math.

frodetb

4 lata temudiscuss

"Don't eat much" is quite different from "don't eat at all for a period of time", both conceptually and in how they impact the body.

frodetb

4 lata temudiscuss

My friend shared some screenshots of ChatGPT giving a convincing response to the prompt

    > Outline a proof of the snake lemma

Satisfied with the output, my friend then asked it to outline a proof of the Riemann hypothesis, and rather than being tricked into gibberish maths jargon or miraculously producing such a proof, ChatGPT accurately and briefly summarized the hypothesis, explained some limitations of current knowledge and paths such a proof might take. It did a better job at it than I would have.

Because of these examples, even though they are examples of mathematics rather than computation, I don't think it's fair to be so dismissive. It's a bit of a well known fun fact that a lot of professional mathematicians are terrible at mental arithmetic.

frodetb

4 lata temudiscuss

I don't think that's accurate. One of the things that make incubation and choosing which startups to fund so difficult is precisely the lack of track record. According to Graham himself, when everyone involved with a startup are new to the scenes they're invading, you instead end up relying on such nebulous concepts as "imagination", "naughtyness"[1], or "earnestness"[2].

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

[2] http://www.paulgraham.com/earnest.html

frodetb

4 lata temudiscuss

It' uplifting to hear that these things can be managed and unlearned. I hate knowing that I am my own biggest obstacle in certain respects.

frodetb

4 lata temudiscuss

Goodhart's law strikes again.

frodetb

4 lata temudiscuss

I think this is a big one as well, and would go one step further and say that anyone no matter their place on the spectrum may fail at communication in this way. I bet most junior developers know what I mean, if they've sat in meetings with senior guys talking about something esoteric.

One simple trick, I think, is to avoid extensive use of pronouns. A sentence like "Because of that, it doesn't find it there" might be clear enough when you know the context, but is meaningless if you don't. Filling in "that", "it", "it", and "there" would help tremendously. It will make sentences awkward if you avoid them completely, of course, but I think sentences that contain nothing but pronouns are a red flag.

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