Sure this kind of posts get pretty annoying. As the author keeps repeating "existential longing" I want to yell "get over it already" or "stop smoking pot".
But then I remember that I have my moments too. It's not everyday, but I definitely have times where I look at the mundanity of programming. Today, making these pages render in a few milliseconds gets me excited, but the other day I was watching a live feed from the international space station and simply switched the channel. Because what's is the damn point.
I don't find these posts meaningless. And don't be too quick to judge. Today it is him/her, tomorrow it is you!
I swear there was no pot involved whatsoever, though if there had been, I'm certain you'd have been spared of the annoyance of yet another 'Why am I here/Everything is meaningless' piece.
I'm not saying writing this kind of piece is bad. I want to read them, and they are a good reminder that sometimes we get caught up in our little rituals and take it way too seriously.
The fact that I was annoyed was exactly the point. I have my own days where I feel like all I am doing is meaningless, and in those days reading a post like this actually inspires me because I know I'm not alone in this feeling.
Maybe I didn't express myself correctly on the previous comment, but in no way telling you to shut up. Just saying that today you are the one feeling like this. Tomorrow, it will be me.
Just to see, I threw in a burner email. Not only do you give your email, but you're forced to make an entire account with demographic data[1]. If you navigate back, you're presented with that modal again. You never get to see the data without entering everything. If you try, you get an error in the modal with the zip code highlighted [2].
No big deal - just throw in a fake zip, right? Nope! Everything must be completed[3].
Yup. I typically do these things with entirely fictitious numbers before (sorry Marketing Community Managers if I screwed up your results) to see the entire workflow and stopped at the email/linkedin thing. For me at least LinkedIn already has a really bad reputation for exploiting the crap out of your information so I immediately cringe when people try to link to it or use it (same with the Evernote business card scanning service).
Shapov, there is logic and algorithms that prevent bad data from entering the data set. The data you entered for example would not go into the data set.
Since this is HN, it may be a good idea to port this to the tech community:
> Keeping up with the latest framework
I interviewed at a company that jumped on Silverlight on the very first day because they wanted to be "edgy". One of the interviewers was telling me how they used all resources to convert their enterprise CMS. But now most people left and they are having a hard time finding people who can convert it back.
Social status and programming tools are really comparable. Programming tools evolve so fast and they do help you, as more things are abstracted. However, there is still a necessity to to things the traditional way sometimes.
What I find interesting is how everyone has already accepted that antioxidants are amazing against cancer. Now with this information will be resisted and fought, whether it is true or false.
Every health nut (or enthusiast) praised antioxidants and will hold on to the belief because they already believed it for so long.
We don't believe in facts, we believe in whatever advertisers have exposed to us everyday on tv, radio, internet, and so on.
Wait, everyone accepted what now? Prior to reading this article, I was of the belief that there had already been randomized controlled trials showing that antioxidant supplements increased all-cause mortality, mostly from cancer, and that this had a known mechanism (oxidative stress kills cancer cells more than it kills regular cells).
One of the problems is that facts are usually presented in the most boring ways, think lectures. Facts, should be spread the same way. Using propaganda, using sex, using means as creative as those who decide to spread false information.
Next time you watch a speech by Donald Trump, don't look at him, look at the faces of the people behind him. He is winning them emotionally, not factually.
Maybe all scientists and researchers should take classes in creative writing, fiction, and speech.
That's why I think Gravity, Interstellar and The Martian are the best things that happened for space popularization since 1987 (Star Trek: The Next Generation). They cleared out tons of misconceptions people have about space, while introducing very little of their own (Gravity being the biggest offender) - and they did it in a way that captured the interest of general population. I like the trend of making realistic science fiction, and I hope it continues.
> Maybe all scientists and researchers should take classes in creative writing, fiction, and speech.
There's a risk with going too far with that though. A scientist who makes their writing too creative can do more harm than good to the domain, and to public perception of science. The risk increases exponentially if the work is being managed by a creative director - they'll likely take liberties with accuracy in order to make the work more general-population-friendly. Science is a hard thing to explain right. Yes, quite a lot of even the most advanced concepts can be presented simply, but it's a very delicate and precise work, if you want the simplification to be right, and not misleading.
--
As for space education, Kerbal Space Program is absolutely the best thing ever. It's hard to even count the number of people 12 y.o. and less who are proficient in basic orbital mechanics, math included, thanks to this game. Seeing kids talking about Δv budgets and orbital transfers really warms my heart. The game's realism, combined with fun setting and identifiable characters, makes it a perfect vehicle for teaching physics intuition that is hard to acquire even for professionals. And the best thing? It even teaches hard math the right way!
You don't have to know or learn any math to play KSP and have fun. You can literally eyeball your Mun mission. But as you play you quickly discover the benefits of learning a bit of theory. It makes your rockets more efficient. It makes your maneuvers better. It helps you understand why your ship seems to go away from your space station when you accelerate towards it. Soon, your game turns from this[0] to this[1] (via mods, and yes, all those numbers and plots mean something to you).
As Farley Mowat, the Canadian novelist, said: "I never let the facts get in the way of the truth!"
Also relevant: Lee McIntyre's book on willful ignorance in the Internet age. With so many facts readily at hand, the flip side of agnotology is an audience who decides to stay ignorant in the face of contrary facts.
For instance: the fact is that 32,727 people died from terrorist attacks worldwide in 2014.
The truth is that this is number is insignificant. Over 55 million people died in 2014.
The truth is also that we fear what we feel is random more than what we feel is the result of our actions. We are disproportionately afraid of black swan events. This is why terrorism is so effective despite being an irrelevant statistical blimp.
Facts are just facts. Truth is the interpretation of facts.
> This is why terrorism is so effective despite being an irrelevant statistical blimp.
Is it effective? What are the criteria by which one could judge?
I lived half my life in England while the IRA was active, I have a friend who was in a building in London when the IRA threatened to blow it up (it wasn't an empty threat, the device was in place and armed). Neither of us lose any sleep over it.
My children have friends and acquaintances who were shot at Utøya (we live not far away). None of them are letting the event stop them being politically active.
But if I read English language newspapers like the Daily Mail now I am bombarded with 'terrorism' related 'news' and the newspaper tries very hard to give the impression that everyone is really worried.
People are not that worried in terms of actual expectations. I doubt many people in the West are seriously afraid of getting blown up or shot on their way to work. I remember being terribly worried after the Towers fell; the fear lasted maybe a week or three. You learn to ignore it if you want to function properly in the society.
But, the fear is very well alive and visible when it comes to more abstract issues, like policy decisions. Should we invade the Middle East or not? Should we kick out Muslims or not? Should we hate immigrants or not? Should we let the government surveil us more or not? The general population's answer to all of that seems to be a resounding "yes". And the attacks that happen every now and then make things harder for those who disagree.
Is it effective? What are the criteria by which one could judge?
I lived half my life in England while the IRA was active, I have a friend who was in a building in London when the IRA threatened to blow it up (it wasn't an empty threat, the device was in place and armed). Neither of us lose any sleep over it.
Did the IRA achieve the restoration of the 32-county republic declared in 1916 and ratified in 1919? No. But they did get a devolved administration, with power-sharing guarantees to prevent the domination of one community by the other and with their political wing holding nearly a third of the seats in its legislature and nearly a third of the positions in its executive.
I see your point and I agree. I understood your wrongly. Thanks for the clarification.
So another example would be relative effects in medical and nutritional studies. That the red meat was correlated with 3-fold increase of cancer in some tests is absolutely meaningless. What matters is the absolute size, because the 3x increase from 0.0001% chance to 0.0003% is something not worth even pausing a breath about.
The risk of getting only colorectal cancer is almost 5% and dying from that cancer - 2%.
The total risk of getting any cancer is about 40% and dying from a cancer - 20%. Many of the cancers are significantly affected by healthy (or not) lifestyle/eating/drinking/etc..
I'd say your post is a perfect example of spreading of ignorance even when the Google is just one click away.
To the comment below: it seems you again ignored the chance to google for the info, in particular for the link between prostate cancer and red meat/obesity/etc. The same goes for breast cancer too. Even when specifically pointed out to easy available source of clear info, you still continue to spread ignorance.
I didn't imply I was using actual numbers. I was trying to clarify an issue. But since you ask.
The last study that made people panic about meat[0][1] estimated an increase of 18% of the chance you'll get colorectal cancer. Using your data, it means the rate of getting that cancer rises from 5% to 5.9% and the risk of dying from it rises from 2% to 2.36%. That is not a significant increase.
> The total risk of getting any cancer is about 40% and dying from a cancer - 20%. Many of the cancers are significantly affected by healthy (or not) lifestyle/eating/drinking/etc..
Well, it's important to qualify precisely. The list you provided shows that the dominant part of the 40%/20% stat is prostate (15%/2.7%) and breast cancer (12%/3%), followed by lung cancer (7%/6%). That's about 1/2 of your the risk of developing and dying from cancer accounted for in stuff not directly related to food and beverages. The rest is spread among other cancer types (turns out there's quite a lot of them) with most of them having rates below 3%/1%, so still, even 2-fold increase in risk of getting a particular type of cancer doesn't mean much.
And the fact is that the human brain uses utility-weighted sampling, which causes us to systematically over-consider "black swan events" that proceed to never happen.
Pray you never do. This is the sort of pointless "metric" that is used by clueless management to withold a raise for the "underperforming" programmer who spends his time tracking down critical bugs with minimal code changes rather than producing volumes of new code.
Tell them that you would like to show them a pie chart of how many lines of code your team removed. Find a team member who removed 2000 lines of code, then promote them and give them a big payrise. Nickname them "Bill".
Most (all) programmers I socialize with seem to get paid for results, not lines of code.
For some reason though, a few of them build things that are way more complex than they need to be for no better reason (as far as I can tell) that they like doing so.
But then I remember that I have my moments too. It's not everyday, but I definitely have times where I look at the mundanity of programming. Today, making these pages render in a few milliseconds gets me excited, but the other day I was watching a live feed from the international space station and simply switched the channel. Because what's is the damn point.
I don't find these posts meaningless. And don't be too quick to judge. Today it is him/her, tomorrow it is you!