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Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#391

Post by xutopia »

peterhadlaw wrote: post #152
xutopia wrote: post #97

I know this is a little out of left field but I couldn't understand why anyone was Atheist until I read The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan... quickly followed by The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Those two books together crystallized in me what it could mean to have a world view absent of supernatural forces.

Being somewhat skeptic myself in my younger years and coming closer to God through my relationship with my girlfriend (who isn't even a believer herself)... I just recently came up with a hypothesis why so many Math and CS people were famously Atheist. I grew closer to God through just observing the natural world, and my natural relationship (affection, friendship, etc.). My hypothesis is that so many of these (incre…

I am still in awe at what time and nature is capable of producing and whenever I look at beauty or get contemplative and just take in what is in my surroundings. It's just that there are really great explanations for all of it without requiring the supernatural.

I bet you anything that you read those 2 books back to back and it will shake the foundation of your worldview to the core... of course that's if you actually feel like it can be challenged.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#392

Post by chris_wot »

tinco wrote: post #210
sureglymop wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logically speaking I do not follow. Why would it be the same? Why could it not be possible that different religious groups would have a different outcome "after living"? It's just as unprovable, no?

Yeah that's true. Though many (most?) religions believe their path/destination is the only true one, so believing there would be different outcomes for different groups would be a new religion those religions would vehemently disagree with. And of course that belief would be itself one of the possible final destinations of all the paths of which only one is true.

Out of interest, what makes you think that all religions lead to the same destination?

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#393

Post by chris_wot »

djrconcepts wrote: post #21

Julius Sumner Miller - Physics demonstrations I had been exposed to many of these physics concepts in school. Some of the topics never really clicked for me. Revisiting these physics topics with demonstrations brought clarity to several foundational concepts. Lots of moments of realization getting to view demonstrations of concepts like Force, Mass, Acceleration, and more. Newton and Bernoulli. While included, the se…

He used to be the spokesman for Cadbury.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwBceIbh5qc

He also shocked himself doing an experiment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkocaEcx26c

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#394

Post by bmitc »

xutopia wrote: post #97

I know this is a little out of left field but I couldn't understand why anyone was Atheist until I read The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan... quickly followed by The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Those two books together crystallized in me what it could mean to have a world view absent of supernatural forces.

> Those two books together crystallized in me what it could mean to have a world view absent of supernatural forces.

Could you elaborate on this? I don't consider myself religious or atheistic, and in general, I think religion and science are fundamentally two different things. Although, science in practice and as a human social structure can behave as a sort of religion, whether scientists want to believe that or not. (see Feyerabend). There is also spirituality, which is distinct from religion. A religion is often more of a social structure than it is a belief system.

To me, getting an answer to the existence or non-existence of a god or gods is would be as meaningless as an answer to what created the universe. Both answers, if even possible, would be about as meaningful as "it's turtles all the way down", because I don't see any end to the line of questioning of "so what came before?".

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#395

Post by luuuzeta »

philip_roberts wrote: post #347
luuuzeta wrote: post #148

I've been struggling with wrapping my head around asynchronous programming with callbacks, promises and async/await in JS, however I think it's finally clicking after watching these YouTube videos and creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else: * Philip Roberts's What the heck is the event loop anyway? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ * The Story of Asynchr…

Thanks for the shout out! I'm still amazed how well that talk struck a nerve and it's a real kick seeing people getting something out of it 8 (!) years later.

Wow small world! Thanks to you for taking the time to explore this topic and putting such a great presentation together. I'd wager it's a must-watch for anyone who keeps asking "what the heck is the event loop anyway?" haha

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#396

Post by AnimalMuppet »

bmitc wrote: post #394
xutopia wrote: post #97

I know this is a little out of left field but I couldn't understand why anyone was Atheist until I read The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan... quickly followed by The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Those two books together crystallized in me what it could mean to have a world view absent of supernatural forces.

> Those two books together crystallized in me what it could mean to have a world view absent of supernatural forces. Could you elaborate on this? I don't consider myself religious or atheistic, and in general, I think religion and science are fundamentally two different things. Although, science in practice and as a human social structure can behave as a sort of religion, whether scientists want to believe that or no…

> Both answers, if even possible, would be about as meaningful as "it's turtles all the way down", because I don't see any end to the line of questioning of "so what came before?".

The Biblical view is that God has always been. There never was a "before". And there is no "cause", either - you can't really have a cause without a "before".

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#397

Post by luuuzeta »

floppydiskette wrote: post #304
luuuzeta wrote: post #148

I've been struggling with wrapping my head around asynchronous programming with callbacks, promises and async/await in JS, however I think it's finally clicking after watching these YouTube videos and creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else: * Philip Roberts's What the heck is the event loop anyway? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ * The Story of Asynchr…

I wrote this one over the course of a few months that summarized everything I could think of on the topic - https://www.taniarascia.com/asynchronous-javascript-event-lo...

I've your blog bookmarked and I'll be reading it this weekend haha. Thanks for putting it together!

>Callbacks are not asynchronous by nature, but can be used for asynchronous purposes.

Glad you mention this because some people make it since like callbacks are a de-facto asynchronous-based concept. Callbacks are simply anonymous functions or lambdas that you pass to asynchronous functions so you can work with the produced values. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#398

Post by luuuzeta »

ericbarrett wrote: post #276
luuuzeta wrote: post #148

I've been struggling with wrapping my head around asynchronous programming with callbacks, promises and async/await in JS, however I think it's finally clicking after watching these YouTube videos and creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else: * Philip Roberts's What the heck is the event loop anyway? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ * The Story of Asynchr…

> creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else Tangentially, that is a marvelous way to learn something. I often find that in explaining a complex topic I uncover gaps in my own understanding.

I've realized it's so easy to read or watch something and fool yourself into thinking that you know the topic.

For example, coming up with your examples helps a lot. For instance, I found most of the examples quite underwhelming and confusing so I ended up creating my own asynchronous functions to demonstrate the concepts as I go along.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#399

Post by bmitc »

oytis wrote: post #70

Anand Agarwal's edx course on electronics made me finally get some understanding of the topic after years of struggling over Horrowitz/Hill and the like. Was also free back in the day.

That's a damn good book and course, from what I've read and taken of it. I'd like to go back and complete it to refresh some knowledge and learn a lot of new things.

Re: Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?

#400

Post by luuuzeta »

andrewstuart wrote: post #259
luuuzeta wrote: post #148

I've been struggling with wrapping my head around asynchronous programming with callbacks, promises and async/await in JS, however I think it's finally clicking after watching these YouTube videos and creating a document where I explain these concepts as if I'm teaching them to someone else: * Philip Roberts's What the heck is the event loop anyway? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGhZQkoFbQ * The Story of Asynchr…

async programming IS hard to get your head around. The resources you suggest are spot on. AND, async programming will really only click when you do lots of it. Read tons of async resources like the ones above, write lots of async code. One day you'll realise it's second nature.

Thanks a lot, I'll keep this in mind and try to write as much async code as possible.

>One day you'll realise it's second nature.

This is great but then the curse of knowledge hits you hard haha

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