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A week-long programming retreat

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Re: A week-long programming retreat

#81

Post by chooseaname »

michaelmcmillan wrote: post #53
justonepost wrote: post #26

Pretty awesome! If I ever had to say the one thing that differentiates successful people from unsuccessful people it wouldn't be intelligence, or even perseverance, or passion. It'd be focus. With focus, you can be amazingly successful in so many types of occupations. (That being said, passion / perseverance / intelligence can often lead to focus)

IQ tests seem to suggest otherwise.

Are these even legitimate? If a person can paint a masterpiece but can barely balance their checkbook, IQ tests won't show their mastery in painting, only their mediocrity in math.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#82

Post by leblancfg »

michaelmcmillan wrote: post #53
justonepost wrote: post #26

Pretty awesome! If I ever had to say the one thing that differentiates successful people from unsuccessful people it wouldn't be intelligence, or even perseverance, or passion. It'd be focus. With focus, you can be amazingly successful in so many types of occupations. (That being said, passion / perseverance / intelligence can often lead to focus)

IQ tests seem to suggest otherwise.

To be fair, I've never heard of a focus test.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#83

Post by [deleted] »

purple-again wrote: post #47
swang wrote: post #42

I find it peculiar about people's continued good feelings towards Carmack. During the Zenimax/Oculus case: He claimed that he never wiped his hard drive: An independent court expert found that most of his hard drive was wiped after Carmack heard about the lawsuit. So Carmack lied in his affidavit. He claimed that no source code from Zenimax ever got transferred over to Oculus. Then later admitted that the emails he h…

He doesn't. He is in the wrong. I just don't care. I'm in the wrong every time I pack a bowl of weed. Still don't care. I understand why John doesn't own the fruit of his labor. I understand why John is willing to lie, cheat, and steal the people benefiting from the system that takes the fruit of his labor from him. If you don't like it, build a better system that prevents it.

[deleted]

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#85

Post by gigatexal »

gtsteve wrote: post #50
gigatexal wrote: post #12

The man is a genius but why openBSD? FreeBSD would have been my choice.

I've never used a *BSD but perhaps you could say why you think FreeBSD is superior to openBSD?

I have used both and found them equally consistent. But maybe my usage was superficial and I missed something.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#86

Post by petercooper »

leblancfg wrote: post #82
michaelmcmillan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ tests seem to suggest otherwise.

To be fair, I've never heard of a focus test.

They're not called that, but they do exist. I recently went through a full day's testing for issues relating to autism and a number of the tests related to ability to hold focus rather than skill, per se.

One I recall vividly was basically a page full of weird symbols and a "key" at the top mapping symbols to numbers. I had to go through the whole page converting the entire page and various elements of my performance (variance of speed, attention, etc.) were measured during the task. This does not really correlate to what I'd consider focus or "flow" during typical programming tasks, however, but it did try my patience! :-)

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#87

Post by mattmanser »

bitwize wrote: post #64
panic wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Carmack has a history of unethical behavior. From the book "Masters of Doom": > Late one night Carmack and his friends snuck up to a nearby school where they knew there were Apple II machines. Carmack had read about how a thermite paste could be used to melt through glass, but he needed some kind of adhesive material, like Vaseline. He mixed the concoction and applied it to the window, dissolving the glass so t…

Carmack: Breaks into a building at age 14, steals a bit of code today. "Oh, he has a history of unethical behavior, we shouldn't look up to him." Bill Gates: Steals a bulldozer to race with his buddies at age 19(?), is responsible for Microsoft's corporate culture and history of predatory behavior. Hackernews loves him and can't get enough of Microsoft. Boy, they're a fair sight better than Google, eh lads? I pity th…

In the early years of HN people still used M$ and other microsoft slurs. The feelings have soften in recent years, way after Bill Gates had left.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=M$&sort=byPopularity&prefix&pa...

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#88

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

"I initially got backprop wrong both times, comparison with numerical differentiation was critical! It is interesting that things still train even when various parts are pretty wrong — as long as the sign is right most of the time, progress is often made."

That is the bane of doing probabilistic code. Errors show up not as clear cut wrong values or crashes but as subtle biases. You are always wondering, even when it is kinda working, is it REALLY working or did I miss a crucial variable initialization somewhere?

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#89

Post by hackerman12345 »

hobofan wrote: post #66
unixhero wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does he get a free pass on this?) Why should I care? The guy is an absolute legend.

Ah yes, the good old social structure that is sustained by people being "absolute legends".

Well, people with #timesup and #metoo lapel pins did just vote up Kobe Bryant to win an Oscar.

Re: A week-long programming retreat

#90

Post by JamesBarney »

chooseaname wrote: post #81
michaelmcmillan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ tests seem to suggest otherwise.

Are these even legitimate? If a person can paint a masterpiece but can barely balance their checkbook, IQ tests won't show their mastery in painting, only their mediocrity in math.

Yes, the research showing that the average high iq individual is more successful than the average low individual, is as deep and broad as the ocean.
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