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82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

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Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In most places in the USA / the rest of the world -- it's a 'swipe and go' sort of deal. In most of EU you never swipe. I have swiped maybe 2x in my life and only because the chip did not work. (The swipe then did not work either...) You either use chip/pin or contactless and pin over 20eur

In most places the magstrip is disabled (both on the cards and in the readers) because it's insecure and there was a lot of low-effort cloning going around.

The hardware to clone magstripe cards is shockingly cheap and easy to get hold of.

I was tickled a few years ago when Samsung tried to roll out mobile payments in the US and had to include a kind of hardware magnetic stripe emulator in their phones, chip & pin is nowhere near ubiquitous yet.

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#182
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder the same thing trying to learn a new language. I notice the biggest difference between me and a child is that children don't care about messing up. Meanwhile I often have this worthless apprehension of "better not practice Spanish on these Spanish speakers, I might mess up and feel stupid." I tried to learn Spanish like I learned how to program. Now I'm living proof that you can become good enough to read bo…

I suspect adults learn languages a lot faster than kids, when we spend the same amount of time being exposed & practicing. All the polyglots say you have to be willing to mess up a lot and work to shed your fear of feeling stupid. In fact, try to seek it out because that's the primary way you get feedback & learn.

> I suspect adults learn languages a lot faster than kids, when we spend the same amount of time being exposed & practicing.

In linguistics, it's pretty well accepted that kids learn languages faster than adults for neurological reasons, with considerable research support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#183

I wonder how much of brain elasticity in as adults is just due to attitude. I generally find kids more eager to jump into new things, while adults are more stubborn and complacent towards new experiences. Once you have money or kids it's a lot easier to just have someone else do it for you. Still, at 82 I imagine most people will start developing issues with memory so it probably isn't an easy feat, and she's found m…

Coming from the chess world, I suspect your hypothesis is correct. I've taught adults and children and all else being equal adults learn and improve vastly faster than children. But the all else being equal part is the catch. Adults often don't put as much effort into the work as children and a big problem is preconceptions that people have difficulty letting go of. I also consider myself some slight degree of proof…

Tango you might be another fantastic exception to add to the small list of late starters who got to GM level such as John K. Shaw and Jonathan Hawkins.

However I suspect that everything else being equal children do have a higher skill ceiling because there are very few late achievers in chess.

An experiment would be needed, take a group of 10 year olds, 20 year olds and 30 year olds and immerse them in intensive 5 year course of study.

I would wager that the 10 year olds as a group would have progressed further.

Why do I say so? Because, it is incredibly hard as an adult to obtain the so called unconscious mastery in any field. (Ie what Gladwell alluded to in 'Blink'). It is the pattern recognition that's been alluded by many.

With kids this can happen, 'the jump' so to speak. With adults I've not seen it happen in almost 40 years of playing chess at a decent level(FM).

I remember it somehow clicking for me at 14 for chess. It is the level when you do not have to think and you can make a good move. It was the level when I realized I could keep up with IMs.

Of course you need both pattern recognition(GM-RAM) and the ability to calculate. Ability to calculate can be trained, but it is also part of talent/ability.

Among my kids and nephews only one has that ability.

Are you going to tell me that among your adult students all have the raw ability/potential to make master?

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seriously, the field needs more role models like Grace Hopper to idolize rather than our current trend of Jobs, Gates, Woz, Knuth, etc. How about not idolising anyone? Those role models you list are each admired for completely different reasons. What's wrong with them? At the moment your comment seems sexist.

Right. Sexist. Okay. I'll bite. Since I'm clearly in the wrong here, I'll let you explain to minorities, women, and non-gendered people why there aren't any people in the engineering limelight that look like them. While you're at it, please figure out how to break into their subconscious to make them believe that they're capable while the rest of the world shows no clues of that. I'll be waiting.

I don't get the current obsession with sexism in IT. Are you not at all concerned about other fields such as nursing, human resources, and teaching?

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#185
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how a lot of people assume that companies can only ever work with investor money...

Did you mean to reply to a different comment?

I was mainly hinting at the following:

“but investors usually know who the entrepreneurs, and major clients and vendors and joint-venture partners“

Not every company/startup is dependent on investors or joint ventures.

Building something and putting it out there. Grow by demand. Get buy offers by your ACTUAL performance, not by some investor money -> PR stunt -> hypetrain -> overestimation.

I don't even mean to attack you. I just get the feeling that the general audience here assumes that an investor is NECESSARY for success

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seriously, the field needs more role models like Grace Hopper to idolize rather than our current trend of Jobs, Gates, Woz, Knuth, etc. How about not idolising anyone? Those role models you list are each admired for completely different reasons. What's wrong with them? At the moment your comment seems sexist.

Right. Sexist. Okay. I'll bite. Since I'm clearly in the wrong here, I'll let you explain to minorities, women, and non-gendered people why there aren't any people in the engineering limelight that look like them. While you're at it, please figure out how to break into their subconscious to make them believe that they're capable while the rest of the world shows no clues of that. I'll be waiting.

Even if I knew any of the answers, why should I explain anything to anyone? I'm not going to apologise for having been born looking like people I admire.

Why would I want to convince someone that they can do something? What if they can't? Did you try to convince your plumber that he might be good at carpentry last time you saw him?

At the end of the day, I don't care whether Jobs, Gates, Woz, and Knuth have penises or not. For some reason you do and I think you should be the one to explain yourself.

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Sexist. Okay. I'll bite. Since I'm clearly in the wrong here, I'll let you explain to minorities, women, and non-gendered people why there aren't any people in the engineering limelight that look like them. While you're at it, please figure out how to break into their subconscious to make them believe that they're capable while the rest of the world shows no clues of that. I'll be waiting.

Even if I knew any of the answers, why should I explain anything to anyone? I'm not going to apologise for having been born looking like people I admire. Why would I want to convince someone that they can do something? What if they can't? Did you try to convince your plumber that he might be good at carpentry last time you saw him? At the end of the day, I don't care whether Jobs, Gates, Woz, and Knuth have penises o…

I'm not sure if your comment is intentionally obtuse. Nobody is asking you to apologise for being born the majority, and if that's what you took from the parent comment then that's very silly.

Equating gender and profession, also, is very silly.

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I knew any of the answers, why should I explain anything to anyone? I'm not going to apologise for having been born looking like people I admire. Why would I want to convince someone that they can do something? What if they can't? Did you try to convince your plumber that he might be good at carpentry last time you saw him? At the end of the day, I don't care whether Jobs, Gates, Woz, and Knuth have penises o…

I'm not sure if your comment is intentionally obtuse. Nobody is asking you to apologise for being born the majority, and if that's what you took from the parent comment then that's very silly. Equating gender and profession, also, is very silly.

The comment is essentially saying that if I do great things and become a role model then I'm not welcome because we already have plenty that "look like me".

What else am I supposed to read?

I never equated gender and profession so that comment looks completely out of place.

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if your comment is intentionally obtuse. Nobody is asking you to apologise for being born the majority, and if that's what you took from the parent comment then that's very silly. Equating gender and profession, also, is very silly.

The comment is essentially saying that if I do great things and become a role model then I'm not welcome because we already have plenty that "look like me". What else am I supposed to read? I never equated gender and profession so that comment looks completely out of place.

> The comment is essentially saying that if I do great things and become a role model then I'm not welcome because we already have plenty that "look like me".

The comment isn't about you at all. The OP said we need more role models like Grace Hopper and less like Jobs, Woz, etc. Reading this as "White men should stop aspiring to become future role models" is silly, it's about a desire to increase the diversity of tech role models. It really just sounds like you're playing the victim here, for no real reason?

Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment is essentially saying that if I do great things and become a role model then I'm not welcome because we already have plenty that "look like me". What else am I supposed to read? I never equated gender and profession so that comment looks completely out of place.

> The comment is essentially saying that if I do great things and become a role model then I'm not welcome because we already have plenty that "look like me". The comment isn't about you at all. The OP said we need more role models like Grace Hopper and less like Jobs, Woz, etc. Reading this as "White men should stop aspiring to become future role models" is silly, it's about a desire to increase the diversity of tec…

Come on. If the post wasn't about that then why does it specifically call out four male role models? It could have just left it at Grace Hopper, but no. The post contains more negative than positive by far.
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