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Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

johnsalvatier.org

81–90 of 120 posts

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#81

I had a similar experience while visiting my parents recently. Sitting at the kitchen table my mom mentioned they had a small weed problem, and my initial reaction was "No, your yard is fine" because I hadn't noticed any weeds. After saying that though, I went and walked around their yard and noticed many details I never had before. There were multiple broadleaf weeds including different phases of dandelion and some…

This also probably implies that they are the only ones who notice the "problem" with their lawn. :-)

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#82
post #42
post #30

I really like the essay but I think there is a form of Stockholm syndrome playing out especially with the following statements: > using a Haskell package for the first time, and being frustrated by how many annoying snags there were > If you’re a programmer, you might think that the fiddliness of programming is a special feature of programming, but really it’s that everything is fiddly, but you only notice the fiddli…

I agree that we can build better tools. I think what is missing in software is wholistic developer tooling and longevity of that tooling, such that we can invest in mastering them. UPM is a great example of a step in the right direction I think. When you go into a carpentry workshop, there are hundreds of tools, all designed to work on wood, and a carpenter will know the majority of their tools quite well. They can i…

I have personally stumbled upon this paradigm (value craftsmanship on tools that will have a relevant shelf life), and I credit my ongoing satisfaction with my career to this, at least in part.

Without getting into details and specifics, something I highly enjoy doing, I'm referring to things like Vim, tmux, unix utilities and software, various Linux administration knowledge. Various electronics concepts. I now consciously and deeply evaluate a potential skill to learn based on how likely it is going to improve my life in the long term.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#83

I agree a lot with this author, but after being in software for a long time, it still feels like one of the unique problems of software is we keep changing the details . I imagine constructing stairs is largely the same as it was 50 years ago. Most web development pretty much does the same thing as it did 20 years ago, but almost all the details have changed. So as a programmer it gets frustrating having to learn all…

A real world construction and software construction each has remarkable amount of detail. The thing is that things like stairs or pizza dough or other real world things have approaches that might be hard but follow specific principles, have their qualities circumscribed so to speak.

A given computer program is often stupidly easy, much easier than building a staircase really. But often, what's involved in the computer program is fundamentally new in contrast to the way each staircase is only somewhat new.

That situation gives programming it's wild, messy, unpredictable quality.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#84
post #60
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need both. It's unfortunate that we separate out the two. It wasn't until the second semester of my third year of my accounting degree that we actually had a project where we would get fake checks we had to enter into the books, fill out, and put in a folder called "mailed." This should have been day 1 and we should have learned what it was we were doing as we were doing it. And this should have prepared us for s…

>For me, I flunked out of math my entire life until I learned coding and was able to find the answers to "what is this used for?" so I could put it into context. When all I used math for was wetlab biology work I found it tedious and annoying. Teaching myself how to code (for data analysis) made me go from disliking maths to loving it. It is easy to see how powerful and beautiful math is now.

This feels like me with category theory and types. Once I learned an ML (OCaml) I understood the power of types and higher level abstractions. I think people also confuse mathematics with arithmetic. I dislike the latter (much better automated than manually done) and love the former.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#85

I had a similar experience while visiting my parents recently. Sitting at the kitchen table my mom mentioned they had a small weed problem, and my initial reaction was "No, your yard is fine" because I hadn't noticed any weeds. After saying that though, I went and walked around their yard and noticed many details I never had before. There were multiple broadleaf weeds including different phases of dandelion and some…

Maybe it wasn't a small problem with weeds so much as a problem with small weeds (which you didn't see until walking around ;) )

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am, sort of, doing an apprenticeship right now. We are building an indoor aquaponics pilot (290 m2/3100 sqft facility). Aquaponics is growing fish, bacteria and vegetables in a recirculating water based system. We are doing this “from scratch” (obviously buying pumps, sensors, tanks etc of the shelf). At the same time I am learning aquaculture (growing fish) in a formal two semester course, as well as reading a bun…

That sounds incredibly interesting, do you have a site for the project?

Nothing in English yet, a we so far are aiming at local production with local customers. But this site will have at least partial translations. Working on a build log right now.

http://cirkularodling.se/

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#87

When I first read the title, I understood it more philosophically. As in––why is most of outer space just endless, indistinguishable dust, while here on Earth there's just so much _stuff_! There's nothing simple about reality at all. It's boundlessly complex and intricate for apparently no reason at all. It seems intuitively simpler that less "stuff" should exist. Another way of putting it: even if a supreme being di…

I find the refrigerator and McDonald's bathroom stall both to be a fairly straightforward metaphysical deduction from the generation of life on this planet and its consequent blossoming of civilization. Both of those things are byproducts that support the functional needs of humans which are the ultimate result of evolutionary dynamics in carbon based life forms found on the planet.

These things which are crazy complex (which you did not pick particularly complex examples of, better examples might be quantum computers or nuclear reactors, but that's ok) are a natural result of the process that evolution kicked off (this is the accident that you refer to) that allowed people to be a thing, which, when they do their thing results in astounding advancements that necessitate complex designs to fulfill their function. I personally don't believe there needs to be a better reason to explain why we have refrigerators, mcdonald's bathroom stalls, quantum computers, and nuclear reactors other than "because we can". That is to say, once humans became capable of inventing those things, it was inevitable that they would proliferate.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#88

This is why I think people should still learn their job through hands-on apprenticeship, as opposed to a lot of book-learning in the classroom. In fact I think people do still learn their jobs that way. It's just delayed by several years of book-learning that has little return on investment. When you finally land your job, your first few months are when you really start learning enough to become useful. Disclaimer: I…

I am, sort of, doing an apprenticeship right now. We are building an indoor aquaponics pilot (290 m2/3100 sqft facility). Aquaponics is growing fish, bacteria and vegetables in a recirculating water based system. We are doing this “from scratch” (obviously buying pumps, sensors, tanks etc of the shelf). At the same time I am learning aquaculture (growing fish) in a formal two semester course, as well as reading a bun…

Would love to learn more about this. Any resources you can recommend?

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am, sort of, doing an apprenticeship right now. We are building an indoor aquaponics pilot (290 m2/3100 sqft facility). Aquaponics is growing fish, bacteria and vegetables in a recirculating water based system. We are doing this “from scratch” (obviously buying pumps, sensors, tanks etc of the shelf). At the same time I am learning aquaculture (growing fish) in a formal two semester course, as well as reading a bun…

Would love to learn more about this. Any resources you can recommend?

Depends on which level you start.

The FAO small scale aquaponics manual http://www.fao.org/in-action/globefish/publications/details-...

The Aquaponics Farmer (some quibbles, don’t sterilise the water with UV constantly) https://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Farmer-Complete-Operating-C...

Commercial Aquaponics systems, Wil Leonard (the book and other resources) http://www.aquaponic.com.au/index.htm

Small scale mealworm farming https://www.mealwormfarming.org/

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