Here's the full thread by way of Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/fa.linux.kernel/uhah96NhtAA/...
And on lkml.org: https://lkml.org/lkml/2000/8/23/97
Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
71–80 of 371 posts
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but if a test is designed to be taken with a calculator, not bringing one is an invitation to disaster (especially if the test is timed), because the arithmetic is probably not designed to be easy. I once forgot a calculator in my discrete math class and ended up having to do long division in the test margins.
Believe me I've been there before. My point was rather that I think the person who was giving the test was wrong to offer that students use calculators.
That calculators are used on the AP calc test isn't exactly one teacher's decision, though.
(I actually did the same thing on mine, but fortunately extra calculators were provided, possibly because of their past experiences with students pulling this kind of stunt).
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#73I'm not gifted, I'm actually pretty dumb. Can anyone help a stupid normal person relate to this article?
I never studied up to my second year of college.
I took geometry in my first year of high school and struck a deal with the teacher that if I got an A on every test I wouldn't need to turn in any homework. I never took notes.
I entered college passing several AP tests and jumped right in to advanced math and physics courses.
I started getting cocky and would skip a week of classes at a time.
Eventually I met a course that I couldn't think my way out of, thermodynamics. There was something about it I couldn't wrap my head around. I failed the midterm and decided not to show up for the final. Electricity and magnetism was no picnic either. I got a D in that one.
I had hit rock bottom. I eventually had to leave this college and start over with a fresh outlook to do the work and try to enjoy it.
I still never took notes in class but I did all the coursework. Eventually I earned a BS in computer science.
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#74For those curious about the context: https://lkml.org/lkml/2000/8/23/97 Note that noone replied to Eric and the thread continued on. Also go back and read some of Linus's posts before this. Eric writes using vague generalizations about age and experience; Linus writes with specifics about his experience with the kernel. The former style makes for popularly read posts but the latter seems much more effective. Also, co…
Yes, I came here looking for that. The lack of any specifics about the kernel issue at hand and the general attempt to project Age and Wisdom made me immediately suspicious.
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#75Anyone explain what "splitting a driver" in kernel parlance and code sharing is? Modularization is just breaking large pieces of the program up into small pieces right? Is code sharing just the same thing or are they talking about something different?
[deleted]
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#76Interestingly enough: "He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great. Failure is the test of greatness." -Herman Melville
This is quite true. The best thing I ever did to preserve and improve my brain was find things, really hard things, about which I was passionate. It's not so much about studying as it is about finding subjects and venues of learning that just kick your ass. If you don't have the experience of getting your intellectual butt kicked, and if you don't have the ability to learn from the experience, you can only grow so mu…
Thanks for posting this. I've taken up studying statistics and machine learning lately after having never faced any challenging quantitative classes in college (I studied a liberal art). Lately I have been struggling with linear algebra and started to wonder if perhaps I'm just intellectually mediocre and not able to accomplish my dream of working in machine learning, even though I really enjoy learning about it. You've given me something to think about.
Also, stepping back and reflecting upon what I've learned even in just the past few months has helped put things in perspective; the stuff that I'm learning now would have been completely unintelligible to me then. Suffering from the "curse of the gifted" I never really learned how to study and often get easily discouraged, but I see now that I just need to keep focused and not give up so easily.
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#77Interestingly enough: "He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great. Failure is the test of greatness." -Herman Melville
Has Linus ever really failed? It's pretty amazing how young he was to have developed the Linux kernel, in comparison to other open source authors (like creators of Perl/Python/Ruby/etc. who were at least a decade older).
I read his biography "Just For Fun" and it says he basically spent his entire childhood messing with computers. But it doesn't seem like he really failed as an adult. People like Andy Tanenbaum kept telling him he would fail -- i.e. the kernel would reach a point where complexity prevents further change, which is actually an extremely common failure mode for software. But with hindsight they were wrong.
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is quite true. The best thing I ever did to preserve and improve my brain was find things, really hard things, about which I was passionate. It's not so much about studying as it is about finding subjects and venues of learning that just kick your ass. If you don't have the experience of getting your intellectual butt kicked, and if you don't have the ability to learn from the experience, you can only grow so mu…
And in grad school, you can salt this with wondering where your next meal is coming from and camping out under your office desk!
Ah yes, I jumped into a PhD program after the college experience. That's a great butt-kicking too, because suddenly you are responsible for justifying anything and everything you might say or write about something.
At least I learned how to live on far less than 20K a year. I mean, it was the 90's, and it was in new Jersey, but that still wasn't a fortune (and I had a bad book buying habit).
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but if a test is designed to be taken with a calculator, not bringing one is an invitation to disaster (especially if the test is timed), because the arithmetic is probably not designed to be easy. I once forgot a calculator in my discrete math class and ended up having to do long division in the test margins.
Believe me I've been there before. My point was rather that I think the person who was giving the test was wrong to offer that students use calculators.
Since 1995, the AP Calculus exam has been designed to require a graphing calculator.
In my opinion, that's silly, as none of the 3 semesters of college calculus I took allowed the use of a calculator, but that's the test that was mentioned.
Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)
#80Anyone explain what "splitting a driver" in kernel parlance and code sharing is? Modularization is just breaking large pieces of the program up into small pieces right? Is code sharing just the same thing or are they talking about something different?
I believe in this case that the driver existed as one piece or module and each hardware version was handled as a different case in branch logic in an attempt to keep the code consolidated and modular (code sharing). As the hardware matured and new versions came to be it gets harder to reuse existing code and that's the context of this thread.
Linus wants to split the driver and create a new module to house that handles only that specific flavor of hardware instead of adding new edge-cases to the existing code.
At least, that's how I read it. I wasn't working on the Kernel back in 2000 so I can't say.