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The Lost Oaks of California Ave

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#91

Post by davidw »

kevbin wrote: post #75
hedgehog wrote: post #9

I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holl…

"…which will bring a uniform look to the business district…" Sweet, with a little more effort they can turn all of California avenue into a strip mall. Uniformity is great in pencil leads and spark plugs, but the fractal beauty of nature is not just a sitcom on Fox. If you want uniformity, there's a few towns due south of LA where they shave the rough, non-uniform hill-sides into perfect 45° slopes to ultra-flat plat…

One of the things I love about the older bits of town here in Padova is that stuff is 'fractal' in the way you describe. You can look at some old buildings and see the interesting and somewhat random ways different portions grew together. Up close you can sometimes see an old fresco or a fancy door or something. You can walk around and see stuff you've seen before and not get bored by the sameness of it all. I think it's healthy for your brain.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#93

Post by gjm11 »

TriinT wrote: post #52
cschep wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't utterly pointless. I'm glad I know about it, and I wouldn't have without this essay. Or were you just saying "in general"? If so, point me to something PG has put online that is utterly pointless. He has a remarkably good filter for useful content, even within his own essays there are rarely sentences that are extra.

You're reading way too much in my comment... For starters, I didn't say that the story about oaks getting hacked is pointless. Note also that I didn't say that PG puts pointless essays online. My comment was on what PG comments on HN. If somebody asks PG a question and he briefly replies "yes", the comment gets upvoted beyond what is reasonable, even if it's the question, NOT the answer, that carries the interesting…

One genuine full-entropy bit of information on an important subject can be very valuable. You can double your wealth with one bit. (Toy example: you know whether a roulette wheel is going to come up red or black next time. You stake everything you own on the outcome. There are of course less-toy examples and less hair-raising ways to make money out of bits.) It doesn't take all that many bits to state (e.g.) Maxwell's equations.

I largely agree with you about this post, though I don't mind its being here and I read it with interest despite not living anywhere near Silicon Valley. And I agree that PG gets much more karma than a clone who happened not to be called PG would (which suggests an interesting experiment...), and that that's kinda silly. But don't disparage bits.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#94

Post by TriinT »

gjm11 wrote: post #93
TriinT wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're reading way too much in my comment... For starters, I didn't say that the story about oaks getting hacked is pointless. Note also that I didn't say that PG puts pointless essays online. My comment was on what PG comments on HN. If somebody asks PG a question and he briefly replies "yes", the comment gets upvoted beyond what is reasonable, even if it's the question, NOT the answer, that carries the interesting…

One genuine full-entropy bit of information on an important subject can be very valuable. You can double your wealth with one bit. (Toy example: you know whether a roulette wheel is going to come up red or black next time. You stake everything you own on the outcome. There are of course less-toy examples and less hair-raising ways to make money out of bits.) It doesn't take all that many bits to state (e.g.) Maxwell'…

"One genuine full-entropy bit of information on an important subject can be very valuable."

Oh, it sure can! For instance, suppose that we're back in 1986. The Microsoft IPO has just taken place. I ask God if Microsoft will ever be a huge success, and God tells me: "yes". There you go, 1 bit of information that would have made me very rich. However, despite the worship, I have doubts that PG has become himself God. Hence, his 1-bit answers are less valuable than God's 1-bit answers ;-)

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#95

Post by krakensden »

johnnybgoode wrote: post #80
jfarmer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are good ways and bad ways to go about it. You have to think about your goal. Is your goal to get the teacher to correct their mistake and move forward? Or is it to boost your ego? If it's the former, it's probably better to approach them later, in private, and point it out politely. They will correct the problem next session, or send out an email between sessions. Either that, or be very polite, e.g., "Excuse…

Why is it the student's responsibility to protect the teacher's ego? Here is the admittedly unusual way in which I look at it: In most cases, the school system (including the teachers) is implicitly claiming that students are better off in school with them than anywhere else. When a ludicrous claim like this is being made and enforced, I don't see why they should be cut so much slack.

It's not the student's responsibility to protect the teacher's ego, it's the student's responsibility to be reasonable. Standing up and yelling because the teacher forgot a semicolon in some example code, for instance, is a waste of everyone's time, not just the teacher's.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#96

Post by unwind »

hedgehog wrote: post #9

I like Cal Ave partly because it's about as close as you can get in this area to my favorite neighborhood in Seattle (15th Ave). A photo I took yesterday while they were taking the last one down: http://openbs.org/photo/wehavenotrees.jpg Quote from the notice they sent out: "The City of Palo Alto Public Works Department ... shall be replacing most of the street trees on Cal Ave ... most of the existing trees are Holl…

Heh ... I'm certainly not into "US-bashing", but I can't help think that someone could do quite a lot of that fueled by that particular quote. The City of P.A. thinks it needs to protect its residents from the tripping hazards of ... acorns? Hilarious. :)

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#98

Post by jobu »

balding_n_tired wrote: post #97

Acorns are a tripping hazard? I have never been especially graceful, I have lived under oaks for about half the last thirty years--including at least four that were astonishingly productive of acorns, and bless me if I've ever tripped on an acorn.

It happens - my aunt broke her tailbone after slipping on acorns. I don't blame the city one bit. Oak trees are beautiful trees for forests and parks, but they are very messy for public walkways. They drop small branches constantly as well as piles of acorns that attract squirrels and mice.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#99

Post by req2 »

shykes wrote: post #15
tjic wrote: post #4

Private owners respect and conserve their resources. Governments (which is to say, politicians with short lifespans in their job) use up resources in a rush to accomplish short term, idiotic goals. You can look at the environmental records of capitalist countries versus centrally managed totalitarian states. ...or you can look at golf courses (which don't "cut down all the trees to keep things tidy") and compare them…

> Private owners respect and conserve their resources Except when they don't. Blanket statements like that aren't very helpful. > politicians [...] use up resources in a rush > to accomplish short term, idiotic goals. Except when they don't. Or when the goals are decided by the private owners who bought them lunch.

Private owners that don't conserve their resources quickly find themselves without resources to conserve; governments that don't conserve their resources get another chance.

Many things get in the way of this simple statement being true.

Re: The Lost Oaks of California Ave

#100

Post by boredguy8 »

callmeed wrote: post #2

Interesting. Where I grew up (San Luis Obispo county in CA), you'd need an act of congress to touch a mature oak tree–even on your own property. Our church actually had to build around one when they did a building project. I bet if an entrepreneur or real estate developer wanted to cut down oak trees for a building project, they wouldn't get past the first step in the permit process ... but I guess when city wants th…

When you make the rules, you also make the exceptions.
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