41–50 of 173 posts
It was crazy to see how quickly we "solved" this problem during COVID, if only temporarily. I just wish to see more collective action to solve this on a more permanent basis. I'm partial to WFH plus moving away from car-dependence in North American towns and cities.
lack of code documentation
Self-documenting code
1. document should be about why, not what.
2. not all decisions can be revealed in code itself. (for example, adding a delay to workaround a hardware bug.)
3. the biggest part missing from code documentation is the big picture document, not really the code level document. even you know what a class/function is, you don't know how it is used in the entire project, its life cycle, etc.
Figuring out how America can go fast[0] again. Solving would be great but I would also settle for a theory of mind as to why we haven't been able to for the last 50 years or so. [0] https://patrickcollison.com/fast
One thing that bothers me and still hasn't been solved is the ergonomics of everyday computing. I don't care if people have Herman Miller chairs and use ergonomic keyboards, and an expensive mouse. You're still sitting on a chair which will kill your back. I've tried standing desks, but never liked standing. As for phones/tablets; I've only ever used them as consumption devices and no 'deep work' gets done on them li…
I suspect VR workstations will help with this. Many ergonomic constraints come from ease of mounting monitors at eye level. With VR this problem no longer exists. You can be in any position you want - lying down, standing, sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, etc. - and as long as you can type with separated keyboard halves for each hand you will be productive. Perhaps we should not be chasing the One True…
Lack of reliable service from plumbers, HVAC, appliance repair people. There are many people available but the quality and consistency of service is highly variable and chances of getting ripped off are high if you don't do your due diligence. I wish there was more standardization in these services where I don't have to worry about getting ripped off and can expect a decent quality of service without spending too muc…
Larry David’s new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm has an episode where he highlights exactly this problem and comes up with a way to fix it. He calls it House Husband where someone who knows a little about everything can come and check to see if the repair being offered is legit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Self-documenting code
Not all code can be self-documenting, especially optimized algorithms and complex operations. Comments serve to add requisite context and clarification that code alone cannot provide. Simply regurgitating the obvious in comments is a waste.
It’s understandable why this is. Writing introductory textbooks in your area of study is not prestigious work valued by your peers, takes a huge amount of time, and rarely makes money.
Perhaps the learning materials do exist, but there is no easy way to divine their existence. Expert-curated learning tracks might be valuable here. I’ll tell you what is not valuable, though: giant lists of “learning resources” in a github README that have no particular relation or sorting order and that the author/maintainer has never personally read.
Perhaps the struggle is necessary for learning. I’ll never forget those times my mind finally makes by itself the leap to understanding, although I constantly forget whatever smoothed-down introductory learning material I have consumed in the past. Perhaps the solution is simply to hire a grad student for 1:1 tutoring at $50-$100/hr.
High quality, low latency, whole house, distributed wireless audio without a disposable speaker tech business model.
If you’ve ever seen (and some milliseconds later heard) someone dribbling a basketball at the other end of a long quiet street you’ll know what I mean.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Also right wing extremism fueled and amplified by the internet. It's sort of technical problem, right?
In the short term you can just not log onto the outrage-o-verse. Long term solutions to the current state of affairs elude me.