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Ask HN: What is the most complex topic you understand?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most complex topic you understand?

#91

Post by ggeorgovassilis »

algoatecorn wrote: post #80
ggeorgovassilis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how our agricultural system actually functions I take "actually" to mean that your understanding differs from that of most people. Care to tell the highlights?

Most discussion I see around this topic lacks nuance which exists at every step of the value chain. One example is the dichotomous nature of regenerative agriculture and GM crops. The average person generally takes a very argumentative position on this one, when in reality the two are not mutually exclusive. Another example is how the industry operates in terms of corporate influence, academia, and allocation of fund…

Thank you

Re: Ask HN: What is the most complex topic you understand?

#92

Post by stracer »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #85
stracer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing. Do you have some docs / resources on this online? How would you go around building a computer out of commodity components today? Do you think compiling everything on own computer results in noticeable increase in performance? Say, distribution provides binaries built on Intel, but I want to run on AMD, does it make sense to recompile binaries on the AMD?

> docs / resources on this online? Surprisingly the old textbook went to three editions, the last in 1997 [1] It looks as if it may be on archive.org [2], and is definitely in Google Books and LibGen. > How would you go around building a computer out of commodity components today? Good question. You could of course retrace my steps using 1980s technology, but I wouldn't advise that. The problem today is physical scal…

Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most complex topic you understand?

#93

Post by stracer »

unforeseen9991 wrote: post #86
nonrandomstring wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> docs / resources on this online? Surprisingly the old textbook went to three editions, the last in 1997 [1] It looks as if it may be on archive.org [2], and is definitely in Google Books and LibGen. > How would you go around building a computer out of commodity components today? Good question. You could of course retrace my steps using 1980s technology, but I wouldn't advise that. The problem today is physical scal…

There's also the excellent https://www.nand2tetris.org/ From basic computing gates all the way to running tetris. It taught me so much of the lower levels. Also a comment as a former Gentoo user of 7+ years - the performance is there - 5-15% maybe. I honestly don't think it's noticeable, it never was to me, but what you learn using Gentoo has served me very well. I moved on as well. I'm too old to deal with fixing th…

Thanks, I was disappointed first that it's only a virtual computer in a simulator, but then I found out there is a real physical realization, using an FPGA board:

https://gitlab.com/x653/nand2tetris-fpga/

Re: Ask HN: What is the most complex topic you understand?

#94

Post by [deleted] »

mindcrime wrote: post #15

I'm not sure there's anything that I understand, at least not fully. There are things I know a certain amount about, but probably nothing that I understand as fully as I'd like. Also, understanding can be fleeting if you don't think about a certain topic all the time. Take relativity for example: I recall a very specific moment when I was talking to a friend who is actually formally educated in Physics, and we were t…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is the most complex topic you understand?

#95

Post by yasinaydin »

biztos wrote: post #42

Germany. Though I have to admit an ever increasing number of details are getting fuzzy as they fade into the rear-view mirror of my attention. As a foreigner fluent in German, with a very diverse set of German friends, and years of experience living there, in three very different regions at different stages of my life, I will make the bold claim that I understand Germany, even if I probably understood it more in the…

I wouldn't go that far, but I understand where this comes from. To some level and in some ways, I can confidently say I understand where I live (Tallinn, Estonia) more than most of my friends.

I moved here almost 6 years ago and I have been enthusiastically trying to follow and attend events, follow news, travel inside the country, discover new restaurants/bars/museums/activities as much as I can. As a result, many of my local friends have told me that they have never been to a city or venue that I mentioned.

OTOH, as most my friends are between 20-40 years old, they have that much experience inthis country and there are many things they know that I don't: like deep command of language, local history/experience (especially in soviet-post soviet era) books/literature, nature, handicraft, songs, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most complex topic you understand?

#96

Post by yasinaydin »

giantg2 wrote: post #12

Nothing. There's nothing that I fully understand because there's always another level deeper you can go.

Not OP, but I think the question is not about the thing you fully understand, instead, amongst the things you know/understand, which one is the most complex compared to the others.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most complex topic you understand?

#98

Post by openfuture »

more_corn wrote: post #57
openfuture wrote: post #41

Nothing. Some people don't understand things, that is not the same as understanding nothing. I also understand ashtanga and programming.

The most complicated thing you understand is nothing? As in nothingness? Is that a zen thing? I can tell you one thing I don’t understand. I don’t understand what you’re trying to convey.

Maybe I am just trolling a bit because I saw a bunch of these kinds of replies and I wanted to subvert the trope a bit.

But I am referencing daoism rather than zen.

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