Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 06:08 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: Knowing the limits of one’s own knowledge is an admirable trait, i.e. the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know. What really gripes me are people who seem to get some kind of perverse pleasure in their own ignorance. “Oh, that’s way too complex for me to understand” is not that uncommon an attitude when it comes to science and tech. I agree. That's one of the most annoying expressions. It seems to come in 2 stripes: 1) those who actually believe it, which may indicate an inferiority complex and 2) those practicing the humility topos, passively aggressively asserting that those who take the time to learn/understand that subject are geeks or wasting their time or somesuch. I don't know which is more annoying (1) or (2). -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella I turned on my tv and somebody blew up FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
2 On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 8:54 AM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: On 02/24/2014 06:08 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: Knowing the limits of one's own knowledge is an admirable trait, i.e. the more you know, the more you realize how much you don't know. What really gripes me are people who seem to get some kind of perverse pleasure in their own ignorance. Oh, that's way too complex for me to understand is not that uncommon an attitude when it comes to science and tech. I agree. That's one of the most annoying expressions. It seems to come in 2 stripes: 1) those who actually believe it, which may indicate an inferiority complex and 2) those practicing the humility topos, passively aggressively asserting that those who take the time to learn/understand that subject are geeks or wasting their time or somesuch. I don't know which is more annoying (1) or (2). -- == glen e. p. ropella I turned on my tv and somebody blew up FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
1. 2 is easy to ignore and move on from, but one (at least, I do) sincerely wants 1 to get ahead. I will reply regarding the UEFI thing later. -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Because I end up providing tech support, I suggest that they use what I use. I use the cheapest technology, with the best future, that supports my existing activity (i.e. legacy/backwards compatibility). By best future, I mean both future-proofing (i.e. it won't transition to the backwards compatibility requirement for the longest time) and the likelihood that it will continue to gain capability and improvements. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 21, 2014, at 8:50 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: Given all this, ... what would you prescribe for your family members who are not particularly expert in these matters? What computer/laptop, tablet, phone, email service, applications (assuming they need at least one of an office suite), hosting service for their new business, TV components, video services (NetFlix, Amazon, iTunes), sync service, ... I could go on. But what? They really want to know. -- Owen On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 11:36 AM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.com wrote: On 02/21/2014 07:35 AM, Steve Smith wrote: To make this relevant to the discussion... I don't think I could ever have come to recognize the value of such a data structure if I *hadn't* felt obliged to re-invent (re-implement?) a number of algorithms that had already been implemented by others... to differing degrees of quality. The meat of the discussion lies in the person's (or organization's) agility to change paths once prior work, or a better way regardless of its source, is brought to light. I recently had to characterize agile software development in comparison to ... what? ... large-scale, entrenched process to a CIO type who understands some of the economics, but not the technologies. Me being largely agnostic, trying to explain the two to him in an informal setting proved more difficult than I would have thought. (Shows how often I talk to those types these days.) In microcosm, the contrast isn't between engineer-types and scientist-types, but between ... I don't know... authoritarian vs. egalitarian(?) types. I've met plenty of authoritarian scientist-types and plenty of egalitarian engineer-types. I've even met some certified PEs who showed remarkable agility when shown a better way. Actually, better is loaded. More appropriate to the task at hand is better than better. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/22/2014 04:32 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: On 2/21/14 8:50 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: But what? They really want to know. If they don't know what they want, why do they want it? Marcus' question is critical. Any answer I give will depend on their answer to that. On 02/21/2014 07:50 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: Given all this, ... what would you prescribe for your family members who are not particularly expert in these matters? My prescription would be for them to learn at least a little more about these matters. And I'm a big fan of learning _while_ doing. So ... What computer/laptop, tablet, phone, email service, applications (assuming they need at least one of an office suite), hosting service for their new business, TV components, video services (NetFlix, Amazon, iTunes), sync service, ... I could go on. For desktop/laptop, I'd recommend they buy one with Debian pre-installed. I've had good luck with both of these guys: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/ http://zareason.com/shop/home.php Tablets? I don't have a clue. I can't see why anyone would buy such a thing. [*] Phone? Go to a local used cell phone shop and buy the best, most recent SIM-based android phone they have. Purchase a Cricket or Simple mobile SIM card. Root the thing. Install Cyanogenmod or AOKP (Unicorns!). Email? Buy your own domain name and a virtual private server from a local hosting company ... again, have them install Debian on it for you. Pay them to set it up, if you have to. Use that for your e-mail. Applications? GNU/Debian/Gnome comes with everything you need. Use it, figure it out. Donate the money you would otherwise have spent to: http://www.spi-inc.org/ Hosting service? Again, use your own VPS. If you expect lots of traffic, then consider hiring someone who knows what they're doing and follow their advice. I have a few friends with small businesses to recommend if you don't have any. TV components? Seriously? Kill your TV and hang some local art, maybe a locally produced hologram? Watch Netflix or Hulu on your new Debian laptop. If you simply must put it on your wall, buy a wifi-enabled smart TV. If you really want something more embedded, perhaps try XMBC... maybe on a beagle or a pi? You can use duct tape to stick it to the back of the TV. ;-) I could go on. 8^) If they don't want to learn these things, then I really have nothing to say to them. There are plenty of other people who will teach them to use Cable companies, shop at Amazon, buy Apple products, etc. [*] I type something like 60 wpm. Lowering my productivity to a tablet (without a keyboard) just seems stupid. Perhaps I lack empathy? Tablets _with_ a keyboard are just laptops, as far as I can tell. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 10:12 AM, glen wrote: Email? Buy your own domain name and a virtual private server from a local hosting company ... again, have them install Debian on it for you. Pay them to set it up, if you have to. Use that for your e-mail. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/microsoft-exchange-online-email-for-business-FX103739072.aspx I know, I know, but Microsoft killed your Pappy! http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Well, it's less about grudges or even disagreements about business practices or technology, and more about what you _learn_ from using a service/tool. If the objective is to learn, which I argue it should be, at least to some satisficing extent, then you want translucent tools/services. If it's too opaque or too transparent, it's difficult to learn. E.g. you won't really learn the differences between spam filters if you can't dig in and swap them in and out... or chain them together. I don't know anything about microsoft's exchange online, but my guess is that the spam and anti-malware tools have limited control surfaces exposed to the customer. The deeper point is that there is no sharp line between customer and vendor. In order to be a good customer, you have to be a bit of a vendor and vice versa. On 02/24/2014 10:36 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/microsoft-exchange-online-email-for-business-FX103739072.aspx I know, I know, but Microsoft killed your Pappy! http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 2/24/14, 12:03 PM, glen wrote: Well, it's less about grudges or even disagreements about business practices or technology, and more about what you _learn_ from using a service/tool. If the objective is to learn, which I argue it should be, at least to some satisficing extent, then you want translucent tools/services. Well, I want to know about compilers, because I depend on compilers for my work. For me, a satisfactory understanding there is a higher bar than understanding, say, how a car works. For that I can understand enough to type the 1-800 number for AAA into my mobile phone. If I were a Formula 1 car technician or a professional driver, I'd want to know my cars inside out. I suppose learning about SMTP and IMAP and encryption protocols is at some level useful to everyone, to have a feel for what would be needed to intercept e-mail, or be defeated in doing so. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
.aspx, so you can see the disdain before clicking ;) I liked that post, it seemed sincere - but the (extensive) comments provide more depth. You have people commenting that never use MS, always use MS, or use a mix. In each of those categories, there are various levels of animosity or lack thereof towards Microsoft, competitors. For my part, I am typing this on a 10-year old Dell running XP, and besides being rather slow, it has worked pretty well - when something starts behaving weird I kill and restart the process, and it does not seem to break anything. But support for XP is ending in a couple months, and I do not have the budget for upgrading - and this computer could not handle a bulkier system anyway. I do not program enough (read: at all, basically) to compare something like Python vs .C# or Mono vs .NET, but it is just so much nicer to learn about how my Linux system (the laptop it was on is currently dead due to hardware problems; my fault) works and how I can interface with it (bash is nice). And contrary to the title of the article, and as many pointed out in the comments, most of the ire directed towards MS is not past actions (monopoly-securing), but current things like UEFI deals (which gave me an annoying several nights a few months back) and the all-or-nothing manner in which their programs interact; because the community college here bought institutional Office licenses, their 'introduction to business computing' class is predominantly an Office course (the rest is Windows Explorer). -Arlo James Barnes FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 11:27 AM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: Well, I want to know about compilers, because I depend on compilers for my work. For me, a satisfactory understanding there is a higher bar than understanding, say, how a car works. For that I can understand enough to type the 1-800 number for AAA into my mobile phone. If I were a Formula 1 car technician or a professional driver, I'd want to know my cars inside out. Obviously, there's a threshold for every person, for every domain. But I'd argue that stopping at dialing a phone as a limit for how much one knows about cars is a bit on the shy side. If that's all someone knows, then they place a very high (and costly) burden on the rest of us. For example, if they drive across a mountain pass and get a flat tire in an area with no cell signal, then if for some reason they don't show up at their destination, we (hopefully) will commit a bunch of resources like helicopters and troopers to go out hunting for them. They could save us quite a bit of money by knowing how to change a tire (as well as stocking their car with sleeping bags, water, and trail mix ;-). But, further, I hear lots of people complain about various car-related things like pushy salesmen, salesmen that treat women like idiots (or completely ignore them), confusing or untrustworthy recommendations for repair, lemons, etc. The more those customers know about the cars they drive, the _happier_ they are... with their mechanics, with their dealerships, with their current cars, ... perhaps even with their self. So, there are plenty of reasons to learn about how cars work other than for work. I suppose learning about SMTP and IMAP and encryption protocols is at some level useful to everyone, to have a feel for what would be needed to intercept e-mail, or be defeated in doing so. Personally, all I know about those things is that I'm ignorant enough to be at risk. But, I take pride in knowing what I don't know, and that I don't know it. The real trick is paying close enough attention so that you can change tack when you need to. -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 01:00 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote: but current things like UEFI deals (which gave me an annoying several nights a few months back) and the all-or-nothing manner in which their programs interact; because the community college here bought institutional Office licenses, their 'introduction to business computing' class is predominantly an Office course (the rest is Windows Explorer). What's wrong with UEFI? Just turn off secure boot. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 01:47:48PM -0700, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: On 02/24/2014 01:00 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote: but current things like UEFI deals (which gave me an annoying several nights a few months back) and the all-or-nothing manner in which their programs interact; because the community college here bought institutional Office licenses, their 'introduction to business computing' class is predominantly an Office course (the rest is Windows Explorer). What's wrong with UEFI? Just turn off secure boot. Marcus There's a certain amount of who's moved my cheese. UEFI invalidates quite a lot of hard-won knowledge, such as the use of LILO and fdisk. I have begrudgingly moved to using grub in recent years, but I'm still not as proficient as I was with LILO. I still use fdisk normally, but UEFI required the use of parted, so its back to hunt and peck through poorly written computer manuals. Sigh. My most recent experience was with buying a laptop that had Windows 8 preinstalled. I knew enough by now to know that the system is distributed on hidden partitions, so I made a careful backup of the partitions before I started. Needless to say, the UEFI change meant that those backups were useless, so I badgered the vendor (HP in this case) into shipping me the OEM install disks free of charge, which they should have supplied in the first place (like Apple do). But even after about 5 attempts (each attempt taking roughly 36 hours to reinstall Windows 8), I could not set up a dual boot machine. Windows 8 insisted on repartitioning and reformatting the hard drive (unlike earlier Windows releases), and Linux cravenly refused to resize the NTFS partitions (perhaps my Linux distro at 1 year old was too old), but the net effect is that I have given up trying to use Windows 8 for now. It's just too hard, I have better things to do with my time. If and when it becomes important, I'll try to pick up a cheap license from Microsoft, and install it in a Virtual Machine. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 04:01 PM, Russell Standish wrote: If and when it becomes important, I'll try to pick up a cheap license from Microsoft, and install it in a Virtual Machine. Isn't that the sane thing to do anyway? Secure booting into Linux? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 03:59:41PM -0700, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: On 02/24/2014 04:01 PM, Russell Standish wrote: If and when it becomes important, I'll try to pick up a cheap license from Microsoft, and install it in a Virtual Machine. Isn't that the sane thing to do anyway? Secure booting into Linux? Not necessarily. Sometimes Linux on Windows is better, which I have done occasionally. But right now, it makes sense for me to have Linux as the native OS on my high performant hardware, and run Windows and MacOSX as virtual machines on that. Cheers -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/24/2014 04:27 PM, Russell Standish wrote: Not necessarily. Sometimes Linux on Windows is better, which I have done occasionally. Anyway, Apple hardware uses UEFI too, so it's a non-argument to blame Microsoft for advocating that firmware standards should progress. And the SteamOS game platform (which is Debian) initially needed UEFI to run too. Darned old-timers! Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 04:36:46PM -0700, Marcus G. Daniels wrote: On 02/24/2014 04:27 PM, Russell Standish wrote: Not necessarily. Sometimes Linux on Windows is better, which I have done occasionally. Anyway, Apple hardware uses UEFI too, so it's a non-argument to blame Microsoft for advocating that firmware standards should progress. Absolutely. Its a problem all of us face in the IT industry. An example from the Linux world is the move to systemd. Systemd actually looks like a pretty neat piece of technology, and solves a number of problems with the crufty old SysV rc.d structure, but a) It is very poorly documented b) It should have a facility where you can just chuck a shell script, or add some shell commans to be run at startup or shutdown, rc.local style. The net effect is that it takes an inordinate amount of time to do something extraordinarily simple. All vendors have this problem, both OSS and commercial. And the SteamOS game platform (which is Debian) initially needed UEFI to run too. Darned old-timers! Yes - some of us actually have stuff to do, rather than spend time relearning how to do the same things we used to be able to do :). -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Knowing the limits of one’s own knowledge is an admirable trait, i.e. the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know. What really gripes me are people who seem to get some kind of perverse pleasure in their own ignorance. “Oh, that’s way too complex for me to understand” is not that uncommon an attitude when it comes to science and tech. # Gary On Feb 24, 2014, at 3:06 PM, glen g...@ropella.name wrote: Personally, all I know about those things is that I'm ignorant enough to be at risk. But, I take pride in knowing what I don't know, and that I don't know it. The real trick is paying close enough attention so that you can change tack when you need to. -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 2/21/14 8:50 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: But what? They really want to know. If they don't know what they want, why do they want it? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Marcus/Ray - I agree wholeheartedly with both of you. I've encountered more than enough of both NIH and stubborn re-invention, especially in the Academia and the National Lab context. This has been one of my biggest challenges as a mentor of young people who have *plenty* of book learning but not much practical experience... learning the balance between (motivated) learning and wasteful re-invention. I am *not* a trained engineer, though a few phases of my career I have in fact done systems and software engineering. I am *most* interested in exploration, discovery, and innovation and try to arrange my work life so that such activities *are* appropriate. Many of my (re)inventions are relatively subtle (I think). I was once trying to expand on a set of graph analysis tools to do some consistent comparison of complex graphs from a wide variety of disparate sources. No one graph library really had the full suite of tools I needed and even within a given library, the actual execution complexity (space and time) were not consistent. Where I had source to review, I discovered (unsurprisingly) that the libraries were collections thrown together from more than one source (multiple graduate projects by different students?).I even found some latent bugs in a few of them. The only way to get consistent results was to in fact re-implement these algorithms. This was well over 10 years ago before graph analysis became so en vogue. What I tripped over in the process was the Tree Heap or Treap... but I didn't trip over it by doing research... i tripped over it by *needing* a data structure that had those properties, so I ended up building one from whole cloth... only to discover months later that such an data structure had already been devised. To add insult to injury, a few years later, I was relating the story to a woman who had come to work at LBL while I was there, and *she* was one of the original discoverers/inventors of the Treap! It is truly a small world. To make this relevant to the discussion... I don't think I could ever have come to recognize the value of such a data structure if I *hadn't* felt obliged to re-invent (re-implement?) a number of algorithms that had already been implemented by others... to differing degrees of quality. - Steve On 2/20/14, 5:47 PM, Parks, Raymond wrote: However, the practical engineer in me wants to scream whenever someone reinvents stupid ways to do things. It is indeed infuriating when someone makes no effort to learn about what the state-of-the-art is and imposes their ignorance and incompetence on other people. Being curious and fearless (motivated learning) is not the same thing as not-invented-here syndrome and being stubbornly illiterate. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Given all this, ... what would you prescribe for your family members who are not particularly expert in these matters? What computer/laptop, tablet, phone, email service, applications (assuming they need at least one of an office suite), hosting service for their new business, TV components, video services (NetFlix, Amazon, iTunes), sync service, ... I could go on. But what? They really want to know. -- Owen On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 11:36 AM, glen e. p. ropella g...@tempusdictum.comwrote: On 02/21/2014 07:35 AM, Steve Smith wrote: To make this relevant to the discussion... I don't think I could ever have come to recognize the value of such a data structure if I *hadn't* felt obliged to re-invent (re-implement?) a number of algorithms that had already been implemented by others... to differing degrees of quality. The meat of the discussion lies in the person's (or organization's) agility to change paths once prior work, or a better way regardless of its source, is brought to light. I recently had to characterize agile software development in comparison to ... what? ... large-scale, entrenched process to a CIO type who understands some of the economics, but not the technologies. Me being largely agnostic, trying to explain the two to him in an informal setting proved more difficult than I would have thought. (Shows how often I talk to those types these days.) In microcosm, the contrast isn't between engineer-types and scientist-types, but between ... I don't know... authoritarian vs. egalitarian(?) types. I've met plenty of authoritarian scientist-types and plenty of egalitarian engineer-types. I've even met some certified PEs who showed remarkable agility when shown a better way. Actually, better is loaded. More appropriate to the task at hand is better than better. -- glen ep ropella -- 971-255-2847 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 2/20/14, 5:47 PM, Parks, Raymond wrote: However, the practical engineer in me wants to scream whenever someone reinvents stupid ways to do things. It is indeed infuriating when someone makes no effort to learn about what the state-of-the-art is and imposes their ignorance and incompetence on other people. Being curious and fearless (motivated learning) is not the same thing as not-invented-here syndrome and being stubbornly illiterate. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 2/18/14 7:31 AM, Steve Smith wrote: So rather than knowing the names of the turtles all the way down, I got to/had to make up names for them as I met them, and only later discover that they had been named many times already. It seems to me the folks that are given the names don't value the names. Clearly there is value in standard language for technical communication, but harder for me to imagine being taught something but otherwise having no intuition for it. I guess that's what many people expect, though? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Well said Carl! +1 for spending some time on the ‘fundamentals’ but also an acknowledgement that choosing the proper level of ‘fundamentals’ is also very important, and indeed sometimes it is the outsider/maverick that makes new progress in a field just because they don’t know the ‘proper’ way to approach a problem. —joshua On Feb 17, 2014, at 11:46 PM, Carl Tollander c...@plektyx.com wrote: What I think I'm hearing from Glen is that while it's nice to use power-planers and router tables to shape wood, one should know how to use the right type of hand-plane, chisels, and scrapers in case you lose electric power. Well, I dunno. Several points along these lines. - What is foundational for one is not foundational for another. As an example, for drum music, I may worry a great deal about the welds on the tacks, the speed of sound in the wood, distribution of force laterally in a drum shell, various details about adhesives and even what they fed the cow that supplied the cowhide, but that doesn't necessarily make me a better drummer than somebody worried about kinesthesiology of the forarm and shoulder and how it relates to the mass and dimensions of their drumsticks. - Knowing too well what is apparently foundational may prevent you from innovating. For example in wood joinery instead of cutting biscuits, I may know enough about epoxy strength to design a situation in which a bead of epoxy is its own biscuit and thus make a stronger joint that I would be able to if I had kept to wood joinery fundamentals. - The ability to perform a task at all depends on the capabilities at hand. In the power tool example, losing electricity does not necessarily mean one can effectively fall back to hand tools. It such a case it may no longer be economical to perform the task at all, given alternatives. - Then there's time. One could of course say that flint knapping an obsidian hand axe from scratch will make you more proficient with a hand chisel.At some point one has a task to do, a time constraint, and a power planer at hand. That said, yes, its good to know some hand drafting before you get into CAD. But fundamentals and foundations can be slippery concepts. Carl On 2/17/14, 10:39 AM, Parks, Raymond wrote: What I think I'm hearing from Glen is that while it's nice to use power-planers and router tables to shape wood, one should know how to use the right type of hand-plane, chisels, and scrapers in case you lose electric power. In terms closer to most on the list - programming in the scripting language du jour is fine for productivity, but just in case it falls out of fashion and loses support, you should be able to fall back on a HLL, and, just in case, assembly. In both of my examples, learning the more primitive methods means that one learns the foundational knowledge that makes using the modern methods easier and higher in quality. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 13, 2014, at 2:40 PM, glen wrote: TL;DR -- but you asked... Well, I was being purposefully provocative, of course. When serious, I advocate agnosticism. Use everything as often as you can. For me, it's less about diversity and more about core skills. In my experience (which is admittedly peculiar), the primary skill is the ability to try something out, figure out the basic use cases, then move on to the next tool. If your purpose is to get something done, then use the first tool you try/learn that actually works. Do the job; move on. If, however, your purpose is to understand, then use as many tools as you can, taken to the extent of some predefined test. RE: platforms. It seems to me platforms are primarily a way to avoid learning, especially the more closed they are. Ease of use is the bogey man. It's the scapegoat upon which all platform closures hang their debt to society. This is why I cringe when I hear things like They [Apple's devices] are also the easiest to learn to use and the most durable. This is antithetic to what I would teach a child. If you always/only use the easiest tools to use, then you're only hurting yourself. And you're setting yourself up to be exploited by nefarious agents. Sure, it's OK to (mostly) use easy to use tools... but only AFTER you've become at least adequate at using the other tools in the same domain. (In fact, anyone who claims something like OS X is the easiest or most intuitive OS is just ASKING to be grilled about, say, the difference between Gnome 3 and Unity. And if they show _any_ hint that they know those aren't operating systems, then we get to grill them on Plan 9 or the Hurd ... or maybe VMS if I'm feeling generous.) My
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
The objective is not the essentialness or something borderline metaphysical like that. The objective is to do a job with _whatever_ tools you find lying about. And to do that, you need to know enough about the tools that do that job, and how they're used, so that you can: a) use a different tool when you want/need to, b) make your own tool when the ones lying about are inadequate, and c) accomplish a slightly different task with a tool not designed for that task. The point is the category of use cases for the tools, the domain. To me, this is the heart of survival across infrastructure changes, innovation, and everyday efficiency and efficacy. -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Marcus - My father, for better or worse, wanted/needed huge swaths of well traveled territory to learn within. He went from Boy Scouts to Navy to College to Civil Service, wearing uniforms much of that time, and learning (by rote) the many standard forms they presented. It made him feel safe, it let him be useful/performing in places he otherwise might not have. Somehow that sent me in an opposite direction, appreciating the core tools, formalisms, methodologies not as an end, but as a means or more to the point, a beginning, a point of departure. As I matured, I *did* discover that I was in fact often/usually (re)inventing as I went and as you so aptly point out, I'm thankful for having done so... the things I was given were never mine in the way the things I created or discovered were. We are a curious species and maintaining/feeding that curiosity seems to be an important part of our nature. I would say my father's curiosity was limited to exploring a vast landscape of things already laid out for him while mine was to blunder around in wildernesses often of my own making, only to discover that I was actually inside of a park so well groomed that at times it felt to be a wilderness... early on, I resented discovering that my inventions were really re-discoveries but at some point, I began to appreciate that with some of them I was adding valuable nuances too. So rather than knowing the names of the turtles all the way down, I got to/had to make up names for them as I met them, and only later discover that they had been named many times already. It seems to me the folks that are given the names don't value the names. Clearly there is value in standard language for technical communication, but harder for me to imagine being taught something but otherwise having no intuition for it. I guess that's what many people expect, though? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
Who'd'a thought the initial post would make such an interesting conversation! Love it. -- Owen On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: Marcus - My father, for better or worse, wanted/needed huge swaths of well traveled territory to learn within. He went from Boy Scouts to Navy to College to Civil Service, wearing uniforms much of that time, and learning (by rote) the many standard forms they presented. It made him feel safe, it let him be useful/performing in places he otherwise might not have. Somehow that sent me in an opposite direction, appreciating the core tools, formalisms, methodologies not as an end, but as a means or more to the point, a beginning, a point of departure. As I matured, I *did* discover that I was in fact often/usually (re)inventing as I went and as you so aptly point out, I'm thankful for having done so... the things I was given were never mine in the way the things I created or discovered were. We are a curious species and maintaining/feeding that curiosity seems to be an important part of our nature. I would say my father's curiosity was limited to exploring a vast landscape of things already laid out for him while mine was to blunder around in wildernesses often of my own making, only to discover that I was actually inside of a park so well groomed that at times it felt to be a wilderness... early on, I resented discovering that my inventions were really re-discoveries but at some point, I began to appreciate that with some of them I was adding valuable nuances too. So rather than knowing the names of the turtles all the way down, I got to/had to make up names for them as I met them, and only later discover that they had been named many times already. It seems to me the folks that are given the names don't value the names. Clearly there is value in standard language for technical communication, but harder for me to imagine being taught something but otherwise having no intuition for it. I guess that's what many people expect, though? Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
What I think I'm hearing from Glen is that while it's nice to use power-planers and router tables to shape wood, one should know how to use the right type of hand-plane, chisels, and scrapers in case you lose electric power. In terms closer to most on the list - programming in the scripting language du jour is fine for productivity, but just in case it falls out of fashion and loses support, you should be able to fall back on a HLL, and, just in case, assembly. In both of my examples, learning the more primitive methods means that one learns the foundational knowledge that makes using the modern methods easier and higher in quality. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 13, 2014, at 2:40 PM, glen wrote: TL;DR -- but you asked... Well, I was being purposefully provocative, of course. When serious, I advocate agnosticism. Use everything as often as you can. For me, it's less about diversity and more about core skills. In my experience (which is admittedly peculiar), the primary skill is the ability to try something out, figure out the basic use cases, then move on to the next tool. If your purpose is to get something done, then use the first tool you try/learn that actually works. Do the job; move on. If, however, your purpose is to understand, then use as many tools as you can, taken to the extent of some predefined test. RE: platforms. It seems to me platforms are primarily a way to avoid learning, especially the more closed they are. Ease of use is the bogey man. It's the scapegoat upon which all platform closures hang their debt to society. This is why I cringe when I hear things like They [Apple's devices] are also the easiest to learn to use and the most durable. This is antithetic to what I would teach a child. If you always/only use the easiest tools to use, then you're only hurting yourself. And you're setting yourself up to be exploited by nefarious agents. Sure, it's OK to (mostly) use easy to use tools... but only AFTER you've become at least adequate at using the other tools in the same domain. (In fact, anyone who claims something like OS X is the easiest or most intuitive OS is just ASKING to be grilled about, say, the difference between Gnome 3 and Unity. And if they show _any_ hint that they know those aren't operating systems, then we get to grill them on Plan 9 or the Hurd ... or maybe VMS if I'm feeling generous.) My point being that ubiquity = ignorance. If I were to try to write it down, it would read more like a book for kindergarten. Pay attention. Poke everything that looks like it'll do something when you poke it. Don't be afraid to break it. Actually, try to break it. You learn more about a thing by learning what breaks it than by doing what it's supposed to do. (Bending is the real cognitive target, of course. http://www.moogfest.com/circuit-bending) You learn even more if you try to fix it after you broke it. Anyway, my main point is that if you want to survive the next mass extinction event, learn the _domains_ and their use cases. The devices/tools that implement the use cases are interchangeable and largely irrelevant. On 02/13/2014 11:49 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: Good points. But diversity? Do you buy into that? I certainly use services outside of Google. Twitter mainly (have but don't use Facebook) but many forums which are not Google Groups. I try to use cross platform apps where possible. Sublime, for example, as a text editor. Chrome/Firefox. Terminal w/ standard CLI. Dropbox (mac/windows/linux) for files. iOS apps that are cross platform for the most part, although my cant-live-without-it Italian dictionary is iOS only and they tell me that it's the best choice for their market. Possibly iOS folks are more willing to pay? They seemed sincere. The article was about survival in a limited extent: how to deal with being jerked around by the demise of a popular service or platform. How do you deal with it? Could you teach a non-techie to follow your lead? Would write down a simpler set of rules that are easy to follow? -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com smime.p7s Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 02/17/2014 09:39 AM, Parks, Raymond wrote: In both of my examples, learning the more primitive methods means that one learns the foundational knowledge that makes using the modern methods easier and higher in quality. Precisely. An additional point, though, is that survival across infrastructure changes is similar to proof through isomorphism. The objective is to establish a kind of Platonic form (or category) for any given set of tools, then whatever tools you find lying about that are close enough to that form will do just fine. (Seriously. E.g. how is bandcamp.com different from amazon.com? Git vs. Mercurial? Pinterest vs. Instagram? Boinc vs. Tidbit? Cloud Foundry vs. Heroku? Etc.) Of course, to think this way is antithetic to what the hyperbole machines out there want you to think. I attribute the hype mostly to the venture capitalists and their desire for 10-fold RoI exits (or at least the consumerist product differentiation that drives our economy). But it could easily be caused by the same thing that causes our 2 party political system, something like an addiction to convenient pigeon-holing. -- ⇒⇐ glen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 2/17/14 10:39 AM, Parks, Raymond wrote: What I think I'm hearing from Glen is that while it's nice to use power-planers and router tables to shape wood, one should know how to use the right type of hand-plane, chisels, and scrapers in case you lose electric power. In terms closer to most on the list - programming in the scripting language du jour is fine for productivity, but just in case it falls out of fashion and loses support, you should be able to fall back on a HLL, and, just in case, assembly. In both of my examples, learning the more primitive methods means that one learns the foundational knowledge that makes using the modern methods easier and higher in quality. My mystical version of this is that while it *is* Turtles all the way Down, it is worth knowing the names of the Turtles. I don't honestly expect people to do their development using rod logic but it might behoove any self-respecting hacker to actually understand how such a thing *might* be done... just as Assembly/Machine language is a useful lower-level abstraction for understanding the basis for early HLL's like Fortran IV and ultimately Block Structured (F77 and C?) and then OO (C++/ObjC/Java/etc.)? One *needn't* be proficient in these lower levels of abstraction, just *appreciative?* of how to get from one to another? I'm just sayin' Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov mailto:rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov mailto:dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 13, 2014, at 2:40 PM, glen wrote: TL;DR -- but you asked... Well, I was being purposefully provocative, of course. When serious, I advocate agnosticism. Use everything as often as you can. For me, it's less about diversity and more about core skills. In my experience (which is admittedly peculiar), the primary skill is the ability to try something out, figure out the basic use cases, then move on to the next tool. If your purpose is to get something done, then use the first tool you try/learn that actually works. Do the job; move on. If, however, your purpose is to understand, then use as many tools as you can, taken to the extent of some predefined test. RE: platforms. It seems to me platforms are primarily a way to avoid learning, especially the more closed they are. Ease of use is the bogey man. It's the scapegoat upon which all platform closures hang their debt to society. This is why I cringe when I hear things like They [Apple's devices] are also the easiest to learn to use and the most durable. This is antithetic to what I would teach a child. If you always/only use the easiest tools to use, then you're only hurting yourself. And you're setting yourself up to be exploited by nefarious agents. Sure, it's OK to (mostly) use easy to use tools... but only AFTER you've become at least adequate at using the other tools in the same domain. (In fact, anyone who claims something like OS X is the easiest or most intuitive OS is just ASKING to be grilled about, say, the difference between Gnome 3 and Unity. And if they show _any_ hint that they know those aren't operating systems, then we get to grill them on Plan 9 or the Hurd ... or maybe VMS if I'm feeling generous.) My point being that ubiquity = ignorance. If I were to try to write it down, it would read more like a book for kindergarten. Pay attention. Poke everything that looks like it'll do something when you poke it. Don't be afraid to break it. Actually, try to break it. You learn more about a thing by learning what breaks it than by doing what it's supposed to do. (Bending is the real cognitive target, of course. http://www.moogfest.com/circuit-bending) You learn even more if you try to fix it after you broke it. Anyway, my main point is that if you want to survive the next mass extinction event, learn the _domains_ and their use cases. The devices/tools that implement the use cases are interchangeable and largely irrelevant. On 02/13/2014 11:49 AM, Owen Densmore wrote: Good points. But diversity? Do you buy into that? I certainly use services outside of Google. Twitter mainly (have but don't use Facebook) but many forums which are not Google Groups. I try to use cross platform apps where possible. Sublime, for example, as a text editor. Chrome/Firefox. Terminal w/ standard CLI. Dropbox (mac/windows/linux) for files. iOS apps that are cross platform for the most part, although my cant-live-without-it Italian dictionary is iOS only and they tell me that it's the best choice for their market. Possibly iOS folks are more willing to pay? They seemed sincere. The article was about survival in a limited extent: how to deal with being jerked around by the demise of a popular service or platform. How do you deal with it? Could you teach a
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On Feb 17, 2014, at 9:39 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: On 2/17/14 10:39 AM, Parks, Raymond wrote: What I think I'm hearing from Glen is that while it's nice to use power-planers and router tables to shape wood, one should know how to use the right type of hand-plane, chisels, and scrapers in case you lose electric power. In terms closer to most on the list - programming in the scripting language du jour is fine for productivity, but just in case it falls out of fashion and loses support, you should be able to fall back on a HLL, and, just in case, assembly. In both of my examples, learning the more primitive methods means that one learns the foundational knowledge that makes using the modern methods easier and higher in quality. My mystical version of this is that while it *is* Turtles all the way Down, it is worth knowing the names of the Turtles. I don't honestly expect people to do their development using rod logic but it might behoove any self-respecting hacker to actually understand how such a thing *might* be done... just as Assembly/Machine language is a useful lower-level abstraction for understanding the basis for early HLL's like Fortran IV and ultimately Block Structured (F77 and C?) and then OO (C++/ObjC/Java/etc.)? One *needn't* be proficient in these lower levels of abstraction, just *appreciative?* of how to get from one to another? I'm just sayin’ I’m in violent agreement. While someone can drive a car without being an auto mechanic, I can’t really understand why anyone who drives a car wouldn’t want to at least understand the basics of internal combustion engines, automatic/manual transmissions, hybrid powertrains, and so on. Same with microprocessors, compilers, assembly language, high level languages, lambda calculus. I think that being a hacker is a state of mind that naturally wants to tear things apart to see how they work, and (hopefully) put them back together again. Maybe even put something new together just for the heck of it. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
On 2/17/14 7:54 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: I think that being a hacker is a state of mind that naturally wants to tear things apart to see how they work, and (hopefully) put them back together again. Java is an example of a language that can be compiled to be fast. When Java isn't fast in the wild, various accusations get made like the garbage collector is to blame (i.e. some other factor supposedly out of that person's control that isn't just their own sloppy work and laziness -- like, say, _making_ lots of garbage). Of course, the individual who is really to blame is the sort of person that does not have the mindset you mention. Nonetheless, Java is often`for' the person that wants to be insulated from things, and is happy to work that way. It's not about paying dues, or learning the right things or the right way or bollocks like that. It's about whether a developer insists to be able to find answers when they ask questions about how things work, and whether they are the sort of person that asks those questions at all. Developer communities that _like_ their constraints may be productive by some measures, but IMO aren't, in the end, very interesting. Marcus FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
Re: [FRIAM] [EXTERNAL] Re: NTY: Buy Apple gadgets, use Google services, buy media from Amazon
What I think I'm hearing from Glen is that while it's nice to use power-planers and router tables to shape wood, one should know how to use the right type of hand-plane, chisels, and scrapers in case you lose electric power. Well, I dunno. Several points along these lines. - What is foundational for one is not foundational for another. As an example, for drum music, I may worry a great deal about the welds on the tacks, the speed of sound in the wood, distribution of force laterally in a drum shell, various details about adhesives and even what they fed the cow that supplied the cowhide, but that doesn't necessarily make me a better drummer than somebody worried about kinesthesiology of the forarm and shoulder and how it relates to the mass and dimensions of their drumsticks. - Knowing too well what is apparently foundational may prevent you from innovating. For example in wood joinery instead of cutting biscuits, I may know enough about epoxy strength to design a situation in which a bead of epoxy is its own biscuit and thus make a stronger joint that I would be able to if I had kept to wood joinery fundamentals. - The ability to perform a task at all depends on the capabilities at hand. In the power tool example, losing electricity does not necessarily mean one can effectively fall back to hand tools. It such a case it may no longer be economical to perform the task at all, given alternatives. - Then there's time. One could of course say that flint knapping an obsidian hand axe from scratch will make you more proficient with a hand chisel.At some point one has a task to do, a time constraint, and a power planer at hand. That said, yes, its good to know some hand drafting before you get into CAD. But fundamentals and foundations can be slippery concepts. Carl On 2/17/14, 10:39 AM, Parks, Raymond wrote: What I think I'm hearing from Glen is that while it's nice to use power-planers and router tables to shape wood, one should know how to use the right type of hand-plane, chisels, and scrapers in case you lose electric power. In terms closer to most on the list - programming in the scripting language du jour is fine for productivity, but just in case it falls out of fashion and loses support, you should be able to fall back on a HLL, and, just in case, assembly. In both of my examples, learning the more primitive methods means that one learns the foundational knowledge that makes using the modern methods easier and higher in quality. Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov mailto:rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov mailto:dopa...@doe.ic.gov (send NIPR reminder) On Feb 13, 2014, at 2:40 PM, glen wrote: TL;DR -- but you asked... Well, I was being purposefully provocative, of course. When serious, I advocate agnosticism. Use everything as often as you can. For me, it's less about diversity and more about core skills. In my experience (which is admittedly peculiar), the primary skill is the ability to try something out, figure out the basic use cases, then move on to the next tool. If your purpose is to get something done, then use the first tool you try/learn that actually works. Do the job; move on. If, however, your purpose is to understand, then use as many tools as you can, taken to the extent of some predefined test. RE: platforms. It seems to me platforms are primarily a way to avoid learning, especially the more closed they are. Ease of use is the bogey man. It's the scapegoat upon which all platform closures hang their debt to society. This is why I cringe when I hear things like They [Apple's devices] are also the easiest to learn to use and the most durable. This is antithetic to what I would teach a child. If you always/only use the easiest tools to use, then you're only hurting yourself. And you're setting yourself up to be exploited by nefarious agents. Sure, it's OK to (mostly) use easy to use tools... but only AFTER you've become at least adequate at using the other tools in the same domain. (In fact, anyone who claims something like OS X is the easiest or most intuitive OS is just ASKING to be grilled about, say, the difference between Gnome 3 and Unity. And if they show _any_ hint that they know those aren't operating systems, then we get to grill them on Plan 9 or the Hurd ... or maybe VMS if I'm feeling generous.) My point being that ubiquity = ignorance. If I were to try to write it down, it would read more like a book for kindergarten. Pay attention. Poke everything that looks like it'll do something when you poke it. Don't be afraid to break it. Actually, try to break it. You learn more about a thing by learning what breaks it than by doing what it's supposed to do. (Bending is the real cognitive target,
