loose-cannon (u/loose-cannon)

loose-cannon commented on Math Not Required (2023) programmersstone.blog/pos... · Posted by u/zdw

sfpotter · 2 days ago

This never made any sense to me. Why are so many programmers math phobic? You'd think an interest in math and an interest in programming would go hand in hand, especially since they aid and abet one another so beautifully. My programming got way better the better at math I got, and vice versa.

loose-cannon · 2 days ago

I think a big part of undergraduate math is theory/abstraction building, which is usually very different than the activity of programming. I've studied quite a bit of math, so I can appreciate both. But I can definitely see why the former drives people away.

loose-cannon commented on Dial-up Internet to be discontinued help.aol.com/articles/dia... · Posted by u/Kye

loose-cannon · 18 days ago

I wonder how quickly you can load some of the modern, popular, websites on a dial up connection.

loose-cannon commented on Coding error blamed after parts of Constitution disappear from US website arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/DocFeind

loose-cannon · 20 days ago

seems like another distraction. If it permanently disappears, maybe then it's worth talking about?

loose-cannon commented on Matt Trout has died shadowcat.co.uk/2025/07/0... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

gwern · 2 months ago

'Child prodigy' is not an exaggeration here: https://trout.me.uk/prec/

loose-cannon · 2 months ago

You're posting this in a thread filled with stories which paint him as an asshole.

loose-cannon commented on Guess I'm a rationalist now scottaaronson.blog/?p=890... · Posted by u/nsoonhui

colordrops · 2 months ago

What the person you are replying to is saying that some things are not reducible, i.e. the the vast array of complexity and detail is all relevant.

loose-cannon · 2 months ago

That's a really hard belief to justify. And what implications would that position have? Should biologists give up?

loose-cannon commented on Guess I'm a rationalist now scottaaronson.blog/?p=890... · Posted by u/nsoonhui

felipeerias · 2 months ago

The problem with trying to reason everything from first principles is that most things didn’t actually came about that way.

Both our biology and other complex human affairs like societies and cultures evolved organically over long periods of time, responding to their environments and their competitors, building bit by bit, sometimes with an explicit goal but often without one.

One can learn a lot from unicellular organisms, but won’t probably be able to reason from them all the way to an elephant. At best, if we are lucky, we can reason back from the elephant.

loose-cannon · 2 months ago

Reducibility is usually a goal of intellectual pursuits? I don't see that as a fault.

loose-cannon commented on Sam Altman says Meta offered OpenAI staffers $100M bonuses bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/EvgeniyZh

kasperni · 2 months ago

Yeah, and everyone will know you did it for the money.

loose-cannon · 2 months ago

As opposed to?

loose-cannon commented on Woman gets reply about job application – 48 years on bbc.com/news/articles/cm2... · Posted by u/adrian_mrd

loose-cannon · a year ago

Something similar actually happened to me. Somebody called me about a job application I submitted through craigslist/email 6-7 years ago. This was while I was a student. I had to tell the lady that I don't even live in the same area.

Obviously this is nowhere near 48 years.

loose-cannon commented on The world is becoming more Kafkaesque ronghosh.substack.com/p/t... · Posted by u/paulpauper

loose-cannon · a year ago

We can refine and optimize granular tasks. So we start subdividing careers this way as well, with the assumption that nothing is lost along the way. It's profitable, so companies keep doing it. Then you have the situation described in the article: nobody knows why something is going wrong and nobody can help you. The world starts feeling bureaucratic, inefficient, and impersonal.

Of course, the delivery driver isn't going to have any idea why your package is four months late. It's not his responsibility. Depending on how you look at it, that may not be a bad thing.

What's the incentive to correct this? Are there examples of companies which have these faults at large scales, but are still somehow profitable enough to not be pressured to make changes? I mean it's difficult to even describe the problem.

u/loose-cannon

KarmaCake day21September 21, 2024View Original