Root Access

Einsteins Grandson

16:00

I know!

Darth Android

That doesn't matter. There is so much inter-related computer knowledge that if you're consistently doing things that require you to ask questions, it's better to figure things out yourself

allquixotic

I think it was a series of free software project maintainers on IRC, plus SE in general, that helped me escape the help vampire rut

Darth Android

There are so many questions I don't have to ask, because I discovered the answer while exploring and trying to solve a different problem months earlier.

Journeyman Geek

lol

allquixotic

of course, the IRC guys weren't quite as nice as SE is

Journeyman Geek

16:00

I've always been the guy who went into irc to ask a question

allquixotic

but they got the point across

Journeyman Geek

and ending up answering 20 more

allquixotic

heh

Einsteins Grandson

I am more into cross discipline....

allquixotic

I was a help vampire a few months ago getting Linux-Vserver set up on my box, but I donated money to the project maintainer who helped me, as a sort of "I'm sorry" :P

Journeyman Geek

16:01

lol

allquixotic

he said it was fine

Einsteins Grandson

I want to learn how to be film director.... i want to be a diplomat, ... dentist, psychologist, piano player, hockey coach....

allquixotic

I feel bad for Eric Law because the Fiddler mailing list on google groups is basically a non-stop HV lane

Einsteins Grandson

I am sure I will not be able to achieve it all in my life

allquixotic

you know HOV lane, right? well now I invented the term "HV lane" for help vampire lane :D

Einsteins Grandson

16:02

But I am naive and I will try

;o))))))))))))))))))))))

Journeyman Geek

lol

jokerdino

gawd. stop it man.

Journeyman Geek

I want to work with computers all day ;p

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson I think you will find that if you learn how to master something -- just one thing, even if it's just programming in Java -- mastering other things will come to you more easily

Einsteins Grandson

Why?

allquixotic

16:03

because, bearing down and spending 2 days solving a trivial Java problem, and the things that doing that will do to your brain, will help you become a dentist, psychologist and piano player

Journeyman Geek

@EinsteinsGrandson: cause you learnt to learn

Darth Android

Because there is common knowledge to mastering anything.

allquixotic

it's all about how you discipline your mind, and your thought processes

Darth Android

Because you know how to explore a topic to the depth required to master it

allquixotic

exactly ^

Einsteins Grandson

16:04

But you neeed time!

Darth Android

You cannot master anything unless you know how to explore it.

Einsteins Grandson

You need let's say 3 years to become a film direcotr

Darth Android

Yes, of course you need time.

(it's 10 years to become an expert, by the way)

Einsteins Grandson

You need 3 to 5 years to become a piano player

Journeyman Geek

@EinsteinsGrandson: I'd rather be spending the time learning, than whining I have no time.

Einsteins Grandson

16:05

As I am saying... This is the problem that the whole world have

Life is short!

So, you have to be quick... if you want to fulfill your dreams!

Darth Android

@EinsteinsGrandson The point we're trying to make is, if all this stuff you want to do requires you to do so much with computers, then becoming a computer expert is a prerequisite that you have to accomplish first, or you will never have time to do anything else.

jokerdino

flips switch Bye!

Einsteins Grandson

Why will I have no time to do anything else?

What do you mean?

Darth Android

As fast as asking a question and getting an answer is, investing the time to learn the subject matter is far, far faster than asking every question I have and waiting on answers

Time spent exploring is less than the time required to ask all the questions I found the answers to, even if I didn't need the answers right at this moment

Einsteins Grandson

Ok , I will think about it.... I liked the idea of what it does to my brain.... solving problems by myself!

Darth Android

16:08

almost invariably, I'll need the answers at some point in the future

Einsteins Grandson

I don't rememeber who said it

maybe @allquixotic

allquixotic

by the way, just for your information, I do consider finding the answer on google or on one of the SE sites in a pre-existing question as "doing it yourself"

by "doing it yourself", I do not mean, sit there and stare at the screen until the answer just comes to you

Darth Android

^

allquixotic

I mean do it without actually asking another human being about it or posting a question

but you can use any resources you want

textbooks, documentation sites, forums, SE, whatever

Einsteins Grandson

maybe i don't know how to google!

that's the problem

i always put this question in google:

What is TreeMap in Java

and get kind of good answers

;o)

or What is FileInputStream in Java

allquixotic

16:11

first of all, avoid asking whole sentence questions in Google -- sometimes your other keywords will confuse it

Journeyman Geek

lol

allquixotic

just try "FileInputStream java"

Einsteins Grandson

actually it is better!!!!

allquixotic

or, if you need to know something specific about it, try adding that specific language

Darth Android

"java treemap explanation" or "java fileinputstream (uses | tutorial)"

Einsteins Grandson

16:12

It leads me to forums

Documentation ... I hate it...

allquixotic

for example if you need to know how to sort a TreeMap you could try

"java sort treemap"

Einsteins Grandson

I need to read the whole problem of a particular person!

and then I learn it

Darth Android

documentation + source code is far better than forums most often

so many posts back and forth of people guessing how something works

Einsteins Grandson

;o)

allquixotic

dude, come on... the Java API docs are among the best software documentation in the entire world

Einsteins Grandson

16:13

yeah

Darth Android

Ctrl+click, "Oh, so that's how they do it."

allquixotic

if you can't learn from this, you are hopeless

Darth Android

well, that and oracle's java tutorials

Einsteins Grandson

Yes I can't

allquixotic

yeah

Darth Android

16:13

those plus source code are invaluable

Einsteins Grandson

There is not even search in there!

Darth Android

there is, actually

Einsteins Grandson

what do you mean by SOURCE CODE?

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson umm....

Einsteins Grandson

where is it??

Darth Android

16:14

It's in the JDK

Einsteins Grandson

the search!

allquixotic

single click in the bottom left corner-ish of that page, and press Ctrl+F

Darth Android

install the JDK, configure your IDE to use it

allquixotic

then type "Stream" or "File" or something

and go through the classes that result

and figure out which class you need

Darth Android

you can then usually Ctrl+Click on a class name to go straight to the source code for it

allquixotic

16:15

then read the docs on the class and figure out which methods/properties

Darth Android

You can see how the FileInputStream is implemented

or how TreeMap and TreeSet are implemented

allquixotic

I would avoid reading the source code of Java itself until after you have learned how to read the API docs

Darth Android

^

Einsteins Grandson

that's crazy

allquixotic

@DarthAndroid's advice is sound for advanced users who already know what info is provided in the API docs and still need more information

Einsteins Grandson

16:16

Why would I need to know how TreeMap works?

;o)

how it has been programmed?

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson to make use of anything, you need to know how it works

Darth Android

Ideally, you don't. The API docs should give you everything you need to know

allquixotic

do you drive a car without knowing how it works? you have to at least know the basics

Darth Android

however, sometimes they assume you know something

allquixotic

you don't need to know the actual method of fuel injection, or know how a distributor works, etc, but you need to know the results of doing various things

Einsteins Grandson

16:17

What if I will never use Java in my whole life after I leave university?

allquixotic

you can't drive a car without knowing how fast the car will go depending on how hard you press on the gas pedal

Einsteins Grandson

;o))))))))))

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson that is unlikely, but if you become a programmer in any language, the things you learn from Java will be applicable to other languages in many cases

Darth Android

@EinsteinsGrandson It doesn't matter. What you learn from this kind of exploration in java will apply to any language

Einsteins Grandson

How about SQL ?

Darth Android

16:18

Yup

Einsteins Grandson

Matlab?

Darth Android

All the SQL vendors have API documentation for their functions

Matlab yup

Einsteins Grandson

But they don't have Java JDK ...

Darth Android

they have their own documentation

Einsteins Grandson

So nothing I learn from JDK will help me ...

allquixotic

16:19

@EinsteinsGrandson that's irrelevant -- the point is, by learning Java, you are learning learning processes that will help you learn Matlab, or C++, or SQL

Darth Android

@EinsteinsGrandson It's now about remembering exact stuff from the JDK or javadocs

It's about knowing how to look things up

allquixotic

your specific knowledge of TreeMap might not help you down the road, but the effort you expended learning it, will help you read other API docs, and learn other environments

think of it this way

you were a baby once, maybe only 1 or 2 years old

what if your parents only taught you how to walk across the living room, and never anywhere else? what if they prohibited you from walking anywhere except from one side of the living room to another?

Einsteins Grandson

I just think that I wasted so much time in my life learning ..... If I was president of the planet.... studnets would need to learn only basics...

allquixotic

now imagine you're 20 years old, and you still only know how to walk from one end of your living room to another

how useful would that be?

Einsteins Grandson

You spend 18 years learning... and it does not help you so much...

allquixotic

16:20

point is, you learned how to walk in almost any environment, up hills, down hills, in big rooms, in caves, etc

Einsteins Grandson

if you do PhD.... it's like 22 years

allquixotic

but you didn't have to learn each one of those specifically on their own

Journeyman Geek

@EinsteinsGrandson: learning isn't getting paper

allquixotic

you applied things you knew from previous environments to the new environments

otherwise, each time you entered a new building, you would fall on the floor, completely unable to walk in that new environment

Darth Android

@EinsteinsGrandson It helps you so much. It helps you to be a good citizen of whatever country you're in. It helps you make decisions based on knowledge you've already collected.

Journeyman Geek

16:21

I've not got a degree. I know shit.

Einsteins Grandson

I mean.... in USA... it's more about learning what you actually need in your career... what is useful..... in EU is more about... you need to know everything... history, geography, biology, chemisty, physics....

allquixotic

effective learning -- efficient learning (meaning, learning in a short amount of time) -- chiefly involves applying things that you already know to help you solve things you don't yet know

Journeyman Geek

I do, however learn all the time

in or outside class

allquixotic

by extension, the more you already know, the faster it is to learn new things you don't yet know

that's basically the clearest I can possibly make it

Darth Android

@EinsteinsGrandson In the US, you learn everything too

Einsteins Grandson

16:22

It woule be OK if students only learn 50% or less.... I mean in elementary school and high school...

Journeyman Geek

@EinsteinsGrandson: lots of students don't learn ;p

they memorise, the mug.

Einsteins Grandson

Even memorising

It's just waste of time!

Journeyman Geek

they don't actually get the skills they should be getting internalised

Darth Android

You need the ability to specialize, yes, but you need a basic understanding of all major subjects.

Journeyman Geek

you wouldn't need to if you can do.

Einsteins Grandson

16:24

You don't

You can look it up all on Google

Darth Android

google won't tell you how to apply it, though

Einsteins Grandson

There are some usefull things.... foregin languages, psychology, math, philosophy....

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson if that's true, then google "how to learn", and now you are magically a master learner

Darth Android

exploration, learning, is all about how to apply book knowledge

Einsteins Grandson

But there are many that are just bullshit you don't need in your life

Darth Android

16:25

Such as...?

Einsteins Grandson

as I said

biology, history, geography....

physics, chemisty

Journeyman Geek

lol

as I said, google is external memory

Einsteins Grandson

you would be OK with only knowing far less than what they teach you

Journeyman Geek

you need to know WHAT to google, and how to convert that explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge.

Einsteins Grandson

anyway.... We can continue next time... Life is short

I need to work...

Darth Android

16:26

I encounter those subjects on a weekly, if not daily basis

Einsteins Grandson

;o)

Darth Android

Wouldn't know who, where, or what the EU is without history and geography

terdon

@EinsteinsGrandson wow, I just read the transcript, I can't believe you're real.

Einsteins Grandson

why?

terdon

You seem to want to acquire knowledge without learning.

Einsteins Grandson

16:27

what's wrong?

terdon

Ummmm

Einsteins Grandson

what do you mean?

terdon

how can you know something, anything if you don't want to learn?

allquixotic

@terdon please don't try

it's already been hashed, re-hashed and re-stated multiple times

Einsteins Grandson

you don't need to know anything

terdon

16:28

@allquixotic Yeah, I guess. Wow though.

Einsteins Grandson

All you need to know is how to survive

allquixotic

@terdon at least I learned something from this conversation

people like this exist -- he's way too genuine to be a troll -- and they live on the same planet as me

Einsteins Grandson

There are so many things that even you know about them.... it has no impact on how your life is...

allquixotic

that's extremely educational towards my cynicism about humanity

Einsteins Grandson

You want to learn something... you pick up the subject and you learn

But You have the freedom to choose

what you want to learn

And this is the future

They will teach kids less and less in schools

Darth Android

16:30

@EinsteinsGrandson We're not saying you can't do without... we're saying that life is better for having the tools.

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson you know what? I totally agree - self-directed learning can be great, and a lot more engaging than traditional education

Einsteins Grandson

They will teach them basics...

allquixotic

but the key word in "self-directed learning" is -- you guessed it -- LEARNING

asking other people how to solve your problems for you is not learning

Einsteins Grandson

When you will want to learn more..... you will go to internet and do some ONLINE course yourself...

Darth Android

@EinsteinsGrandson The problem is that you don't know what you don't know. Without basic physics, you may not even know that is a field of study

Einsteins Grandson

16:30

Imagine in 50 years.... there will be all courses of all universities online for free

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson I completely agree with your vision of the future of education, and it sounds great -- but only if you are actually learning, and not just googling or asking questions on SO about the assignments and then copy and pasting into your homework

Einsteins Grandson

What if the whole Facebook will be about asking and answering?

People are more and more lazy now

And it will be even worse

They will not know what the result of 3x3 is

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson I think the problem is self-regulating, meaning, the people who volunteer to answer will go away naturally, as they tire of doing other peoples' work for them

Darth Android

^

Einsteins Grandson

No they won't

There are billions of people on the internet

Darth Android

16:33

The only reason I answer anything on SU is pretty much because I don't know the answer off the top of my head, and I just want to find out for myself.

Einsteins Grandson

in 20 years EVERYBODY will be online 24/7

All people from Africa, China, Latin America, India

All of them will speak English

Boris_yo

Thanks to futuretimeline.net

Einsteins Grandson

what is it?

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson and all of them will just be chomping at the bit to answer your questions for you, right?

well, I guess if you pay them :)

Boris_yo

@allquixotic Or provide incentive.

allquixotic

16:34

people pay Chinese "workers" to play their games for them -- power leveling, gold, etc. in MMORPGs

I guess the next step is to pay someone to live your life for you

go find your wife and marry her and bring her back to you

do your job for you

etc

I don't want to live in that kind of world

Boris_yo

@allquixotic Why just chinese? Cheap?

allquixotic

I want people to be independent, rational, self-aware human beings able to think and feel and reason on their own without needing to get help from someone else

otherwise in a few generations there will not be a "someone else"

Einsteins Grandson

Imagine you are some Executive in Germany.... You are making maybe 50.000 dollars per month... You work 15 hours a day.... You pay a person to take care of your cars, another for house, another for garden, another for kids....

You don't live your life

You pay people to live your life

Boris_yo

@allquixotic And not be sheeple like government wants them to.

allquixotic

@EinsteinsGrandson maybe, but in order to become a highly paid executive, they had to do things themselves first, because when they started, they couldn't afford to pay for all that

Einsteins Grandson

16:37

NO

They have been working 15 hours a day their whole life

So they have always had money

allquixotic

oh, ok -- "NO" -- I'm totally convinced now

terdon

@EinsteinsGrandson working==learning

allquixotic

obviously any argument can be immediately rebutted by saying "NO"

terdon

hell breathing==leraning

you learn every day, you'd have to be dead to avoid it

Einsteins Grandson

They finished university.... got a good job and were payed 4000 euros a month

terdon

16:39

I really hope you grow out of this (I am graciously assuming you are a child, it is the only explanation I can think of)

Einsteins Grandson

and they have been working like crazy ever since...

terdon

They finished university == therefore they have learned something

Einsteins Grandson

Yes

terdon

They've spent 15 uears working, therefore they learned even more

Einsteins Grandson

But when you go to business school.... it's not that hard!

Doesn't matter

terdon

16:40

Well, obviously not! Business school can't be hard, yuppies need to be able to finish it!

Einsteins Grandson

What I am saying is .... the whole world works like this

This is what they tell you in any big company

Time is prescious !

Oliver Salzburg

An EVGA GTX680 for $420 seems really cheap, doesn't it?

Einsteins Grandson

So, you don't have time to learn everything in detail...

You need be effective

terdon

and you can't be without knowledge, come on!

Einsteins Grandson

and that means.... solving problems quickly

allquixotic

16:41

@OliverSalzburg 680 is previous-generation fastest single GPU, so $80 off of the standard $500 price tag is about right

terdon

exactly, which takes knowledge

Boris_yo

@terdon Usually when you get a job after university, they say to forget everything you learned there.

allquixotic

$420 for a 680 in 2012 would be cheap, but now that the 780 is out, you're going to see price drops

Einsteins Grandson

I have always been like that.... Learning to detail....

terdon

@Boris_yo which is bull of course, otherwise they would not look for graduates

Journeyman Geek

16:42

@EinsteinsGrandson: my other major is management

classes are NOT easy

Einsteins Grandson

But it took me so much time.... Time I could have spent for other things!

Oliver Salzburg

@allquixotic Well, I'm also looking at the same card on Amazon for $1300... :P

Einsteins Grandson

That's why I have this attitude!

terdon

Fine, just don't bring it here

allquixotic

@OliverSalzburg wtf? $1300 for a GTX680? that's price gouging

Einsteins Grandson

16:43

So what is your first major? @JourneymanGeek ?

allquixotic

even on release day the MSRP of a GTX680 from a reputable vendor wasn't any more than $650 or so (marked up due to greed and high demand of a brand new card)

Oliver Salzburg

@allquixotic Yeah, it's the most expensive seller. Average price still seems to be ~$580 though

Boris_yo

@terdon They deem graduates as hard working people in terms of learning, willing to get their degree and that says a lot about one's personalities. What they need for proof is your diploma.

Oliver Salzburg

And this is the cheapest version of the GTX680 I could find right now as well

Maybe we're getting ripped off in .de :P

terdon

@Boris_yo you need basic knowledge of your field in order to work in it, come on.

allquixotic

16:44

@OliverSalzburg that's likely

also, AMD generally wins on price/performance ratio (total value), so if those dollars are important to you, you might consider whether you are able to grin and bear the awful AMD graphics drivers

Oliver Salzburg

Actually, the cheapest is Zotac GeForce GTX680 2048MB PCIe (ZT-60104-10P) which is 299€ = $405.23

allquixotic

a HD7970 is a great value right now

next gen Radeons are on the market and HD7970 is "old news" by now, but still very capable and modern

Oliver Salzburg

No AMD for me

Journeyman Geek

@EinsteinsGrandson: computer forensics and information security management

Boris_yo

@terdon People say they had outdated or less relevant material to study in university which did not help their job at all but they say familiarity with subject matter and univeristy diploma is what's ultimately important.

allquixotic

16:46

@OliverSalzburg Radeon does much better at OpenCL than Nvidia though :P

Journeyman Geek

lol

Oliver Salzburg

@allquixotic I don't care

allquixotic

at least for hashing and video encoding

Journeyman Geek

nvidia are better gaming cards

AMD is better at GPGPU

Einsteins Grandson

ok, i need to go.... talk to you next time..... it will never end... ;o)

Oliver Salzburg

16:47

If I got an AMD card for free, I would sell it and buy an Nvidia card with the money

terdon

@Boris_yo maybe in your field. In any case, the most important thing you can learn in uni (and usually don't unfortunately) is how to learn.

allquixotic

@JourneymanGeek based on the way that Nvidia was engineering their cards, I really thought that Nvidia would be better at GPGPU, but apparently only their Tesla cards are better

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: as we found out when I dabbled in bitcoin mining ;p

allquixotic

how in the world AMD ended up being better at GPGPU, I have no idea

@JourneymanGeek yup, plus the bitcoin wiki says AMD is better

Journeyman Geek

lol

allquixotic

16:48

@OliverSalzburg I'm liking AMD less these days because their drivers are such crap, especially after they laid off half their driver team, but I'm not sold on the value proposition of an Nvidia card, yet.

I'm okayish with my Radeon HD7970 at the moment.

very good gaming performance, but chock full of bugs

Oliver Salzburg

I had AMD cards in the past, they sucked, their drivers were horrible crap. I'm not buying their garbage ever again. I'm through with AMD

Boris_yo

@allquixotic Conspiracy...

allquixotic

I've had plenty of Nvidia driver problems though

they're not flawless

also, AMD has been beating all AAA developers over the head with the AMD certification/tuning program; more and more AAA games are displaying AMD logo animation during launch, indicating it runs better on AMD because it's been optimized for AMD

that works in AMD's favor because, at least as far as I can tell, those optimizations are real, and they work, and they're great

but in general they don't help Nvidia cards (intentionally or not, I have no idea)

Boris_yo

@terdon Maybe if everybody gone to university, there would be less thugs and street gangs. At most I prefer douchebags over thugs anyway.

allquixotic

TotalBiscuit always complaining about how games are getting 30 FPS on his "SLI GTX TITAN"s

gee maybe if he used two Radeon HD7970 in crossfire, he'd get better results :P

Oliver Salzburg

16:52

@allquixotic Maybe he's just an idiot who simply bought the most expensive crap on the market and is now expecting to have a "killer rig"?

I have a single GTX580 and I don't get 30fps

allquixotic

would be cool if he could just maintain two computers with near identical setups except one is AMD and one is Nvidia, and try them both on a game before bitching that it's slow

then pick the one that runs better for the video and make a verbal note in the show that it ran badly on the other cards

that seems reasonable to me, and he makes actual significant RL money from his youtube vids, and it's his livelihood, so I don't see why he doesn't do that

Oliver Salzburg

It's been quite some time since I had a dual-GPU setup but it was a PITA 50% of the time because the software simply didn't work well with it

So I usually had to disable 1 core and the game would run perfectly

Which was quite a disappointment since the card cost a shitload of money and 1 core was usually sitting there idle :P

allquixotic

@OliverSalzburg yeah, he does that sometimes too, but even with one GTX TITAN, that should be more than enough to run any game at 60-120 FPS

but he nevertheless complains about some recent AAA titles running at 20-30 FPS with one or two TITANs and doesn't even test them on AMD or mention whether they are AMD-optimized games

I'm not ready to blame his rig or configuration or whatever when it's been several games with this problem

Oliver Salzburg

@allquixotic It sounds more like they were intentionally made to run shitty on Nvidia :P

But maybe that's just the side effect of the whole development team running on AMD

allquixotic

@OliverSalzburg that's possible; OR, there are generic, general-purpose code paths that run okayish on any card, and special code paths (either just more efficient public API interleavings/usages, or private undocumented APIs) that AMD tells the developers about to improve performance specifically on AMD cards

I don't really buy into the whole conspiracy thing where vendors work with game devs to try and intentionally slow down the game on the competition's cards

I like to think that people are professional enough to do better than that

rather, instead of making the competition slower, they're making their own stuff faster

and they have absolutely no obligation or advantage to installing a competitor's card and trying to optimize for that too

so unless the game dev does that on their own, it just uses the generic path

Oliver Salzburg

16:58

@allquixotic Yeah, I kinda doubt that as well. In the end, they want to sell a game that runs well

Either way, no AMD for me!

allquixotic

@OliverSalzburg yeah, and there are quite a few games that run well on everything from Intel Ivy Bridge, through all modern AMD and Nvidia cards, irrespective of drivers etc, where the developer basically said, let's put in the effort to optimize this for every popular driver

Oliver Salzburg

I rather use worse, more expensive hardware than give them my money ever again :P

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