/dev/chat

1:15 AM

@Gilles yeah, I don't have huge expectations, but I'll have a poke at it.

More interesting to me is the possibility of reaching 10K on meta so I can see deleted stuff there. But I don't really want to get involved to that degree in the current ruckus, even though there are obviously a lot of votes and eyes to be had....

Faheem Mitha

6:19 AM

@derobert Well, the Supreme Court, after agreeing to hear the bank petition, then refused to hear it. Just in the news, like 15 minutes ago.

It seems to be it would have been more sensible to refuse to hear it in the first place, but perhaps this is how judges like to entertain themselves here.

Tim

1:22 PM

@Kusalananda How is your python study going? :)

Kusalananda

@Tim I don't want to talk about it :-/

Tim

what happened?

Kusalananda

In short, I'm procrastinating.

Tim

I am also studying programming languages. So that is relatable

Does medicare for all equivalence in Nordic countries cover pet healthcare?

I guess that is also a big expense

Kusalananda

There's a difference between studying something because it's interesting and having to study something because you need to learn it to do something boring.

Tim

1:26 PM

This summer I went from Haskell->Scheme->a little SML -> Smalltalk -> relearn some Python, and then end up with two books: TAPL and PFPL (now struggling to finish asap)

Also EOPL

I am not good at any of them, but just trying to get some picture

to ease the learning curve for new languages

I admire polylinguists, with or without having to go that route.

Hope one day, when I have some time, I will revisit Bash, with a new perspective.

Jesse_b

TIL about SECONDS

Tim

good for u

Stephen Kitt

@Jesse_b I see your SECONDS and raise you EPOCHSECONDS

Jesse_b

@StephenKitt Nice!

{0}:[100%]:[~/tmp]:[2019-10-18T13:38:27Z]
$ for ((i=1;i<=100;i++)); do [[ $EPOCHSECONDS -eq $(date +%s) ]] || echo fail; done
{0}:[100%]:[~/tmp]:[2019-10-18T13:38:46Z]
$

Seems to remain accurate

I have a few scripts that do some runtime calculations that could definitely benefit from one of or both of those

Maybe not

$ for ((i=1;i<=1000;i++)); do [[ $EPOCHSECONDS -eq $(date +%s) ]] || echo fail; done
fail
fail
fail
fail

Out of 1000 it seems to consistently fail 3-4 times

Jeff Schaller

2:01 PM

@Jesse_b probably because EPOCHSECONDS is N.99 and the subshell for date takes long enough that it returns N+1

@Jesse_b try: for ((i=1;i<=1000;i++)); do a=$EPOCHSECONDS; b=$(date +%s); [[ $a -eq $b ]] || echo fail, a=$a, b=$b; done

Jesse_b

yeah

$ for ((i=1;i<=1000;i++)); do a=$EPOCHSECONDS; b=$(date +%s); [[ $a -eq $b ]] || echo fail, a=$a, b=$b; done
fail, a=1571407402, b=1571407403
fail, a=1571407403, b=1571407404
fail, a=1571407405, b=1571407406

Odd that they are all adjacent failures like that

Maybe my CPU was just doing some other work at that time

ilkkachu

@Kusalananda :/ Python is niice.

Tim

@ilkkachu That is what I was and will try to see

Python is very strange and unnatural and incoherent to me

I guess that is my problem

I haven't learned it correctly

ilkkachu

I mean, it's surprisingly nice once you get over the indentation thing :P (That is, me coming there from C and Perl.)

Tim

I have got over indentation.

In comparison, Scheme and Smalltalk are more coherent and small to understand

The toy languages in TAPL and PFPL are better defined, but could also be difficult to read at the beginning.

Jesse_b

2:20 PM

stackoverflow.blog/2019/10/17/…

Summary: Fullstack engineer means you know node.js

Tim

do u?

Jesse_b

@Tim I have written a few programs in node.js but I definitely wouldn't claim to know it

Some of the nodejs stuff the engineers in my company write is completely hieroglyphics to me

Tim

it is in my todo list, but I don't know when I will get to it

Helsinki is one of the best cities in the world, bc I heard a lot of praises on Youtube

Why Helsinki is Tearing Up Its Freeways

►

I don't know how long the rest of the world will catch up

Jesse_b

@Tim Do you know javascript? IMO if you know javascript you already know nodejs, you just need to watch a short 15 minute youtube video about how to use npm and you should be good to go

Tim

Probably not, I have read some of JavaScript The Definitive Guide, which is about EMCA 5?

I will watch some videos :)

ilkkachu

2:38 PM

@Tim oh, that plan

I have to admit I haven't followed that one too closely. But it doesn't sound like a no-brainer. Nothing regarding the traffic here does.

the traffic in the inner city and to the ports is a mess. Some politicians have been throwing around a frickking 1,4 billion euro tunnel plan to help with that. It just got rejected by what's basically a majority of the parties in the city council, but the mayor just decided to push it anyway. Regardless of the fact that all calculations say it wouldn't pay.

The real issue of course is that they put the city in the wrong place in the 1950's ;) It's basically a peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides. There are bridges to the East and West, of course, but that doesn't really make it too easy.

Oh and half the time it seems all plans on traffic are based more on stereotypical political stances (i.e. the righties wanting roads for cars, the lefties less of those), instead of looking at the whole.

I'll stop now :) </rant>

Wildcard

3:26 PM

Yeesh, -7 seems a bit excessive for a question that at least included example input and output.

Talking about this one: unix.stackexchange.com/q/547473/135943

Jesse_b

@Wildcard Probably. I think the title alone deserves a downvote though. I am more concerned with why my comment got no love, are they not valid questions? :(

Jeff Schaller

The "we don't do homework" crowd is unpredictable, it seems. Some questions get piled on with answers, other questions just get piled on. That one definitely needs a better title, and some words explaining what the transformation is.

(don't make every reader come up with their interpretation of the question)

Wildcard

@Gilles dropping you a note.

(I mean, this is my note.)

Jesse_b

@JeffSchaller I think I am part of the "we don't do homework" crowd but I probably would have answered it if I was better with awk :p

Jeff Schaller

@Wildcard consider also chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/26?m=52180153#52180153

Faheem Mitha

3:32 PM

@ilkkachu There's the whitespace issue. But elpy is actually reasonable to work with.

Wildcard

@JeffSchaller ah, thank you.

@ilkkachu speaking of Python...I recently discovered the "turtle" module, which is wonderful. So now I'm teaching my 6 year old son to program. :)

Stephen Kitt

@Wildcard my kids love that one too ;-)

Jeff Schaller

the One True Way to learn programming

Stephen Kitt

It reminded me of the Logo turtle of my youth

as in, a physical turtle controlled by Logo programs: tortue-jeulin.com/…

turle-like robot, I should say

Jeff Schaller

that's what I assumed turtle python was

(logo turtle)

Stephen Kitt

3:39 PM

yes, it’s very similar

and provides the same direct feedback for learners, which is essential

Faheem Mitha

@ilkkachu Are you talking about Helsinki?

Wildcard

@StephenKitt nice, I never saw that before.

I learned about it from a comment: cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/4519/…

Anyway, I already taught him to type (using Mavis Beacon) so now he's typing programs. :)

Jesse_b

I used to have a video game where you were defending a castle (I think) and words would fly across the screen towards your castle. You had to type the word out to destroy it before it got to you. That game is the sole reason I can type 120+ wpm

Tim

I wish I had turtle

logo turtle. I had never heard of it

Jeff Schaller

@Tim the magic of the Internet -- calormen.com/jslogo is one place you can play

Tim

3:46 PM

It is late

Wildcard

@Jesse_b yeah, that sounds good. Mavis Beacon is surprisingly good, but more recently they seem to have changed things that didn't need changing. Happily, I have probably the last version from before all the unnecessary changes.

@Jesse_b although the first thing I thought of was: xgenstudios.com/game.php?keyword=castle

Jesse_b

@Wildcard requires flash :(

Wildcard

@Jesse_b well here's the link that explains it; you might have seen it before. xgenstudios.com/play/castle

Tim

4:04 PM

Access to educational toys in their early years were probably why the gurus here are so savvy in programming

have good intuition and sense

@ilkkachu It seems no one likes to praise their own homeland

Jesse_b

I'm really trying hard to find this old typing game now

It's been so long I'm not sure I even remember it accurately

Jeff Schaller

@Jesse_b images.app.goo.gl/Rm39txZe3sYEUx8k6 ?

> Description: Extreme Spelling is a fun castle defense typing game where you need to type the words to stop the enemies from destroying your castle.

> Genre: Typing Shooter

Jesse_b

@JeffSchaller No that is too new. I played this game around 1990-1992? Also I believe the words came from left to right

I know I had it on a 3.5" floppy disk

Stephen Kitt

@Jesse_b you could ask about it on Retrocomputing

we get quite a lot of “what’s this game I vaguely remember?” questions

Jesse_b

@StephenKitt Hah. I'll try some more to find it first. Don't want to contribute to more eye rolling :p

Jeff Schaller

4:12 PM

Stephen must have reclaimed my google-fu

Jesse_b

On the plus side I just saw an image of "Hugo's House of Horrors" and that made me smile

Wildcard

@StephenKitt or on Reddit, they have a subforum for that: reddit.com/r/tipofmyjoystick

On a side note, I miss the days when educational software came on CD-ROM. Now it seems that it's all web-based, with a subscription model.

Jesse_b

4:29 PM

@Wildcard Yeah subscription based licensing seems to be the future for virtually all useful software

I have a feeling we can tie the blame back to oracle. They are the worst

ilkkachu

4:49 PM

@FaheemMitha yep

Faheem Mitha

@Jesse_b That's a weird thing for a user of Linux-based systems to say.

@ilkkachu So you have problems too?

ilkkachu

@JeffSchaller Typing of the Dead was another like that. You shot zombies by typing the words on them... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typing_of_the_Dead

Jesse_b

@FaheemMitha I meant non-operating system software although oracle managed to even commercialize linux

ilkkachu

@FaheemMitha I can't compare to a lot of other places, but it's not exactly perfect even here :P

Jeff Schaller

5:02 PM

After the school's manual typewriter, I learned to type by re-entering BASIC programs from magazines

Seeing that there's a whole genre called "typing shooter" is amazing

Tim

Former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg is running for president.

US president

Faheem Mitha

5:20 PM

@Jesse_b There's plenty of free software that isn't operating systems.

In large part, that's what this site is about.

Jesse_b

@FaheemMitha Yeah, and the overwhelming majority of it either isn't a) very good, or b) very widely used

If it's both good and in high demand it almost certainly comes with a high price tag

Faheem Mitha

@ilkkachu Somehow I think of the Finns as having a carefree life. Except for not freezing to death. And having to worry about the occasional Russian invasion. :-)

Jesse_b

Good is actually a bad choice of word, it should be useful. Because all software is absolutely awful

Faheem Mitha

I realise this isn't realistic. After all, it's Planet Earth.

@Jesse_b I'm not sure how to quantify "the overwhelming majority".

But there is lots of good free software out there. It's what I use.

Unfortunately, it gets little support. But we already know about that.

@derobert We're now up to 4 victims. Another person died today.

Jesse_b

Fair point and I made that "overwhelming majority" part up, obviously, however if you think about how much software (specifically free software) is written and then literally never once used by anyone but it's original author, I bet that alone can be classified as "the overwhelming majority"

Faheem Mitha

5:24 PM

@Jesse_b Well, yes, I'm sure most free software projects don't go anywhere. Like most of anything. Mine certainly didn't, but I never had my heart in any of them.

They were mostly "work for hire" projects.

But, regardless, there are plenty of exceptions.

The free software ecosystem is actually a very rich one.

More resources would be nice, of course.

Jesse_b

@FaheemMitha Unfortunately the resources come with money, and the money inevitably leads to becoming Hooli (Oracle).

Faheem Mitha

@Jesse_b You seem a bit fixated on Oracle.

Free software projects manage without much by way of resources.

All I'm saying is that more resources would be nice.

Government grants, perhaps.

Jesse_b

@FaheemMitha If you are having a conversation about evil proprietary software you are legally obligated to mention oracle

Faheem Mitha

I feel inspired to write a list question.

Jesse_b

Or I think you owe them some sort of fee

Faheem Mitha

5:27 PM

What money have the governments of the world contributed towards free software, and how?

There is the minor drawback that it would probably be instantly closed on SE.

@Jesse_b I think I must have missed that memo. And I missed that you were talking about evil proprietary software.

Though if I was going that route, I think I'd (still) focus on MS.

I wonder if Open Source would accept such a question.

Faheem Mitha

5:40 PM

Asked it on a whim.

0

Q: Examples of government financial support for free software

I'm looking for example of governments giving financial support to free software development. Examples would be grants or contracts, perhaps. I can think of one example off the top of my head, which is that the German govt gave a grant for GPG development. But I am sure there must be others.

finance

I wonder if it will get closed.

Wildcard

5:56 PM

@Jesse_b I have high hopes for the business model used by GitLab. Open source core with enterprise extensions.

But free educational software is light-years behind paid stuff.

It takes a LOT of UI polish to make a really excellent educational software that can really help kids learn things.

Tim

what languages do children learn nowadays?

Btw, Jane Fonda is a lovely lady. Her smile will lighten up many people's hearts

pbs.twimg.com/media/EHLXof6W4AMEEpQ?format=jpg&name=small

Wildcard

@Tim well I didn't mean programming education exclusively. Typing programs, math, etc.

@Tim but Python is probably the best starting language.

terdon

6:38 PM

@FaheemMitha probably. It's asking for a list, and those are pretty universally off topic across SE. You might want to rephrase as "Has any government provided financial support to free software development" so it isn't so open ended (asking for examples).

Wildcard

6:51 PM

@FaheemMitha it's a rich ecosystem when you are doing things with computers and programs. Try to do something like teach a group of 7 year olds, and it's much less so, even though there are great educational software products out there. Just very very few good libre ones.

Tim

7:15 PM

@Wildcard, I found an interesting article for parents here

List of educational programming languages

An educational programming language is a programming language that is designed mostly as an instrument for learning, and less as a tool for writing programs to perform work. == Learning paths == Many educational programming languages position themselves inside a learning path, that is, a sequence of languages each designed to build on the others moving a student from easy to understand and entertaining environments to full professional environments. Some of the better known are presented below. === Assembly language === Originally, machine code was the first and only way to program comp...

When I learned Smalltalk, I heard Squeak is designed for education

It also lists Logo, which I had never knew was a language

Wildcard

7:32 PM

@Tim yeah, that's cool. What's nice is that Python's turtle module is almost as easy to use as Logo itself. Probably less so because of the parentheses required, but still pretty simple.

I never used Logo myself, but the turtle module seems to replicate those features pretty well.

Jesse_b

7:51 PM

0

Q: Find text with wildcard

I am looking in a /etc/hosts file for hosts that should contain servers that look at least like this: mobile.example.com more.mobile.example.com and NOT example.com I want to search with a wildcard like this: sed/awk/find/grep/ word.word.word < path/to/inputfile > path/to/outputfile where wo...

awk sed grep find

@Wildcard: Someone needs your help finding text :p

Faheem Mitha

@terdon I did ask for examples.

Jeff Schaller

@Jesse_b send out the *-signal!

Jesse_b

@JeffSchaller hah

In all seriousness I think that question is a perfect example of how complicated even seemingly simple tasks can get

I shared it with a few friends that are always trashing every piece of software they can for having bugs

Faheem Mitha

@terdon Oh, sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying. You mean I shouldn't ask for examples.

Jeff Schaller

thinking is hard; someone's gotta do it

Faheem Mitha

7:54 PM

I guess using the word "example" itself triggers the SE bots.

@Wildcard I'm not sure what 7 year olds are capable of learning.

It's been a while since I was one.

Jesse_b

I know I messed with that lego programming language when I was in elementary school

I thought it was called legoscript though

derobert

@FaheemMitha Errr... That's a very long list.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Perhaps, but I don't know of any examples.

Well, other than the one I mentioned in the question.

And I don't know the details of even that one.

Sometimes Stack Exchange and its rules are annoying.

Jesse_b

I think those rules mostly only apply to the technical sub-sites

The non-technical sites seem to be a free-for-all that often even allow comments as answers

derobert

@FaheemMitha Almost all of the early Internet was funded by US taxpayers. That's quite a few examples there.

Jesse_b

8:01 PM

asking for a list of something on the cooking site for example would probably be on topic

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Infrastructure yes. Protocols, possibly. Software, can't think of anything offhand. Give me a few examples.

I know the Pentagon pumps huge sums into computer and net development. Particularly at the computer end.

Jesse_b

I doubt much, if any, of that work is libre though

derobert

@FaheemMitha bind?

Faheem Mitha

Most of the notable pieces of software that I can think of were originally, at least, created by a single person.

Gimp was created by 2 people.

Jesse_b

@FaheemMitha In general things created by committees are terrible. Dictatorships are the most efficient way to do anything

Faheem Mitha

8:04 PM

> Originally written by four graduate students at the Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), BIND was first released with Berkeley Software Distribution 4.3BSD.

Where did the govt support it?

Oh, I see. "as a result of a DARPA grant."

derobert

Yep. A lot of written by grad students means as part of a grant, usually from a government

Faheem Mitha

@Jesse_b Some SE sites object to lists, others don't. It all seems pretty arbitrary, as far as I can tell.

derobert

@Jesse_b most of them are off-topic at Seasoned Advice, too

Faheem Mitha

@derobert I was thinking of something at a more "professional" level, I guess.

Jesse_b

True:

> Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.

Faheem Mitha

8:07 PM

No disrespect to grad students. I've been one myself, and they are treated disgracefully.

Jesse_b

I think @FaheemMitha's question probably couldn't even be answered in a single book

Faheem Mitha

How about non-exploitative funding?

derobert

SE Linux? There's another easy example.

Jesse_b

But I imagine if someone asked something like "What ingredients would go well in a chili" on seasoned advice that would be on topic and warrant a list

Faheem Mitha

@derobert The NSA thing?

derobert

8:09 PM

@Jesse_b no, recipe requests are off-topic. Or at least there were when I was last there.

@FaheemMitha yep, written by the NSA

Faheem Mitha

@derobert Oh, did you see that I wrote that the Supreme Court threw that case out?

derobert

yeah

Faheem Mitha

It's touching how concerned they are about it. When they feel like it, they're quite willing to ignore the Constitution.

Jesse_b

@derobert I would heed your advice since I don't really use that site but that wasn't quite a recipe request and more of a "I'm not sure if watermelon would taste good in chili, would it?" type of question

Faheem Mitha

Laws in India are nothing if not elastic.

derobert

8:10 PM

I guess you could probably get a pretty long list of projects from code.gov

Faheem Mitha

In my head I'm imagining a world where the govt of Iceland gives the GIMP developers money because they're doing such a good job. Pays them to add new features, perhaps.

That sort of thing doesn't seem to happen much, if at all.

derobert

@Jesse_b Odd ways to use ingredients were (last I was there) OK. Just "hey, what's a recipe for chili" were definitely not.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert I suppose I'm also thinking more of general usage software. Like Emacs, for example.

Or the GNU project. Did it ever receive any govt funding?

derobert

No idea. I'm sure it can be looked up somewhere.

Jesse_b

@derobert Yeah that's not what I meant though. I was thinking more along the lines of "I have this recipe for chili but I want to include even more ingredients. I'm worried that something I add may not fit into the classic taste of chili so can you please give me a list of examples of things that are okay to go in chili, and possibly a list of things I should avoid?"

Faheem Mitha

8:12 PM

Isn't a lot of the US govt funding about military applications? Do they ever fund things that are generally useful for people?

Jesse_b

"I read that one of the staples to a good chili is the beans, can I use any type of beans? What about jelly beans?"

and if the users on seasoned advice are anything like the users here, I'm sure one of them thought they could use jelly beans in chili at some point

derobert

@FaheemMitha Even inside the DoD, ARPA/DARPA funds a lot of generally useful things. Outside the DoD, there are several other agencies that fund generally useful things like NSF.

@Jesse_b I... err... doubt that. Though it would be a funny thing to do to someone on Cutthroat Kitchen.

Jesse_b

@derobert Damn, so the users of seasoned advice are better than our users? :(

derobert

@Jesse_b I donno about that, but they're probably better cooks.

Probably much worse at a bash prompt, though.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert For example?

Take bash. Chet works on it alone, as far as I know. Has any govt ever offered him money for his work?

derobert

8:27 PM

No idea. Generally you have to go ask the government for the money.

I don't know if anyone is funding work on shells. Quite possibly not.

Faheem Mitha

@derobert It would be nice if that step could be skipped.

Jesse_b

anyone know if it's possible to make an ipmi serial over lan console wrap output properly?

derobert

@Jesse_b tput cols not working right maybe? Could try setting/exporting COLUMNS=whatever

Faheem Mitha

I suppose foundations are more flexible, but I never had the impression they funded work, at least not directly. I think some foundation did give Stallman money once, I think.

Yes, the MacArthur Foundation.

Jesse_b

@derobert That didn't seem to help (tried both on local machine and remote)

derobert

8:32 PM

Odd. Most things should respect export COLUMNS=80 (on the remote machine).

Wildcard

@Jesse_b there was a great answer I read some time ago, I think on Quora, about how to explain why programming is hard (to someone who doesn't see why it's hard). I can't seem to find it now. It was along the lines of, ask them for instructions on how to make a cup of coffee. Then start asking all the questions about the instructions.

Like, where did you get the water? Where did you get the cup?

Faheem Mitha

Something like MacArthur Fellows, but for software projects, perhaps.

derobert

Does tput cols give the right answer?

Wildcard

How do you know when to stop pouring? What if your "cup is full" sensor breaks?

Jesse_b

@derobert says 80

Wildcard

8:33 PM

And on and on, until they protest that this level of detail is unreasonable. And then you smile and say, "Exactly!"

derobert

And things aren't wrapping as they normally would? Long time since I've used the ipmi serial console. Maybe it only worked for me because I was running it in an xterm

Faheem Mitha

@Wildcard Programming hard, because it's building stuff, which is always hard. And it's harder than some things. Once you've built a wall, it generally doesn't come crashing down because someone pokes it in the wrong place.

Jesse_b

@Wildcard Yeah, I told my wife that initially you look at a problem like that and think of a handful of solutions right away. As you get more experienced, instead of thinking "x would solve that", you start thinking "Alright what are the caveats of trying x for this"

derobert

@Wildcard Then the world floods and everyone dies. The end. :-P

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha honestly, if you spend a few years training people of any age, you'll come to realize that capabilities vary wildly and that all the theories that "7 year olds are only capable of ___" are all uniformly nonsensical over-generalizations.

@derobert :D

derobert

8:35 PM

Handling sensor failure can be a version 2 feature. Gotta ship it now!

Faheem Mitha

@Wildcard I don't disagree. I wasn't suggesting 7 year olds had uniform capabilities.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha and people don't decide to re-use your wall as a paperweight just because it's already built.

Faheem Mitha

I was just saying that I don't know what 7 year olds are capable of.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha like this: xkcd.com/2021

Faheem Mitha

Society in general seems to think they are not capable of anything, because they basically stick them in a holding cell till they are much older.

Wildcard

8:36 PM

@FaheemMitha yep. Which produces juvenile delinquents, of course, but there you go.

Faheem Mitha

@Wildcard Well, not all juvenile delinquents are misunderstood geniuses, but I take your point.

As a child I was very bored and depressed, I remember. I cheered up when I left school, a bit, but I'd already been there a long time, and my spirit was broken.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha no, I mean you produce juvenile delinquents by disenfranchising them and disallowing them to contribute to the society.

@FaheemMitha :(

Faheem Mitha

I remember when I read Nineteen Eighty-Four as a child, I really related to it. Because I too felt I lived in an insane and cruel world I didn't want to be a part of.

@Wildcard Interesting perspective.

But I do remember being a child, and it was incredibly frustrating.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha yep. I finished high school when I was 13. And I was fortunate enough to have parents who supported me, and DID allow me to contribute. I was working from an early age.

Faheem Mitha

@Wildcard Sounds like you were lucky, yes.

Wildcard

8:40 PM

@Jesse_b exactly.

@FaheemMitha yep.

Faheem Mitha

Imagine, for example, being 15 and wanting to learn math. But your math teachers don't know any math.

Wildcard

Not that it wasn't frustrating. It took me years to get over the defensive mechanism that everybody is just dumb, and learn to treat other people with respect.

Faheem Mitha

Well, they think they do, but they don't.

I believe in Russia they did teach actual math to school children.

Who apparently learned it. In part because they didn't know it was supposed to be hard.

I mean the Soviet Union, mostly, I guess. Possibly places like Hungary too.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha yeah, when I was about 12 (and nearing the end of high school) my mom met someone at a Farmer's Market who worked at Dreamworks or Pixar; he wrote the code that allowed for the realistic simulation of fire, water, breaking ceramic, that sort of thing. And they chatted and then I got to meet him.

Faheem Mitha

@Wildcard That's nice. What happened then?

Wildcard

8:43 PM

Oops, gotta run, back in a bit to finish the story...

Faheem Mitha

Ok. So you were a child prodigy? :-)

Anyway, maybe someone should give Chet some money. Though I imagine he would be quite surprised.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha My mom later reminded me of me comment after chatting with him for over an hour. I said, "Mom, that was SO refreshing! I didn't have to explain anything!" :D

We chatted about fourth dimensional geometry, lots of things.

Faheem Mitha

@Wildcard I don't quite follow that. What comment?

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha yeah...you could say that I guess. I'm not really comfortable with that description though, to be honest.

@FaheemMitha oops, "my comment."

Faheem Mitha

I wish I'd been a child prodigy. I was mostly just a neurotic mess.

Wildcard

8:48 PM

@FaheemMitha yeah, I was too in many ways.

Just in math and reading I was light-years ahead of everyone.

Trying to get along with kids seemed impossible. Getting along with teachers was easy.

Faheem Mitha

@Wildcard Me too, probably. I remember that I abruptly became interested in math when I was 15. Till then I was barely passing.

My grades jumped from 50% to 100% and basically stayed there.

But I never learned any math in school.

I think the first time I actually learned any math was at Cambridge.

Because children can't understand math. And can't do any actual work, so don't bother giving them any.

I'm not bitter. Honest.

@derobert BTW, this well-written article summarises that bank situation quite nicely - sundayguardianlive.com/business/…

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha amazon.com/gp/product/1489507175

derobert

@FaheemMitha thanks, reading

Faheem Mitha

But math is just an example. Things like history and politics were much worse.

Though actually, in school we never had a subject called politics. We did have civics.

Probably the less said about that, the better.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha better than me. I got "social studies."

Faheem Mitha

8:56 PM

@Wildcard Are you American?

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha yeah. You're Greek, right?

Faheem Mitha

History is an interesting example of an extremely important and interesting subject which is basically made into mincemeat in schools.

Wildcard

(Or is that someone else?)

Faheem Mitha

@Wildcard No, Indian. You're probably thinking of @terdon.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha ah, yes.

Faheem Mitha

8:58 PM

I remember our history textbooks were quite stunningly bad. No attempt at all to cover anything whatever in any meaningful way.

I hear the US ones are pretty bad too.

Wildcard

@FaheemMitha yep.

Faheem Mitha

I had a British neighour in Carrboro; Michael. He told me he used to look at his daughter's textbooks, and they were pretty dire.

Presumably lots of brainwashing type stuff.

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