PUZZLES vs PROBLEMS : PLATONISM vs NATURALISM
What is the difference between a puzzle and a problem?
What is the difference between tautology and correspondence?
What is the difference between utility and necessity?
What is the difference between equivalence and truth?
What is the difference between platonism and realism?
What is the difference between mathematics and science?
From Books To Problems or from Problems To Books?
Cheers.
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 11:36:00 UTC
SOFT SKILLS
You know, I’m really proud of our “Skills” system. ( I suppose I could turn it into a personality-type system with the right questions. 🙂
We break skills into: 1) like/dislike (equally weighted), 2) soft (equally weighted), 3) hard (weighted) and 4) ‘Desirable’ (a multiplier for the skills a service company weighs most highly).
So, I was trying to explain the weights to everyone. And I said, think of hard skills this way: for us OO Javascript is probably the most valuable hard skill. Say, desirability 10. Php is less scarce, so it’s say an 8. Unix a 7. SQL a 6, and cobol, say, 0.
Likewise there are soft skills. In this company, I think it’s an asset to be short. Why? Do you really have to ask? THere are important soft skills like politeness and ability to dress one’s self. And those are just normal things. They don’t need to have a multiplier, but you need to have them. Say, given my incompetence with Russian, speaking English is worth a multiplier of say 5.
Then we have say, extremely important soft skills like: “Likes Nirvana”, “Drinks Hoegaarden”, “Buys beer for co-workers”, and “Attracts really hot girls” to our table. Now, these are seriously valuable soft skills that significantly contribute to workplace performance, in immeasurable ways.
They laughed. It was fun. The feature is awesome tho. ‘Cause you could actually do it. And more. I get to tell travel around the world with Max Romanenko telling clients similar silly nonsense for a living. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 07:48:00 UTC
http://www.fastcompany.com/node/28121/printSOFTWARE IN THE HUNTER GATHERER STAGE
“It’s like pre-Sumerian civilization,” says Brad Cox, who wrote the software for Steve Jobs NeXT computer and is a professor at George Mason University. “The way we build software is in the hunter-gatherer stage.”
John Munson, a software engineer and professor of computer science at the University of Idaho, is not quite so generous. “Cave art,” he says. “It’s primitive. We supposedly teach computer science. There’s no science here at all.”
Software may power the post-industrial world, but the creation of software remains a pre-industrial trade. According to SEI’s studies, nearly 70% of software organizations are stuck in the first two levels of SEI’s scale of sophistication: chaos, and slightly better than chaos.
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 06:55:00 UTC
INTENTIONS ARE A CHEAT AND A FANTASY : ONLY CONSEQUENCES EXIST
A psychological and hormonal trick that lets you do nothing meaningful, and possibly plenty that’s harmful, in exchange for the cheap high of feeling that you made a difference in the world.
Because if you tried to so something that people actually wanted, by producing something people actually wanted, you’d fail.
The only altruism is teaching someone to fish. Because if you try and succeed it was your victory. And if you try and fail, it is your failure. Rather than risk failure people try to obtain good feelings about themselves by good intentions.
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 05:04:00 UTC
Northern California County votes to secede, form new state called “Jefferson”
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 04:56:00 UTC
ASPIES AND EQUALITY
Does any one know the working theory on why Aspies tend to be so positive toward others, but moral specialists? Hmmm……
Caplan has me thinking about this quite a bit. The idea that Libertarians are moral specialists. Why we have so many aspies in the libertarian community. And why aspies appear to prefer to treat others in equal relations. Even why Meyers Briggs INTP’s prefer to work as equals.
There is something very interesting in this mess if I can untangle it.
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 04:55:00 UTC
“NIETZSCHE ENVY”
Nietzsche and the joy of wandering.
When I came to the Ukraine, my idea, was that I would either start the business, or I would buy a toyota truck and drive from london to mongolia by the most dangerous and uncivilized route possible before there were no such routes left to travel. The sort of minimalist adventure travel that I would use to cleanse my soul (and body) of the 2000’s.
For most of my childhood I had mini-bikes and small motorcycles, and my sense of freedom was sated by exploring on them, or on bicycles. Today, I realize the range I covered was less than ten miles in all directions. But that was what freedom meant to me: exploration.
But you know, I know Nietzsche had health problems, and I have had plenty of them too. And he spent a lot of time ‘wandering around’. And you know, it turns out that if all you want to do is think, then wandering around is a pretty good way of doing it.
And then, you sort of remember how awesome life is on a motorcycle, and you’re actually connected with the world rather than insulated from it. And you read a few articles by people who have spent a year traveling. And, then, you think, that even if your soul is already cleansed, maybe there is room now to fill it with joy.
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-04 08:44:00 UTC
AWESOME TIMES
1) The product is…. utterly amazing. I love products with richness and depth. It is …. awe inspiring to work on it. I find most software today is beautiful but mediocre – taking advantage of increases in user interfaces created by the touch experience, but not actually adding depth to any meaningful business software, which mostly is still stuck in the 90’s.
2) I’ve had a few very useful insights over the past two months.
a) My hunch that I could attack postmodernism via mathematics played out.
b) What I didn’t expect is that I would further my argument on the morality of calculability (preservation of causality in monetary exchanges). I have been struggling to develop an argument with this for two years.
c) I’ve been able to ‘correct’ the ‘calculation and incentives and property’ argument used by libertarians in the battle against socialism in order to focus us on Postmodernism now that socialism is dead.
d) I ended up with a pretty good theory of truth. That I think is out of scope for my book but useful as a separate bit of work. If I can distill it down and it still feels like it fits, I’ll use it. But right now the book is pretty much on-topic and I don’t want to add unnecessary weight to it unless I really need to. I can see that I might when I get around to it. But right now I’m not sure.
3) My major investment will at least survive until Christmas. lol. I had expected to lose a few million more this year. 🙂 And I’m not quite done with creating a new revenue stream yet. 🙂 lol
4) I have wonderful friends that I love and get to share the experience of life with.
Cheers
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-03 09:51:00 UTC
INSIGHT
Why do autists swing libertarian and solipsists progressive?
Thats the answer you know.
Its that simple.
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-03 08:51:00 UTC
Troy Camplin
Is there a reference that you can point me to that has say a mathematical proof on one end of a triangle, and a poem on another and a romance novel on the third?
Someone must have done thus back when thesauruses and the permutations of narrative types were being worked out.
How does experiential and factual communication map to all the forms we use to communicate?
Sort of a Nolan chart for written communication. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2013-09-03 08:23:00 UTC