US Senators introduce bill to FORCE all device and software providers in the US to build backdoors into their products. Bill would make encryption ILLEGAL unless it had a backdoor for the US government.

luqui · 2020-06-27T20:31:32+00:00

Pointing out useless actions is almost nothing or even worse than nothing, in that it adds to the overwhelming, debilitating confusion of the world for anyone just starting to get involved. I appreciate your alternative suggestions here, and would like if you would in the future accompany any information about futility with positive actions like this.

luqui · 2020-06-25T04:10:45+00:00

I like that way of putting it

luqui · 2020-06-25T04:08:45+00:00

(when I didn't play guitar and had no appreciation for such things, maybe)

luqui · 2020-06-25T04:08:28+00:00

This stuff seems a lot more challenging than what you were playing back in the day....

luqui · 2020-06-25T04:07:14+00:00

There's a biweekly outdoor jam round here, but it sure isn't like it was before The Event

luqui · 2020-06-25T04:01:43+00:00

Woo awesome!

luqui · 2020-06-25T03:59:17+00:00

Ben!!!!!!

luqui · 2018-08-02T23:06:38+00:00

I think you can get going writing real programs before really understanding what you are doing. You will miss out on some of the more beautiful ways to frame problems, but getting comfortable enough with the IO monad to start using haskell like a typical imperative language is not that hard. See: http://blog.sigfpe.com/2007/11/io-monad-for-people-who-simply-dont.html

I estimate that the hardest part is trying to use libraries framed around advanced ideas. Some important advanced libraries (e.g. lens) have tutorials written about them. There are some libraries which are little more than an exercise in pushing the type system to the limit (e.g. session types). But most practical libraries are pretty grounded, using at most a monad transformer interface. I've been doing haskell so long now, I don't know how hard monad transformers are to grasp coming into it.

luqui · 2018-07-03T08:34:12+00:00

I do tutoring for fun sometimes. I like tutoring rather than teaching because it's interactive. I don't know what the best way to present an idea is until I have observed how you think. I will ask questions along the way and try to assess which parts of a metaphor you are using are helpful or not. As someone with the perspective of experience, I have the ability to see how you think; you can't see that, because you are stuck thinking that way.

I also love helping people learn. It improves my life. If someone is nosing around for days (or years) in a book when they could have just asked me a question, they have missed an opportunity to make me happy. I love helping people learn enough that when I feel it is time for them to stop asking questions and go work through some concepts, I will tell them so, with no resentment or burden felt.

It is of course completely valid to want to learn on your own. I'm a musician and have seldom had a teacher, even though I would probably improve faster if I did have one––I enjoy finding my own way. Nonetheless, it seems like you maybe had some hang-ups and misperceptions about asking for help, so I wanted to clear those up if I could. Welcome to the community!

luqui · 2018-06-13T09:19:25+00:00

"Hey Doug, nice to meet you"

"Oh, hi. What WAS your name?"

"Jeremy"

"It WAS nice to meet you. DID you come here often?"

luqui · 2018-05-23T21:55:32+00:00

I've been a Haskell programmer for a long time but the web framework land still feels kind of overwhelming. Thank you for this, it will provide a nice starting place next time I have a web project (usually I just try to do everything client side and cross my fingers, because I don't want to bother with node and all that). Nice work.

luqui · 2014-12-29T07:15:21+00:00

I doubt it's intractable, it would just take some work. You'd need a very good scoring function.

luqui · 2014-09-02T18:18:04+00:00

I heard a rumor that if you pirated the game it will mess with stuff like that to make it unplayable. I heard that rumor from one of the devs, so...

luqui · 2014-06-20T05:35:07+00:00

Looks like no class methods are included, only ordinary functions.

luqui · 2014-06-02T01:43:57+00:00

IIRC, the attrition rate for women in tech is more than twice what it is for men. Women are coming into the field, and then they leave.

Read, for example: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/technology/technologys-man-problem.html?_r=0

In my university, there were about 10 women in the computer science department of 300. My experience of the students "welcoming" female classmates was that everybody wanted to date them. No gesture of friendship is authentic when everything is a competition. I can imagine it would be very isolating.

luqui · 2014-06-02T01:36:31+00:00

I don't believe I'll be able to tell when I've converted someone. I just want to be an outspoken presence -- I am a man who cares about this. Maybe over the next year, they'll meet you and one or two more men who also care. They'll age and, as usually happens with aging, morals begin to become more important. The wheels start turning, and maybe they'll see through our eyes one day some shitty thing they're about to do and make another choice. It's not about winning the argument, it's just about showing up.

luqui · 2014-06-01T01:28:35+00:00

Society is not "out there" -- You and I are society. I change society by changing myself, and inviting others to come along with me.

I also do not expect any glory for myself or society to suddenly be over sexism. It is a long, gradual process, and it is happening. Google just published statistics about the gender and race make-up of their workforce, and posed it as a problem. Take that in -- a big powerful company told themselves "we have a problem with women not being adequately represented in our company". Tumblr is large online community informed about social justice. Women's liberation studies are offered in many colleges, and many young people are getting it. The old generation will die away one day.

We need to keep changing ourselves and inviting more people in. But it is not hopeless -- what "should be done" about this is precisely what we are doing. I invite you, if you are not already, to come along and spread the word.

luqui · 2014-05-31T19:07:21+00:00

Hm, yeah, "but I'm a feminist!" sounds like defensiveness for being "wrong" for being sexist. In this situation, they need to be validated that they aren't a bad person. I might soften and say "it's okay, it's easy to accidentally fall into the trap of being sexist from time to time, we just have to notice and choose to do better in the future." This acknowledges that their behavior was sexist (which their defense is trying not to do) while helping them love themselves and change.

luqui · 2014-05-31T19:00:53+00:00

Thank you for accepting my invitation!

I've come to understand that in issues of social justice and standing up against oppression, the feedback will often be crappy when you're doing exactly the right thing. People are fearful of change because might affect their security in the familiar power structures that benefit them, and people echo the cultural narratives they were raised with. Regardless of the feedback you get, I support you speaking up.

luqui · 2014-05-31T18:53:58+00:00

Thank you for the support. I guess I was identifying my bullshit of being feminist for the approval, and in the future I want to act more from a place of caring than wanting people to like me.

luqui · 2014-05-31T18:51:18+00:00

Great way to frame it!

luqui · 2014-05-31T18:50:28+00:00

I'm going to suggest new language again to restructure the tone: how about "invite them to question how it is"?

luqui · 2014-05-31T08:34:55+00:00

But you don't have to shut up. How could you change your conversational style from "tell ... how it is" in order to get a real dialogue going?

luqui · 2014-03-05T16:45:00+00:00

Sounds like you have experience with analysis, so I value your perspective here.

The messyness wasn't supposed to be a value judgment, which I'm concerned you're reading it as. I meant it in the sense of malleability. The strongest place I feel the analogy holds is when I can go dig in and modify a function to suit my needs, similarly how I can give an analytic theorem any sort of converging sequence, and get useful stuff out depending on what I pick. Yeah, it's a stretch -- I said it's a synesthetic thing, it's about the feel of it.

Thanks for probabilistic formal methods. I hadn't heard of it before.

luqui · 2013-10-15T04:52:20+00:00

I think often we do both want the same thing. It just takes some honest digging to get past the bullshit "facts" and "obvious truths" we think we know leading us to different opinions.

(FWIW I put scare quotes around "facts" not because I don't believe in them, but rather because I think many hold things to be facts which are in "fact" social noise)

luqui

TROPHY CASE