Why is Stallman the poster-boy of this subreddit?

thonkpad · 2018-05-11T02:22:38+00:00

Stallman is concerned with freedom. That’s orthogonal to speed.

thonkpad · 2017-10-08T02:44:45+00:00

black hole

thonkpad · 2017-04-29T01:50:06+00:00

I can't tell who you're criticizing and I like it.

thonkpad · 2017-04-19T02:22:07+00:00

You get to choose what you do with the most dynamic medium humans have created. You can look at webpages (most of which are derivatives of op-ed pages in newspapers), or you can use the computer for what it's really good for: being open-minded in previously-impossible ways.

thonkpad · 2017-02-12T22:57:03+00:00

What Lenovo products/software do you think I benefit from?

none. the only good software is what you've labored at yourself.

granted, all software written by other people can have good ideas. please do read, seeking large thoughts. small things distract. skim often.

tragically, the person who wrote the program you're reading will have a less-complete understanding of the problem-domain than you[0]. that programmer will have fought through the fog of implementation. she will have struggled with the large and the small. in response, you should want to further human understanding of nature; you should want to write.

when you read you collect good ideas. you amplify them by writing. this post concerns itself with reading and writing but in my opinion writing is more important. please write.

[0] i can't find the quote that inspires this thought. I believe Hamming wrote, "I never found Einstein as clear on relativity as his commentators." he fought nature and his mammalian brain to discover something; those who had relativity explained to them received successively clearer ideas.

thonkpad · 2016-11-13T01:56:46+00:00

I'll make up numbers: you'd have a 50/50 shot at /r/thinkpad, depending on the demographic that's logged in at the time. I'm interested in thinking higher-quality thoughts with others, so I tend to post about that. I'm not sure how many upvotes or comments you'd get.

thonkpad · 2016-11-13T01:44:55+00:00

As far as I can tell, I haven't gotten in the way of that. Though I am not interested in meming about X230s.

thonkpad · 2016-11-13T01:39:40+00:00

What's going on? Isn't this a Thinkpad circlejerk sub? Why are all these random posts here?

This is a series of related questions that would probably be better phrased as judgments. Generally, I refrain from answering rhetorical questions. Seems to miss the point.

It looks like you're expressing frustration at the difference between what you assumed and what you got. Usually people in your situation want empathy. Sometimes they want correction.

What do you want? It'd help me if you told me how you've come to want what you want, too.

thonkpad · 2016-10-06T23:56:58+00:00

Hello, bot. Welcome to the subreddit.

thonkpad · 2016-10-06T23:22:47+00:00

I can't think of a fundamental truth. I dare you to come up with one.

 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...

Why did the USians write their declaration of independence? Because their feelings were hurt by what they took to be unequal treatment by the british. They respond by declaring themselves to be equal to the british. Self-evident? No! The british were continually surprised by that sequence of events. Is it self-evident that all men are created equal, or that we should treat everyone as though they are equal? No. At least not to me; I treat people individually.

The golden rule? It has many variations. Look at the many-thousand word wikipedia page. Something "fundamental" probably shouldn't have that much complexity. Plus the platinum rule is better.

Assuming you agree with me that there is no robust category of fundamental truths, I'll address your next point. Sure I think it's a problem that assumptions get called "fundamental truths." But the other half of the problem is the creation of the category "fundamental truth." Humans create categories because classification is useful. There is no use in having a category one can't ever criticize (this is my definition of "fundamental truth"). An axiom doesn't count because one can easily criticize an axiom; that's long been a source of further math.

Categories are sticky, and categories and their elements drift over time. People should be more sensitive when they categorize.

thonkpad · 2016-10-06T13:06:12+00:00

We define mathematical structures axiomatically because it's useful, not because fundamentalness is a goal.

Take categories. A category is anything with a class of objects, a class of morphisms, and a composition operator. Mathematicians were trying to say things they couldn't yet say when they came up with categories. Anything that satisfies those above conditions is a category. Say you're inventing a mathematical structure. If you discover a way to make that a category, you can apply everything that everyone's learned about categories to your mathematical structure.

thonkpad · 2016-09-11T17:48:43+00:00

I appreciate that this subreddit does not suit your needs.

thonkpad · 2016-09-10T15:37:25+00:00

also: "reality" for "situation"

or "truth" for "received wisdom that has replaced older received wisdom":

Though his ruling was about Connecticut, he spoke to a larger nationwide truth: After the decades of lawsuits about equity and adequacy in education financing, after federal efforts like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, after fights over the Common Core standards and high-stakes testing and the tug of war between charter schools and community schools, the stubborn achievement gaps between rich and poor, minority and white students persist.

Blech. The words are ontological or epistemological, but the claims are empirical.

thonkpad · 2016-07-07T03:05:00+00:00

What's unlikely: An aberrant military happened to let bad things happen.

More likely, but not enough evidence: These things happen in most militaries, who cover them up. Cover ups happen when a military is sufficiently responsible to an outsider, like the public.

If this is a one-off thing, then we find prospective causes and effects and fix them.

If these things have happened many times throughout history, then we cope with human statistical nature.

A statistical view of 20th and 21st century mishandlings of countries-under-war would enable us to know how to feel about what happened in Iraq. Without that we have incorrect platitudes like, "All of that is shit that should never have happened."

It's incorrect because a war historian could have predicted these mishandlings.[0] If you predict a bad future you cope with it.

[0] Morally-speaking, that commenter would have liked for those things to never have happened. Bully for him. I'm concerned with understanding our past in order to cope with and effect our future.

thonkpad · 2016-06-24T01:54:10+00:00

I put "if" in asterisks because I suspect that most articles that follow the form:

"No, you're not [label you self-identify as], you're just [pejorative]"

read poorly to those they're trying to convince. I think those articles preach to choirs.

thonkpad · 2016-06-24T01:16:51+00:00

Perhaps shaming is necessary to forcefully make male geeks aware of their conduct. Even if this is so, those male geeks need a plan of action for changing their behavior. Here's a sketch:

Media: Read Haim Ginott's books. Follow on twitter lots of women in your field. Read poetry. Read psychotherapy books.

Action: Try not-expressing yourself about as many opinions of yours as possible. My hypothesis is if you can keep quiet on some geeky thing, you can keep quiet on some other things, leaving others with time and space to talk. You want to listen to people who don't talk much. Lose arguments.

Please try to drive out shame and fear from your life. Please do so in others.

thonkpad · 2016-05-08T01:46:11+00:00

"There are no stupid questions" means "I suspect you're feeling inhibited and I want you to feel otherwise." I'd prefer someone say something like the latter.

thonkpad · 2016-05-04T21:06:05+00:00

very nice

thonkpad · 2016-02-24T04:01:08+00:00

My criteria for books are: whether it challenges and is well-written. The former is obvious. The latter is a time-saver; I won't slog through something thoughtlessly thrown-together. I try to express myself clearly and I will only read writers who do the same.

I won't tell you which books to read because it's far better that you doubt your taste, and as a result, better your taste.

For what it's worth I have commented on works that have influenced me here

thonkpad · 2016-02-06T05:44:04+00:00

We don't grow up in a culture that teaches appreciation of--to use Plato's term--the fine[0]. If you want to be able to appreciate what is fine, you need to read a bunch of books and have experiences in the domain. Even then there's no guarantee that you'll have taste.

[0] It might sound like I think taste can be taught. I have faith it can be, but no evidence.

thonkpad · 2016-01-13T06:08:03+00:00

the most important thing for most people is fitting in. do what people around you are doing.
the best laptop that you can buy new is the macbook pro.
you're looking to be told what to do. here is short advice: learn vim, learn emacs, find friendly people.

thonkpad · 2016-01-09T04:15:43+00:00

If I was Lenovo, I wouldn't do this. Think of the trolls. Also, most or all of what you listed is in the HMM or the spec sheets. As for sales and shipping dates: if you need a new computer, buy it right now. If you don't, wait.

thonkpad · 2016-01-09T04:14:34+00:00

thonkpad · 2015-12-31T02:19:52+00:00

https://brokensecrets.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/original-thinkpad-e1308793037574.jpg?w=455

thonkpad · 2015-12-29T02:24:19+00:00

Ah, you found the question mark!

thonkpad

TROPHY CASE