[startupdiscuss]

Zen Koan:

Before I began my studies in Zen, I thought a tree was a tree and a stone, a stone.

When I started to study Zen, I could see that a tree was not a tree, and a stone was not a stone.

Now that I am a Zen master, I know that a tree is a tree and a stone is a stone.

-- Source: my buddy in college

I think you come full circle to learn that you can only keep so much in your head at one time and that you're always in some sense loading up what you need for the next month or three. At least this time you knew to look for the man su command, and remind yourself of the work you did, that you shared with all these other people.

[mrtksn]

There's a poplar meme called "midwit meme"[0]. I guess it's a popular observation.

[0] https://imgflip.com/i/6peco7

[svnt]

I’m more of a redwood meme guy myself.

https://i.imgflip.com/1kuv83.jpg

[hinkley]

    Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water
    After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water

[fezfight]

Where does existential dread fit in there?

[hinkley]

Somewhere in the middle. Hopefully not while sharpening the axe or staring into the well.

[latexr]

There’s plenty of opportunity to ponder one’s own existence while chopping wood and carrying water. Or to listen to a podcast.

[hinkley]

I do a lot of podcasts or audiobooks while gardening of late. I’m tapering off because it’s not the same experience. I started by listening to just nature based books. It was different. More in some ways, less in others.

If you can’t be alone with your own thoughts then brother are you in a bad place. Everything in moderation.

[marc_io]

Just notice it.

[joelfried]

It fits between the kama used to harvest rice and the comma used to separate those thoughts.

[pphysch]

Somewhere in the middle

[alpaca128]

Reminds me of how after learning how CPUs, memory, operating systems etc work I thought "wow, it really is all ones and zeroes". A simple phrase but it became more meaningful with deeper understanding.

[eurasiantiger]

Sorry, but ”computers work by ones and zeroes” is one of my pet peeves.

It is true in the sense that 1 and 0 are common representations for true and false in computer science, but really, it is false and almost certainly establishes magical thinking in the layperson.

Modern computers run on electricity, and in electrical circuits such as computers, true/false is represented as a transistor semiconductor being in a conducting or non-conducting state. Current can either flow, or it can’t.

In fact, one could build a computer out almost anything that lends itself to both being on and off, and to being controlled by its on/off state (or that of another equivalent assembly).

[feoren]

You contradict yourself here.

> (A) Modern computers run on electricity [not ones and zeroes]

> (B) one could build a computer out almost anything that lends itself to both being on and off

You got it right in B, which is exactly the point when people say computers are just 1s and 0s. Computers are a mathematical concept, not just some electrical device, as you seem to claim in A. The fact that you can build a computer out of water or air pressure or Minecraft Redstone is exactly the point people are making when they say they're built up from 1s and 0s (not electricity, not silicon and copper, not Redstone).

[eurasiantiger]

Cut me some slack, I was referring to our beloved contemporary devices when I was saying modern computers in A, so the comparison is a bit apples and oranges.

[feoren]

I'm not trying to nitpick you here; I'm genuinely confused why "Computers are all 1s and 0s under the covers" is a pet peeve of yours! It sounds like you mostly agree with the statement, so I'm just not sure why it would bother you.

[eurasiantiger]

Because I have seen so many laypeople operate off the misconstrued idea that computers literally work like that!

Granted, many of these people have been around since before typewriters and phones were a common thing, but the ”1s and 0s” explanation does not offer anything tangible for people who cannot see the trees from the forest (sic), and thus it only widens the ”digital divide”.

[ealexhudson]

Is 1 indicative of current flowing? Or not flowing? Is that consistent with a given chip, let alone an entire system? Is it always DC current, or can it be AC? In fact, is the 1 represented by current, voltage, and/or frequency?

There's lots of different answers here in different contexts. The reason 1s and 0s are good is because they represent the information in the digital domain, not the implementation in the analogue.

[eurasiantiger]

Indeed. Those are implementation details and arbitrary conventions. :)

[hinkley]

I recall trying to explain how hard drives worked to a guy who didn’t believe me, it was weird because he had aspirations of being a hacker some day. He got really mad “math is math” style when we explained they are analog rounded to binary and that’s why disk erasers exist and take so long (and this was before they got really paranoid).

Then people kept wandering up and agreeing with me and by the end it was practically an intervention.

[falcor84]

> 1 and 0 are common representations for true and false in computer science

Long before standing for true or false, 1 and 0 have stood for the presence or absence of something arbitrary, so I don't see any issue here.

[eurasiantiger]

Just 1s and 0s don’t really do anything useful before we agree on some conventions, such as

- byte and word size,

- endianness,

- semantics of what means what in a string of bits (think Two’s Complement, IEEE 754, ASCII, ISO-8859-1, Shift-JIS, Unicode),

- what it means to do certain operations on bits (Boolean algebra),

- how different binary operations can be constructed from transistors / logic gates (ALU design),

- how information can be retained in and recalled from memory (basically just flip-flops),

- how said memory is laid out with respect to internal/external devices and program regions (conventions!)

- how said memory can be addressed, and how information can be transferred between CPU and memory (bus architectures),

- how the computer architecture can be programmed to do things (processor instruction sets),

- and whatever I forgot just now…

And then some people design and build trinary computers, imagine that.

[cestith]

In fact, if we consider the presence or absence of truth in a statement...

(There is no completion. The trailing off is intended.)

[endofreach]

Turing, u here?

[tanseydavid]

It still functions like an abacus.

[yuy910616]

It is pretty cool. When I was little I had no idea what it means, just knew that it sounds cool. But the older I get that more I see these patterns.

junior dev: python is so cool!

senior dev: python is slow. No type checking. The syntax is garbage.

John Carmack: I write a lot of python and I use it exactly for what it is good for!

[intelVISA]

if only the Carmack level was attainable for us mortals; I've moments where I trick myself into writing passable code but after a little research the same memory order semantics from my IDE stare back at me from Carmack's Doom 3 code 20 years ago. RIP

[sneak]

Related: The Egg http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

[BbzzbB]

Kurzgesagt's short video is great too, it's (quasi-)verbatim, but the music, animation and narration makes it quite poignant.

The idea behind the story is quite fascinating to me. If simulationists are right, it's as good or better of a "why" as "origin seeking" IMO. Not that I believe one way or the other, I just think the idea's interesting to ponder on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI

[geek_at]

Interesting read, thanks for sharing

[spfzero]

Thank You!

[anddfyf]

Sounds a lot like Bruce Lees famous quote! https://mobile.twitter.com/brucelee/status/13618679498967040...