Lazyweb, a question: let's say that you could teach a "cultural anthropology" type of course about computing to first year students, to prepare them for the codebases, communities, patterns and software philosophies of the programming world. You've got about ten weeks to run it. What would you teach in that course and why?
When you first start teaching math you quickly learn that some things that seemed simple or inconsequential to you are massive stumbling blocks for large numbers of students.
Factoring quadratics is one of these things.
Most people I encountered while majoring in math did not have a "method" to factor quadratics. You look at the thing, see if you can think of some factors, if you can't use the quadratic formula.
Students HATE this "process" it took me a long time to understand why. 1/
@futurebird I remember being annoyed every time math required me to guess. First with long division. Then factoring quadratics. Later, Stoichiometry. It felt unfair, even after I developed the necessary intuition to do it
Are there any star trek episodes that deal with biological incompatibility with alien computer display color spaces?
I feel like there should be a TNG episode where like Barclay or someone is in a bind on an alien space craft because he can't read a computer screen because the color gamut is entirely UV. The day is saved when Geordie pops by and he can read it just fine with his visor thingy.
I'm finishing the revision on my next nonfiction book, which is a heavily-researched exploration of how the weapons of psychological war show up in culture wars. It's a popular book, not academic. I have a zillion footnotes. Should I:
@annaleen depends on what's in them. If it's just pointers to sources or other references, then endnotes or references. If it's additional context/commentary, then footnotes please
Kotlin shortens the name of its integer type to "Int" but does not shorten the name of its boolean type, it's "Boolean". This feels wrong. At some primal level I do not like it
People talk about software ossification as being bad, but is it always?
One thing I like about ossification is that you can take the analogy in very interesting directions if you compare the strength of a structure (or software system) by thinking of it in terms of rigid vs flexible rather than strong vs weak.
Rigid structures don't survive earthquakes or other major changes, however all building structures need rigidity or they won't be able to last at all and will collapse.
@hazelweakly this makes me think of the difficulty of building stable systems on unstable foundations. Like if your language / framework / system APIs change too frequently you can never build anything long lasting on top of them
why do other trans people have such cool life stories
I didn't try on my mom's clothes
I didn't hang out with the girls at school
I didn't play with makeup
I didn't "act like a girl"
I didn't hate my name
I didn't cross dress
I didn't let myself look inwards
I didn't get told "we always suspected" when I came out
I didn't know
I just felt sad and wrong and I didn't know why.
I was hollow and my emotions didn't make sense
every relationship I tried went sour because I didn't feel anything
if I didn't get that time during covid to really think, I might never have figured it out. I might have gone my entire life as a sad but ok most of the time, guy
it always hurts when I read or hear some trans person's journey as they recount every instance where it was "clearly a sign" and they were just born in the wrong body and they were basically a girl anyway and...
because of this, I just never related to these few trans people I saw in the public eye. I thought of it as this rare disorder that was for therapists to diagnose
it took me a while to realize it wasn't about who I had been. It was about who I wanted to become