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Django Admin Suitable For Production? | pistoriusp: I suppose it depends on who is going to be using the admin:* If you're creating a product, and want to give them access to some kind of backend, then I would suggest you write your own.* If it's just a handful of users, like a blog, then I think it pretty much covers everything.I wrote a custom backend for one of my products because I wanted to make it dirt easy and fun to use, but at work I just give them access to django-admin. |
Django Admin Suitable For Production? | Jasber: Thanks guys, I feel much better knowing this shouldn't be an issue.This isn't for a product--it will be accessed by me and one or two writers.I'm also looking at using their user system for regular users. Do you see any problems with that?Thanks |
Fink or Macports? | eugenejen: MacPorts. I am just used to FreeBSD's port system and I don't mind to recompile code from sources. I hate dependency hell in apt/yum style system. I like the old unix way of self contain packages which can be controlled by environment variables.Disk space is going to be like infinite in the long run. So I would rather there are many different versions of perl/python/ruby on my machines and let them to be independent from each other. |
Fink or Macports? | tzury: I myself considering throwing away my MacBook and get a nice Dell with Ubuntu. I just can't get things done here the way I used to have with Ubuntu. |
What hardware do you use to run your load balancer ? | anotherjesse: I run Nginx/HAProxy/PostgresQL/Memcache/Mongrels/Solr all on a single box $200 box from serverbeach (2 cores, 3GB ram)The site averaged 581,661 dynamic requests per day over the last 21 days, and my biggest problem with the server performance has been the rails production log analyzer. The parser hits something and spins.(I rotate my logs hourly, and this hasn't been a huge issue so I've dealt with it by watching for log analyzing processes that take too long and kill them)Sorry it isn't that exciting hardware wise. If traffic continues to go up, I'll be needed to expand to multiple boxes, of which softlayer a nice variety and I look forward to reading more about what I should be using here.Probably stupid stats with the single box setup: every request hits nginx, and it uses on average 3 minutes of time per day (as report reported by ps), haproxy is forwarded every dynamic request and has 4 minutes of cpu time. I've not had to do much instrumentation of hparoxy/nginx since they are the lightest weight piece of my stack. |
What hardware do you use to run your load balancer ? | anotherjesse: Nginx/HAProxy/Pound probably don't care about disk access if they are balancing.http://haproxy.1wt.eu/news.html shows that he got nearly 10Gbps on "cheap" hardware (excluding the donated NICs) |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | redsymbol: Hello! I used to have a lot of problems with sleep myself. In fact, there was a period of time where I would take Nyquil to force myself to sleep, because it causes drowsiness as a side effect. Obviously this is not recommended :)I now have a pretty high quality of sleep without the assistance of any drug, and have for several years. I believe that in my case, most of the change can be attributed to making a regular habit of meditation and exercise.When I say "meditation", please interpret that broadly as any activity that might be considered meditative. There are many forms that people describe as "meditation" that can help. In addition, I'd put activities such as yoga, qigong and taichi in this category. I practiced many of them at least a little and believe they all contributed.As for exercise, I mostly did weight training, combined on and off with martial arts practice. I did not do much pure aerobic exercise, but that is only because I personally had a lot of difficulty with it and really did not enjoy it - I think if I had persisted and only done aerobics (walking, running, swimming, etc.) it would have had the same end result of improving my quality of sleep. I don't think you have to do it every day - so long as it's regular, like 30 minutes three times a week, that would be enough to notice the effect.Finally, one other thing you might try: wear earplugs and a blindfold when you lie down to sleep. This may or may not help you get to sleep, but it's likely to help you stay asleep once you do drift off :) I find that an empty pillowcase makes an outstanding blindfold - fold it a few times around its long diagonal axis, then cover your eyes and tie its ends loosely at the back of your head. Very comfortable and blocks out the light well.This is what helped me. I really don't know if these will help you - I hope you do discover what works well for you. Good luck!-Aaron |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | rms: You can get an SNP test for restless legs syndrome if you want to find out if you have a related genetic mutationAlso, and this is definitely not medical advice, anti-depressants might work but they also sometimes cause restless legs syndrome. Restless legs syndrome pills have gotta be under international copyright, but if you're personally comfortable going on happy pills with the knowledge that you need to carefully withdraw from them over 30 days that could also fix all of your sleep issues much cheaper than restless legs pills. |
Twitter-like dating site. LAMP. As an idea? Scale? | ahold: Little bit a Twitter but idea is nice :) I'm also separated and 35, but I don't think you can start a startup only in 21 :) Keep running. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | JFred: Some people do better without caffeine. There is also a condition called Mononucleosis that can cause fatigue, as well as other conditions. Lots of things from vitamin deficiencies to cancer can cause fatigue.If you look up the pill on the web you can get information but they tend to list any side effect ever seen. Check out the list of problems with Tylenol and you'll see the kind of CYA exaggeration I'm talking about.I've never heard of any treatment for restless leg syndrome beside the medicine. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | ephextom: I can't imagine cavemen having problems like "restless legs syndrome", and they managed to get by pretty well without CPAP machines too. The causes of these types of things can generally be found in modern diet and lifestyle factors.The most effective things I've found in improving sleep and general wellbeing are:- giving up caffeine;- reducing anxiety and stress generally particularly before bed.... don't work long hours or work right up till bedtime as you can be running on adrenaline which is terrible for sleep and mental health.- avoid diet drinks and anything containing artificial sweetener (http://www.google.com/search?q=aspartame) ... I only recently discovered how terrible this stuff is, and giving it up has done wonders for my wellbeing.- If you snore, have sleep apnoea or any other respiratory condition, look into natural remedies like Buteyko or Pranayama... CPAP machines can help you get better sleep but are counter-productive in the long term as they reinforce your habit of hyperventilation.- Consider seeing an osteopath or similar type of physical therapist to straighten out your skeleton and attend to any muscle tension you have - most people, particularly desk-based workers - have lots of tension which restricts blood flow, contributes to stress and reduces quality of sleep.- Regular exercise is great but be careful if you are already prone to anxiety, as over-exercising can push you into depression (this is counter to what most people understand about exercise & depression)- Consider detoxing and liver cleansing - I've undertaken the lemon detox ("master cleanse") about every 6 months for the last year or two, and found it's done wonders for muscle tension, quality of sleep, digestion and mental health.Some of these points - in particular the last one - are very contentious and frequently under attack from skeptics, usually who are practitioners of conventional medicine, vendors of costly commercial solutions like CPAP machines, or professional skeptics like Skepdic, which whilst often valuable, is often skeptical about things purely because they are unconventional.Whilst I don't have any problems with conventional medicine, it generally focuses treating symptoms of clear-cut diagnosable illnesses, and is not particularly good at addressing the vague lifestyle-related conditions like fatigue, poor sleep, anxiety, muscle tension, digestion etc.These types of conditions can generally be overcome by understanding the fundamentals of the way the body works, and doing everything you can to help your body to work as it was designed.It's not easy, the world of "natural medicine" is a dangerous place but my experience is that with persistence, a willingness to experiment, and a healthy level of skepticism, it has much to offer to improve your life greatly.Some helpful links:http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/9/83936/58483
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/16/81428/8007
(I know you didn't mention any issues with depression, but quality of sleep is closely related to anxiety and depression, and can be a warning sign, and many of the same principles apply in overcoming the problem.)http://www.buteyko.com/ - if you have breathing/snoring problems. |
Twitter-like dating site. LAMP. As an idea? Scale? | rms: +1 for a new approach to online dating... no one else has got online dating to work for heterosexual dating. Remember that you need to target women. There are a lot more men using online dating than women. [1] Online dating right now works incredibly well for homosexual "dating", particularly casual sex for men who like men, but Craigslist has the network effect already.Honestly I'm really curious why no one has cracked it on facebook yet. There is a lot of potential there. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | JFred: You'll also want to look at this recent NYT article on fatigue:
http://health.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-chronic... |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | Andys: I had restless legs syndrome. My (herbalist) wife diagnosed it as a magnesium deficiency. There are a variety of reasons why habitants of western society can be magnesium deficient, which I don't have time to go into here.Rather than waste time with potentially ineffective dietary supplements, the easiest way to get more magnesium is with a bath of Epsom Salts, which is actually just magnesium phosphate. Run a very hot bath with two cups of epsom salts diluted in it, and plenty of it gets absorbed through your skin.The first day I tried this, I had the best night's sleep in years!So in my case, I think her diagnosis was correct, and I took the baths every second night until I felt completely better and my sleeping patterns were back to normal. (My coding concentration improved too.)ps. If you don't have a full-sized bath tub you can use a bucket and just bathe your feet, though I imagine you won't absorb as much this way. Just make it hot. |
how did you fix problems with bad sleep? | agentbleu: also try monitoring your body temperature, especailly head and feet (socks and a hat), this can also help. |
Twitter-like dating site. LAMP. As an idea? Scale? | sant0sk1: I'm down with taking the twitter idea and applying it to different areas of interest, but blatant copying of their site design/layout is kinda lame, imo. |
solar energy, how can i buy? can i buy online? | Alex3917: Finance solar power with no capital costs:http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagid=22330There might also be a box you can check off on your electric bill to get your power from renewable sources if you're willing to pay a couple extra bucks a month.If you really want to do something good for the environment though a good first step would be investing in low-mercury CFLs and energy star appliances. |
Do you want to touch the screen? | bomberstudios: I know I'd like to touch a screen when prototyping stuff, or for fast-paced creative sessions (i.e: brainstorming and such)On the other hand, I'm also a keyboard junkie, so you can happily ignore my point of view :) |
Do you want to touch the screen? | snowbird122: Touchscreens are great for applications that don't require a keyboard. Non-technical people like touching screens. It usually means a simple UI and a small feature set. |
Do you want to touch the screen? | kurtosis: Has anyone combined the ideas behind the theremin with the touch screen? - This way you wouldn't have to ever touch the screen and there would be an extra degree of freedom in the distance from the screen. |
Do you want to touch the screen? | msg: "You make a better door than a window"seriously, though: "on their own grounds / in context". But you're right, no pithy phrase comes to mind.OT: I was looking for stuff like this:
"Linux: can't blend margaritas", which is kind of the idea.and I found this fun Google query:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22worst+*+in+*%22 |
Do you want to touch the screen? | designtofly: One thing that I hate most is having to switch between interface methods and devices. If I can't do everything I need to do quickly, intuitively, and accurately with a touchscreen, then I don't want one. I don't want it for the 10% of the time that it might be useful if I still need a keyboard for the other 90% of the time.That's not to say that I don't think that it COULD be useful at some point. If I had a computer that only had touchscreen and had excellent voice recognition capabilities, that would be a workable solution for the right application. |
Do you want to touch the screen? | dazzawazza: I'd love to touch my screen! I'd also like my keyboard, mouse and monitors to be touch sensitive screens (same form factor but made with a 'screen' layered over them. So my mouse/keyboard can be completely customizable to the task at hand.Now if they can get the screen surface to change texture AS WELL as the light that it emits it would be amazing. Rough and smooth surfaces for buttons etc.Touch screens don't need to just be classic 'screens'. |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | puppetsock: You just need to respect copyright. So if they explicitly allow you to scrape the data, or if you're operating within the "Fair Use" doctrine, then you're fine.(IANAL) |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | dazzawazza: I think this is a very grey area. If it's on the internet it's scrapable. Does that mean you can use it? You really need a lawyer.Take for example Amazon reviews. They are there to be scraped but some of them are not available via the web service API due to copyright restrictions. That's a clear sign to me that they don't wouldn't want this information scraped. I'm not sure how a judge would see it though.Another example is is licensed material. Take TV listings. They are listed all over the place but they are still under copyright so you can't just scrape them and use them on your site.IANAL but my basic rule is that I scrape if I think I am going to offer the scraped sight something in return (usually traffic). So if it's mutually beneficial I feel OK. That doesn't mean it's legal though :( |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | nickb: Depends on what and how you intend to use the scraped data for. I'd recommend you also check the TOS of the site you intend to scrape. Many sites explicitly say how their data can be used and how you should scrape it. Some sites also ban IPs that are scraping them (they assume it's a DoS type of an attack. |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | ntoshev: If the websites you scrape don't want you to do so, they will update their robots.txt and ban you. If you don't respect that, they will ban your IP and/or take legal action.So just try not to piss them off. |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | schtog: but if we take google for an example. they give the serached sites something in return, they make the easy to find. but how does the google spider know that it can index the site? it checks for robots.txt obv but does it check for Copyright?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Use
fair user seems to be only in the US, i potentially want to reahc the whole world even if the USA is a good place to start. |
Do you want to touch the screen? | davidw: I'd like to have a screen that gives an electric shock to anyone who gets their greasy, grubby fingers near it. |
Do you want to touch the screen? | mullr: A touchscreen doesn't replace a mouse - as you've noted it's not precise enough. It can work with a UI that's designed for it specifically. But you give up a lot of screen real estate to make that work. (I've spent the last 3 years working on a touch-screen kiosk app...)What's really interesting is the multitouch stuff, especially with very large displays. Once large, very high resolution displays become affordable, I think multitouch will take off in a big way. |
Do you want to touch the screen? | silencio: All four of the displays for the computers I use often have fingerprints all over them. Also I occasionally have a finger that feels sore from overestimating the distance from my lap with the keyboard to the display.Stupid iPhone with its multitouch touchscreen display. |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | a-priori: Ethically, I see no problem is doing any scraping as long as you credit the source and obey the robot.txt file. I figure, they were the ones who made the information freely available on the web.Legally, however, it's a whole different beast that I'm not qualified to talk about. |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | tylercarbone: So, copyright law doesn't care whether you scraped the data or acquired in some other way. That is, either you can use the information under copyright law, or you can't. If you can't use it, then getting it through some method other than scraping won't help you -- and if you can use it, then scraping won't change the legality.So you need to make sure there isn't a copyright violation, which is going to depend on the specific information you're looking at.There's still a potential problem, though, unrelated to copyright. After eBay v. Bidder's Edge, it can be trespass to chattels to scrape data in violation of a site's TOS. In the eBay case, the court held that it was in violation of trespass law because the eBay TOS prohibited robots... so it would have been fine if Bidder's Edge had taken the data manually.Basically, you need to make sure the data isn't copyrighted, and you need to make sure that scraping the data isn't in violation of the site's TOS. |
Do you want to touch the screen? | flipbrad: I'd rather not touch my screen but I do want multitouch controlling of onscreen objects, e.g. in games or graphics apps, or for sorting through photos, organising research snippets/post it notes (digital ones of course), moving icons around, etc.My proposed solution is this: a flat digital touch-sensitive keyboard (I know, some people like tactile feedback!) that can switch to a touch 'screen' mode with the flick of a switch - and though contact is required to manipulate objects, it senses hand positions without contact so that cursors are displayed onscreen where each fingertip is about to contact (so you can hover + seek, then click/drag)---------
alternative idea: multitouch phones used as bluetooth (multi)touchpads for your PC |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | webwright: Search engines all scrape... Titles, meta data, and some or all of the content.I think a good rule of thumb is to consider whether the scraping target will benefit from being scraped. Most sites are delighted to be scraped by Google. Will your scraping drive sales/visitors to the target? Or will it cost sales/visitors? Will you link back (which helps them from an seo standpoint)? |
Do you want to touch the screen? | ken: I've never used one, but every review of the Cintiq I've ever read is roughly "Best device ever! Should have bought it years ago! Worth every penny! From my cold dead hands!". This suggests to me that for at least a significant minority of use cases, more direct manipulation is quite useful.You admit it's good for phones but bad for "normal computers". But your phone is more powerful than your PC was 10 years ago. Lots of people have already given up desktops for laptops; is it so hard to imagine one day many people will have given up laptops for even smaller devices?I think it would be great for collaboration. Two people and one screen is OK, but you either have collaboration software (complex) or have to share input devices (awkward). A touchscreen bring back the immediacy of sketching something out on a whiteboard together.As you point out, the interface will need to change. (When I was typing commands into my terminal, I never thought "Damn if only I could drag a bar of soap around my desk to do this!") The mouse is a local maximum. But it's a chicken-and-egg problem: you can't write software for hardware that nobody has. So if people want to build touchscreens, I'm all for it. Maybe somebody will build an interface for them that doesn't suck. |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | cduan: You should look into the DMCA safe harbor provisions for Internet Service Providers. The basic idea behind them is that, if you comply with certain requirements (establish a DMCA officer, respond to takedown notices, etc.), then your service will be immune from many sorts of copyright infringement claims.This is not legal advice, and it's not even a very good picture of the DMCA safe harbors, but hopefully it's enough to point you in the right direction. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has good resources on this, for example:http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-ip.php |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | schaaf: IANAL, but...To reuse copyrighted content, you have to consider fair use eligibility and such -- but fortunately, not all data is locked down by copyright.One of my favorite ten USSC rulings:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel..."""
It is a long-standing principle of United States copyright law that "information" is not copyrightable, O'Connor notes, but "collections" of information can be. Rural claimed a collection copyright in its directory. The court clarified that the intent of copyright law was not, as claimed by Rural and some lower courts, to reward the efforts of persons collecting information, but rather "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (U.S. Const. 1.8.8), that is, to encourage creative expression.
Since facts are purely copied from the world around us, O'Connor concludes, "the sine qua non of copyright is originality". However, the standard for creativity is extremely low. It need not be novel, rather it only needs to possess a "spark" or "minimal degree" of creativity to be protected by copyright.
...
In the late 1990s, Congress attempted to pass laws which would protect collections of data, but these measures failed. By contrast, the European Union has a sui generis (specific to that type of work) intellectual property protection for collections of data.""" |
What size monitor(s) do you use | LPTS: I got a 15 in MacBook Pro and am getting a 24 or 26 in HD TV to put in my music studio/office space to double as a second monitor (with the first being my laptop screen). |
Do you want to touch the screen? | reggplant: Being an iPhone user I often find myself out of habit sliding my finger up my screen to scroll down when browsing the web. I promptly bang my head on the desk and feel like an idiot when nothing happens and there is now another finger smudge line on the screen.I'm in favor of this new interaction so long as I get to keep my keyboard! |
What size monitor(s) do you use | epi0Bauqu: I have a 19" and a 28" side by side. |
What size monitor(s) do you use | brk: 15" MBP plus 23" Apple Cinema at home. Plus a Mac Mini on a 22" HDTV/LCD combo monitor next to it. |
Anyone building a REST API only product? | cperciva: Tarsnap (http://www.tarsnap.com/) doesn't use a REST API (for various reasons, I built my own API), but it's essentially an API-only product. Users will (once I get the website built) be able to create accounts and check how much storage and bandwidth they're using via the website; but all the "core" work is computers talking to computers. |
What size monitor(s) do you use | cperciva: I have a 14.1" monitor, and I'm thinking of downgrading to a 13.3" monitor. I use multiple desktops in X, but I've never seen a need for an external monitor. |
What size monitor(s) do you use | bigtoga: Dual 22s |
What size monitor(s) do you use | markbao: MacBook Pro in clamshell mode with a 24" Dell Ultrasharp monitor (with Microsoft keyboard and mouse :/) |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | dhotson: Apart from the copyright issues, if you're going to scrape or crawl someone's site.. it's best to be polite about it.I wrote a web crawler a few years back and at the time I didn't really understand the implications of having a crawler grab 20+ pages concurrently from a site.I learned pretty fast when I found a few sites had banned my crawler.. Oops, sorry guys! |
Where did you top out in math classes? | LPTS: For me the brick wall was social, not related to the math, and I hit it in geometry class in 10th grade. Our teacher was an idiot, and had trouble solving the more difficult proofs at the end of the homework. Day after day I would go up to the board and write down the solution to the problem he couldn't solve. Then, I would get an F for not turning in my homework, which I rightly considered to be a waste of my time, and the people who copied down my answers would get an A's. That was when I decided I had enough formal mathematical education. I taught myself the math to do AP chemistry in high school and tested out of pre calculus in 2000 in college. I am currently teaching myself calculus from Michael Spivak's Calculus. You couldn't get me back in a math class, but I love learning math. |
What size monitor(s) do you use | pcestrada: 30" lcd flanked by a pair of 20" lcds |
Where did you top out in math classes? | nostrademons: Long division. 1st grade.I never really topped out, because I always figure that when I don't understand something, I'm not smart enough to get it yet, but that doesn't mean I'll never get it.This pattern started, as I said, in 1st grade with long division. My dad had been trying to teach me math early, and I whizzed through addition, subtraction, and multiplication, but I just couldn't understand long division. My mom (who always took a dim view of acceleration) said "Just let him learn it in school with the other kids." So that's what we did, and when 3rd grade rolled around and we did long division in class, I got it right away.I did similar things with algebra (dad first tried to teach me it in 2nd grade, didn't get it then, but I started rederiving it on my own in 6th grade and my teachers figured it was time to get me an algebra textbook) and logarithms (which I first tried in 8th grade, but didn't understand for 4 full years...that was my block through all of high school).As for how far my formal mathematical training has gone - I aced up through vector calculus in college, and also took discrete math late in college and aced it. Also took Functions of a Complex Variable and Mathematical Logic, but got lost around halfway through each of them. Passed, but not really competent in them. |
What size monitor(s) do you use | jackdied: A dual-head linux box (two 20" LCDs) and a windows box with a matching 20" LCD. Running Synergy as a virtual KVM so I only need one keyboard/mouse. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | ctkrohn: When taking 2nd level honors linear algebra, we were given a takehome exam. I spent ~40 hrs on it and got just under the median grade. I was able to pull out a decent grade in that class, and I graduated with a degree in math, but now I know I'm not smart enough to hack it as a professor.Not that I'd want to, anyway. Math is a great subject, but it's not what I'd want to do with my life. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | cperciva: Algebraic number theory, when I was a graduate student in Oxford.Well, sort of -- by that point I was pretty firmly on the CS side of the fence, and was just sitting in on the number theory classes out of interest. I probably could have grokked class field theory and L-functions if I had taken the time, but I was busy and it wasn't my research area... |
Where did you top out in math classes? | g00dn3ss: Recent evidence tends to indicate that 'not smart enough' is probably a myth. Almost everything can be attributed to exposure and effort at some point rather than some innate smartness.A lot of advanced math takes some serious concentration to understand. For some non-practical aspects, I found that I lacked the motivation rather than ability to understand it . One particular class where I seemed to hit my tolerance was a theoretical linear algebra class. I could understand the practical applications of most of the topics but some of the theory seemed just out of reach. The book was extremely dry and I think the professor may have been taking lessons from Ben Stein.Give me a private tutor, a theoretical linear algebra for dummies book, and a pending disaster for which this is the solution, and I bet the outcome would be a little different. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | edw519: I'm still asymptotically approaching the "top out limit point". |
Where did you top out in math classes? | voidfiles: Last class I attempted was trig, and failed completly. I enjoy math, but have given up untill after I finish collage. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | rms: Calculus III... I think I could have got it, but it's tough material and I had a terrible professor, so I didn't really learn any Calculus III. I passed and did much better in my final math course, a one semester differential equations/linear algebra hybrid course. |
What size monitor(s) do you use | pragmatic: 3 19" widescreen @ work. 1 24" Dell at home.
However, I spend the most time (not by choice) working on my HP laptop (not even sure the size of the screen, company bought it)
I'd like to get 2 more monitors for home but I just don't work enough there to make it worth it. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | tjr: I went to Cornell College, which schedules classes on a "block plan", one class at a time for a month each. My first semester, I took four consecutive courses in calculus. By the fourth one, I was extremely burned out on math and barely squeaked by.I ended up taking a couple more math classes before graduating (discrete math and linear algebra), have continued to study math on my own, and have recently been contemplating a master's degree in math, just because I want to learn more.All of that is to say, I'm not sure that the math brick wall is constant, but perhaps sometimes you need to take a break to allow your mind to digest what you've learned so far. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | jfarmer: I have yet to find it, but Algebraic Topology took me a long, long time to get. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | rtf: I don't know, how about every subject?Multiplication. Long division. Algebra. Geometry. Trig. Calc.I was never very motivated to study math. The problem was, my older brother was very into it(and now is a math grad student, ever-so-slowly getting his thesis together). This set a model that I could not hope to emulate, but it only meant my mom pushed me more, talked to the school to get me into the advanced/accelerated classes I didn't really want to take. She probably would have done some of that without my brother around, but not as much.This led me down the "please the parents" line of study, which naturally meant some surreptitious, embarrassed attempts at cheating. This only made me feel worse, of course.In college I started into computer science, thinking that I at least liked the programming. But integral calc sunk me for good, and in a particularly bad quarter that was my low point, I tried taking linear algebra as well as a repeat of calculus, thinking that perhaps the extra pressure would do something good.Of course not. I dropped linear algebra and failed calc again. After that, I decided to declare in economics, restarted calculus with the "ez-for-econ-majors" series and sailed through those courses with a solid B average. I struggled through, but passed on the first try, the two intermediate econ courses which started introducing serious mathematical modelling. The remainder of the major was electives, and not difficult ones.I never knew, until after that whole period of my life was over with, exactly what was holding me back. Now I'm pretty sure that it's about motivation and dedication. My brother is fairly normal but can get interested enough in math problems to sacrifice his well-being. The genius researchers of the field sacrifice well-being regularly, without really knowing it, and are typically slightly unhinged socially.As for myself, I tend to run away from a challenging math problem. So, even if I'm forced to tackle it, it will probably take me 10 times as long to solve as it would my brother(not even factoring in his years of experience now). Once I overcome those hurdles particular to a new category of problem I am fine, but I have to take considerable effort to do so.Summing that difference up over a long-term period like that of a college course, the best students can zoom far ahead because of this motivation factor, even if they aren't necessarily the _smartest_. Indeed, many math students reach the upper-division levels on memorization alone and get stuck from there, as proofs take on more and more importance. That's a major failing of current math education in the United States - overdependence on rote techniques. (The former Soviet educational system, OTOH, had probably some of the strongest math education, and much of it has been translated to English - pick up a book from that period and you will probably see a small and dense text that introduces high-level concepts in great, if unforgiving, detail. Very different from the thick drill+practice textbooks I'm used to.)My conclusion: many academic fields can accommodate a half-hearted practice. Math is not one of them. And our society doesn't respect that difference, shoving it under the rug as "I'm just not good at math." |
Where did you top out in math classes? | epi0Bauqu: Didn't. Just lost interest. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | a-priori: My most advanced math course is currently Calculus II (integral calculus and so on). However, I don't believe it's my "wall", and I'm planning on taking courses on differential equations and linear algebra whenever I have some time. |
How do Mint and Buxfer sync with online banking? | oldgregg: Back during private beta I think someone told me that mint is using yodlee for account aggregation (yodlee's moneycenter has awesome functionality, crap UI). How does yodlee do it? No idea. Oh, this is interesting: http://www.bizorigin.com/2007/techcrunch40-top-company-award... |
Where did you top out in math classes? | streblo: Multivariable Calc and Linear Algebra kicked my ass. I didn't really do much beyond that. |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | jexe: Definitely check the TOS of the sites you plan to scrape. Some data, in particular factual data, isn't copyrightable, but that doesn't necessarily give you the rights to automatically collect it from any place you can find it. Businesses spend a lot of money and time collecting and hosting data, so they can get pretty particular about how you're allowed to use their service.Here's an excerpt from the yellowpages.com TOS. Without it, their company names, addresses, and phone numbers would be more or less fair game for any competitor:"You are prohibited from data mining, scraping, crawling, or using any process or processes that send automated queries to the YELLOWPAGES.COM Web site. You may not use the YELLOWPAGES.COM Web sites to compile a collection of listings, including a competing listing product or service." |
Where did you top out in math classes? | vegai: I never bothered to invest much to the math classes. The benefit didn't seem so large.Of course, now I see how completely stupid that line of thought is. The time I saved by not attending classes or demonstrations was indeed not well spent. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | rw: Set theory & mathematical logic.Learning math is all about spending time with the material. I find that upper-level math is easier than lower-level topics. Less grunt work, more pondering. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | mnemonicsloth: With one notable exception, math seems very easy to me. I open the book, write down verbatim anything labeled Definition, Theorem, or Lemma, and trace through anything labeled Proof. There's nothing particularly hard about it -- you just have to make sure you actually do every step listed inside your head.It is a little slower than reading for pleasure, but with practice, I'd say only by about half.I think the primary reason I do well, though, is that I take adderall for ADHD. Stimulants make it trivially easy to maintain the necessary level of focus, but whenever I forget to take them before a lecture or study session, I'm gnashing my teeth and tearing my hair out by the end. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | rms: What's wrong with too cheap? Generally the advice for furnishing a startup is "expensive chairs, cheap desks." If you don't want anything used Ikea is a reasonable, convenient place to look. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | breily: I got fed up with crappy desks from office stores and decided to make my own desk instead - its basically just an 8 foot long piece of wood, about 2 1/2 feet deep. Its not only really cheap, but it has room for my two monitors plus my laptop plus lamps/papers/etc.It doesn't have the frills that seem to come with desks from stores, but I never used those anyways (I never understood building CD racks into desks). Plus since you build it yourself you can customize it - I put lots of holes in the back to run cables, with hooks underneath to organize them. For drawers, Ikea sells plastic ones that attach with a couple of screws for like $2. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | loowee: Geometry, Logic, Trigonometry |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | cperciva: I have a "desk" which is an old dining room table (and is a few inches higher than ideal); but I do most of my coding while lying in bed. I like my laptop. :-) |
Where did you top out in math classes? | strlen: My undergraduate degree is in Computer Science, which at the time I attended the university was (if one was doing their degree in the College of Arts and Sciences vs. School of Engineering) in the math department. In the end I ended up going further than I would have naturally (just by the nature of department requirements).First response to this question would be "what kind of math"? In terms of continuous math, I've topped out at Differential Equations (much like any other CS Major). In terms of discrete mathematics I topped out at abstract algebra (the first class that made me sigh with relief upon seeing actual numbers) and combinatorics. I felt that I could certainly go on further in the discrete field (I particularly regret not taking number theory - other than what I've learned in cryptography courses - and graph theory).I could have received a Math major, but that would have required taking the analysis series (real and complex), which I felt would go beyond my level of abilities (particularly since I was aiming for an early graduation and wanted to take as much of classes that I felt would interest me more). |
Where did you top out in math classes? | ekzept: there's learning on an academic track timeframe, and there's learning. there are lots of courses i took which i did not do well gradewise, but i learned a lot, enough to go back and re-learn the material at my own pace and better.ultimately, all learning is self-taught. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | Tichy: Seems to me all or most human understanding of maths is poor. Most things, even if we can prove them, we can not really understand them.I wonder if there is a different way to understand maths out there. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | akd: My first math class at MIT. :-\ |
Where did you top out in math classes? | jamiequint: Vector Calc, because I stopped caring. Somehow Diff. Eq. held my interest but vector didn't. Calculating the area of partial 3D oval objects for the sake of doing it was painful. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | cousin_it: Got my masters in math, then kinda lost interest, but I'm pretty sure that everything is understandable with a little effort. When I get genuinely interested, no effort is required at all. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | pageman: did he mean "tap out"? as in UFC "tap out"?can't get enough of Math (although I barely passed Linear Algebra and Numerical Analysis). Maybe it's the challenge. I shall try more of it when I take up a Masters in CS. :P |
Where did you top out in math classes? | maxklein: Math is pointless if you are not planning to apply it at some point in your later career. Learning algebraic topology when you are studying digital circuits is like learning literary analysis - it may make you feel smart, but it's a damn waste of time. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | jgrahamc: My work set up is the following:1. Aeron chair2. Pair of trestles and a large piece of wood on top of them.#1 cost $$$, #2 cost next to nothing. I bought cheap trestles from a hardware store, and a nice piece of flat wood which was prestained and edges smoothed off. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | andrewf: Last time I had to pick out a desk for an office I chose this one (sadly I doubt they'll ship to you):http://www.jkhopkins.com.au/showproduct.asp?webno=1Sitting in the middle gives you a lot of surface area within reach. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | axod: A reclining sofa with comfy cusions. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | maryrosecook: Biggest, smooth-surfaced desk that will fit in the room without blocking the door. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | davo11: I've got an ikea desk with two tier sort of thing for the monitors and keyboards and pull out wings you can stick things on, I've had it for years, it's survived two house moves and has many more years ahead of it and I wouldn't part with it.I've got another desk from an auction which is a great place to check out, if you can deal with the fact of where the desk has been before (a failed business usually, pre disasterised i think of it as) |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | iamelgringo: I went cheap with the desk: Ikea $80 But, I splurged on Ergotron Montior arms: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000959.htmlThey are truly one of the best workspace purchases I've ever made. Really, they're very, very nice. |
What size monitor(s) do you use | cpr: I found the 30" cinema display too large for comfort, for some odd reason. Now I use a 24" iMac with a secondary 23" cinema display to the left. Perfect for me. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | thorax: I don't know if I topped-out, but I did lose interest. Calc III felt hard with not very much useful information (my comp sci advisers basically gave me grief for taking it). Linear Algebra sparked my interest again, but only because it started out wicked hard and then (just like with Calc years before), it just "clicked" and suddenly it was a lot easier/interesting. I didn't pursue further because after I graduated I preferred diving into new compsci (and engineering) concepts rather than focusing in math areas. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | comforteagle: Avoid any chair with arm rests which stick out to far foward and don't allow you to get close enough to your keyboard without having to lift your shoulders/elbows. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | nothingHappens: I very nearly hit that point taking Differential Equations my last semester, but thanks to persistence and a very helpful prof, I got over it. Not sure where I'd have ended up if I kept going, but I've always regretted not taking more abstract/"modern" algebra |
Where did you top out in math classes? | DaniFong: I'm not sure I ever had that reaction. I explored a few topics in different lectures in grad school which were pretty obtuse: ergodic theory, for example. I didn't get it, but I assumed it was because the topic wasn't suited to lectures, and after learning of the basic direction they were headed in and setting out myself, I found I could get pretty far.I've seen others give up on some topic rather than the method they used to try to understand it. It's the equivalent of someone saying "I can't get math" because they're spending all of their time remembering formulae, or someone saying "I'm no good at programming" while spending their time reciting bubble sort line by line in preparation for the exam. Giving up on higher mathematics is like that. Almost always, there's some path to real understanding -- you just have to find it. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | truebosko: This one from ikea is pretty ideal. Flat surface but some shelving on top for storage of books and whatever else: http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/60111123 |
What programming language to use? | aitoehigie: I recommend Python, once you try it, you will never look back, and it has decent web frameworks, libraries etc for whatever you want to do. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | geebee: In retrospect, I topped out in my upper division coursework for the math major. I still got B's and even some A's in those courses (Real Analysis, Abstract Algebra), but I was reduced to studying solution sets rather than mastering the material creatively. This was when I got more interested in applications (optimization, scientific programming, etc).I figured I'd pick a grad program in Industrial Engineering so that I could get away from math and more into applications. Unfortunately, I picked Berkeley. A graduate intro to optimization was pretty much a series of proofs about convex sets. Same deal for stochastic processes (it might be different with different professors, though). BTW, this isn't meant as a knock on Berkeley - this theory focus is a big part of why it's such a powerhouse program. But it probably wasn't the right choice for me. I've heard Stanford is more flexible (I've also heard the grass is greener, so who really knows).At this point, I topped out in grades as well as understanding, because I didn't have the motivation to continue. I tanked, and squeaked by with a MS. I actually missed problems that I would have gotten right as an undergraduate. I was thinking "I've had enough of proofs, I just don't want to do this anymore."In a way, I got a lot out of the experience. My interest in academics waned, and I pretty much just started hacking with like-minded students. In other words, I finally, belatedly arrived at the process of becoming self-educated, which is really the only kind that sticks, right? |
What programming language to use? | twism: languages don't scale, your architecture does. |
What programming language to use? | iamelgringo: Python and Ruby are pretty much the players when it comes to web apps these days.If you want to stick with a Microsoft Stack, you could try ASP.NET (shudder). |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | metajack: I wanted a thin surface (relatively) with legs and no drawers or gimmicks. I ended up buying a dining room table from West Elm which fit the bill perfectly. Later I added two small raised shelves (which my speakers and various doodads sit on) to the desk which I built by using Ikea kitchen cabinet legs and some random Ikea file cabinet drawer fronts.It's simple and it works great. |
What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? | noelchurchill: I want a tall desk so I can stand while I work. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | eru: Perhaps differential equations for me. But that's more a question of motivation. I like optimization more and look forwand to having more lectures. |