What is in your backlog of things to learn? This could be lectures, books, projects/tutorials or anything else that's a bigger project and not just a blog post or article.
Thanks, I'll check out Distributed Services with Go.
For LC - I've already taken a couple of DS&A classes, I have some youtube videos to refresh on groups of problems like graph problems, DP problems etc., and the rest is just to practice solving as much as I can.
I spend a lot of time commuting to and from work. This is a good thing; it means I'm not stuck in traffic, and it gives me time to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. I love listening to anything that I can learn from, whether it's business-related or not.
I especially love learning about how other people have succeeded in their careers, because I believe that there's something valuable to be learned from everyone's experience. I also just love hearing about what other people are passionate about!
Right now, my learning list is focused on books for women in business. Some of my favorites? The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg.
After waiting for async in Django for the last 5 years (yes, I know about the 4.1 announcement, no, it’s not there yet) and a general dislike of DRF over a built in REST solution, I’ve started looking at Elixir and Phoenix on the backend.
Playing the guitar! Numerous failed attempts over the last 15 years. My current approach is to just pick up a guitar and "play" without tabs or notes, basically just making sounds I like.
Hi, I can relate. I also struggle to learn guitar for years, what helps me is that I
- Invest in an expensive ($400, so not really, but much better than what I used to have) guitar so I’d feel guilty leaving it there.
- Make it a point to pick up the guitar every single day, no matter how long.
It’s also great that there are lots of tabs for popular songs out there, and Carl Brown of guitarlessons365 amazing tutorials. It’s been a little more than a year, with a few breaks spanning days and months, I can learn to imperfectly play the rhythm part of many songs within one practice session from online tabs. I’m proud of that.
Good luck on your journey, after some time of playing, I can say guitar is the easiest instrument to have fun with.
Improvising three dimensional or at least memorable characters as a GM in tabletop role playing games.
Giving characters over-the-top traits is a good start, but so much to learn about making them stand out in the players’ memories / making them more than tools of acquiring things to do for the players.
A book that's really changing how I'm thinking. It starts by explaining how science makes progress. Defining a good theory as one that has explanatory power. A good theory explains stuff well.
Then proceeds to apply explanations. How to understand Physics from this frame of mind. How other approaches to epistemology (what we can know) works. What problems they face. What kind of errors other ways of thinking can lead to.
This is the best book I've read about what we can know, and it applies so generally to things I'm interested in. How can I know what I know. What about my team at work, what do we know. How should we communicate. About the products we're developing. How are they valuable? How can we know that it's valuable?
It's especially impressive how Deutsch navigates up and down the ladder of abstraction. Really general concept - then a really crisp example of how it applies exactly to an example.
I've been reading and re-reading this on and off for half a year. It's hard, but I'm learning a lot. Currently half way through the book.
Disguised as a physics book (not an easy read), this is THE book on optimism. No matter how entrenched is your pessimism, it will open some cracks or even demolish it. Is that good.
More specifically it explains previously understood effects that are encapsulated in current theory in a new way very likely to a higher degree of accuracy, it accurately predicts behaviour of the universe, and explains previous mysteries.
It’s a mishmash of things and I’m only scratching the surface, sorry can’t give a coherent answer.
But some books (Mere Christianity, The Case for Christ, The Believing Scientist, stuff by Garry Habermas, etc.), Wikipedia, the Bible (especially letters of Paul and historical analysis of them), Reddit, going to Church, taking Alpha course provided by it, talking with pastors, with Christians, random articles (e.g. https://faculty.som.yale.edu/jameschoi/whychrist/), thinking about things myself, etc.
It seems that way but I think the virtual machine (universe) we run on just has some emergent constraints on possibilities and outcomes and we are just observing them.
I don’t think there’s a cosmic operating system. It’s more a meta-stable Conway game of life type environment. Either that or I drank too much funky tea once.
I recommend "Can a Scientist Believe in Miracles?" by Ian Hutchinson, physicist and professor at MIT. It covers the rational arguments for Christianity and how to integrate a scientific and Christian view of the world.
And C.S. Lewis, of course, but you're already reading him.
> Is it also the Guinness record holder for worlds shortest book?.
I'm also a non-theist, but I think there's something to be gained by reading the apologetics, in part to understand the motivations and perspectives of theists, but failing that, to sharpen one's own rational thinking skills. There's also a lot of history of the philosophical traditions to appreciate.
Oh wow, I would love to hear what made you change your mind. I can understand the progression from a believer to an agnostic or an atheist, but am fascinated by the evolution in the opposite direction.
I believe that Atheism already achieved its peak on Western world.
Anecdotally, I don't know anybody that became Atheist recently but many that embraced some kind of Theism. No matter how we deal with it, Atheism is linked to individualism and it may make your existence more difficult than it needs to be. By the other hand, Theism is linked to communities. There's nothing better to unite people as a shared belief.
> No matter how we deal with it, Atheism is linked to individualism and may make your existence more difficult than it needs to be. By the other hand, Theism is linked to communities. There's nothing better to unite people as a shared belief.
I see what you are saying; but this idea, which I have seen expressed many times, has always perplexed me. I understand that, pragmatically speaking, having a shared belief in a supreme being may be beneficial; but one cannot just turn a belief on or off based on how beneficial it is. Even if it is true that the believers live a psychologically better, healthier and more fulfilling life (as opposed to, say, agonizing whether they will end up in hell), it is only a statement about their mental state rather than about the truth of what they believe in.
> one cannot just turn a belief on or off based on how beneficial it is.
True, but you can soften your views. I soften mine after sharing my life with a Christian for several years. I used to assist weekly mass - as a non believer - with an open mind. I didn't convert but it changed me. I morphed from a raw Atheist to an Agnostic. She made me understand that I don't need to believe, only respect to be included in the community.
I'm not part of this group myself, but I've seen this quite a lot as people get older. My anecdotal evidence is that it's less about becoming a "believer" in the supernatural, and more about realizing that many of the traditions and practices can be useful for personal happiness, mental health, and sense of belonging, regardless of the science behind them. Praying is not so different from e.g. meditation or yoga, just a different type of practice.
It started when I stopped seeing religion as an "edgy atheist" that would make fun of everything. Then I listened to Jordan Peterson's "Biblical Series" podcast which made me see the contents of the Bible from another perspective.
That made me read and listen more to religion related stuff. I'm also very analytical and critical with everything and if something doesn't make sense I won't simply accept it because I should believe it.
I wouldn't consider myself religious but I wouldn't dare say God doesn't exist because I'm pretty sure He does.
I see it as a journey, now. And it doesn't have to do anything with getting older and being afraid of death. I made my peace with the ending of my own existence/conscience when I was an atheist. That doesn't scare me at all.
I was also an atheist fundamentalist, I still don't think I believe in God, but that book showed me how Christianity shaped the west. The history of Christianity is fascinating.
I've gone the other way as I've gotten older, which is not unusual - however I've not built up the vehemence that I see with many other ex-religious. I sometimes quip that I'm more of a "there but for the grace of God type of atheist."
I went through this process and ended up fully converting to Catholicism.. in fact my case was even _more_ extreme as I was also born in an Islamic country. So I went from someone who REALLY hated religion (I literally lived everything Hitchens was talking about) to a confirmed Catholic by doing RCIA..
The process really started for me when I realized that God is ultimately a philosophical question (God is Ipsum Esse) rather than a scientific one. If science could answer everything, then we might as well throw out the entire field of philosophy after all..
This is how I started to study philosophy and theology (both _serious_ Atheist philosophers such as Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, .. as well theologians).
I think it has been an absolute net positive in my life. I've gained a wealth of knowledge, significantly grown my network and feel much more grounded in my spiritual well being.
You should however, be prepared to be ridiculed if you outwardly practice your faith. I was surprised how many people would essentially conclude that I am either not educated or "brain washed".
I'm currently interested in learning more about preference revision algorithms and formal properties of preference revision for my work in formal philosophy. I've read some of Grüne-Yanoff & Hansson (eds.) Preference Change, Springer 2009, but I'm looking for something more recent and in-depth. 5Just in case someone has a reference to share, I'd be grateful.
My linear algebra and multivariate calculous were not as good as I wanted them to be, so I was searching for books on the topic and those two were suggested. Then I saw that the author (Alan Macdonald) had additional material on his YouTube channel, took a peek and found them helpful.
I really enjoyed his writing style and found GA to have some very interesting abstractions but university took the best of me and I couldn't finish them. Perhaps this summer.
113 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Programming_paradigms.svg
Learning quantum computing algorithms is on my list as well.
- The Rust Programming Language (book)
- Programming Rust (book)
(I'm going over them in parallel)
To do:
- The Elements of Computing Systems (book & course)
- High Performance Browser Networking (book)
- REST API Design Rulebook (book)
- Network Programming with Go (book)
- MIT 6.824 Distributed Systems (course)
- a bunch of docs and youtube tutorials on things I want some exposure to without going too deep (React, Django, FastAPI, Kubernetes)
- The System Design Interview (book)
- Grokking the System Design Interview (book)
- more Leetcode
For context I'm a data scientist who wants to switch to SWE at some point.
Regarding leetcode, I’ve only briefly looked into the platform, is there anything specific you’re using to work through it?
[0] https://pragprog.com/titles/tjgo/distributed-services-with-g...
For LC - I've already taken a couple of DS&A classes, I have some youtube videos to refresh on groups of problems like graph problems, DP problems etc., and the rest is just to practice solving as much as I can.
I especially love learning about how other people have succeeded in their careers, because I believe that there's something valuable to be learned from everyone's experience. I also just love hearing about what other people are passionate about!
Right now, my learning list is focused on books for women in business. Some of my favorites? The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg.
- Invest in an expensive ($400, so not really, but much better than what I used to have) guitar so I’d feel guilty leaving it there.
- Make it a point to pick up the guitar every single day, no matter how long.
It’s also great that there are lots of tabs for popular songs out there, and Carl Brown of guitarlessons365 amazing tutorials. It’s been a little more than a year, with a few breaks spanning days and months, I can learn to imperfectly play the rhythm part of many songs within one practice session from online tabs. I’m proud of that.
Good luck on your journey, after some time of playing, I can say guitar is the easiest instrument to have fun with.
Giving characters over-the-top traits is a good start, but so much to learn about making them stand out in the players’ memories / making them more than tools of acquiring things to do for the players.
A book that's really changing how I'm thinking. It starts by explaining how science makes progress. Defining a good theory as one that has explanatory power. A good theory explains stuff well.
Then proceeds to apply explanations. How to understand Physics from this frame of mind. How other approaches to epistemology (what we can know) works. What problems they face. What kind of errors other ways of thinking can lead to.
This is the best book I've read about what we can know, and it applies so generally to things I'm interested in. How can I know what I know. What about my team at work, what do we know. How should we communicate. About the products we're developing. How are they valuable? How can we know that it's valuable?
It's especially impressive how Deutsch navigates up and down the ladder of abstraction. Really general concept - then a really crisp example of how it applies exactly to an example.
I've been reading and re-reading this on and off for half a year. It's hard, but I'm learning a lot. Currently half way through the book.
Exactly, yes, 100% this.
More specifically it explains previously understood effects that are encapsulated in current theory in a new way very likely to a higher degree of accuracy, it accurately predicts behaviour of the universe, and explains previous mysteries.
But some books (Mere Christianity, The Case for Christ, The Believing Scientist, stuff by Garry Habermas, etc.), Wikipedia, the Bible (especially letters of Paul and historical analysis of them), Reddit, going to Church, taking Alpha course provided by it, talking with pastors, with Christians, random articles (e.g. https://faculty.som.yale.edu/jameschoi/whychrist/), thinking about things myself, etc.
But this is not to be confused with some sort of cosmic operating system?
Much hinges on definitiona here. And there isn't much need to continue this further here. Cheers!
> this should be expected
there is some larger evaluation context implied, which I find interesting.
Repackaged: I don't know how much faith I can place in random sequences.
And C.S. Lewis, of course, but you're already reading him.
I'm also a non-theist, but I think there's something to be gained by reading the apologetics, in part to understand the motivations and perspectives of theists, but failing that, to sharpen one's own rational thinking skills. There's also a lot of history of the philosophical traditions to appreciate.
336 pages covering Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Aquinas, Leibniz:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...
205 (dense) pages going over Aquinas' Five Ways:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6963088-aquinas
Books by (Brother) Guy Consolmagno, the Director of the Vatican Observatory, are also worth checking out:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Consolmagno
Perhaps specifically God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion. Interview:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0DAKaR16cY
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6963088-aquinas
Anecdotally, I don't know anybody that became Atheist recently but many that embraced some kind of Theism. No matter how we deal with it, Atheism is linked to individualism and it may make your existence more difficult than it needs to be. By the other hand, Theism is linked to communities. There's nothing better to unite people as a shared belief.
I see what you are saying; but this idea, which I have seen expressed many times, has always perplexed me. I understand that, pragmatically speaking, having a shared belief in a supreme being may be beneficial; but one cannot just turn a belief on or off based on how beneficial it is. Even if it is true that the believers live a psychologically better, healthier and more fulfilling life (as opposed to, say, agonizing whether they will end up in hell), it is only a statement about their mental state rather than about the truth of what they believe in.
True, but you can soften your views. I soften mine after sharing my life with a Christian for several years. I used to assist weekly mass - as a non believer - with an open mind. I didn't convert but it changed me. I morphed from a raw Atheist to an Agnostic. She made me understand that I don't need to believe, only respect to be included in the community.
It started when I stopped seeing religion as an "edgy atheist" that would make fun of everything. Then I listened to Jordan Peterson's "Biblical Series" podcast which made me see the contents of the Bible from another perspective.
That made me read and listen more to religion related stuff. I'm also very analytical and critical with everything and if something doesn't make sense I won't simply accept it because I should believe it.
I wouldn't consider myself religious but I wouldn't dare say God doesn't exist because I'm pretty sure He does.
I see it as a journey, now. And it doesn't have to do anything with getting older and being afraid of death. I made my peace with the ending of my own existence/conscience when I was an atheist. That doesn't scare me at all.
I was also an atheist fundamentalist, I still don't think I believe in God, but that book showed me how Christianity shaped the west. The history of Christianity is fascinating.
The process really started for me when I realized that God is ultimately a philosophical question (God is Ipsum Esse) rather than a scientific one. If science could answer everything, then we might as well throw out the entire field of philosophy after all..
This is how I started to study philosophy and theology (both _serious_ Atheist philosophers such as Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, .. as well theologians).
I think it has been an absolute net positive in my life. I've gained a wealth of knowledge, significantly grown my network and feel much more grounded in my spiritual well being.
You should however, be prepared to be ridiculed if you outwardly practice your faith. I was surprised how many people would essentially conclude that I am either not educated or "brain washed".
Trying to avoid learning more programming things as I am entirely burned out from that.
So basically my current project is to trim it down.
Berkeley - CS 61B Spring 2021
Helsinki - Full Stack Open 2022
Some LeetCode here and there.
Now on to getting SQLModel[3] going with GeoAlchemy2[4].
This is all for the school project. The day job is all about Terraform.
[1] https://langserver.org/
[2] https://develop.spacemacs.org/layers/+tools/lsp/README.html
[3] https://sqlmodel.tiangolo.com/
[4] http://gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/index.html
- PHP event loop to use it with AJAX/websockets to make browser games
- SQL. I know SQL but I feel I need a deeper knowledge
- Rust or Go
- Spoken English
- Introduction To Graph Theory
- The design of approximation algorithms
- Introduction To Topology
- A book of abstract algebra
---
Long Term:
- GEB
- Linear and Geometric Algebra + Linear and Geometric Calculus
- Geometric Deep Learning: Grids, Groups, Graphs, Geodesics and Gauges
- Elements of functional analysis
- Cracking the coding interview
- Pattern Matching and Machine Learning
- Elements of Statistical Learning
- Probabilistic Machine Learning
And the list never ends.
I really enjoyed his writing style and found GA to have some very interesting abstractions but university took the best of me and I couldn't finish them. Perhaps this summer.