[ale] How old is this list?
Jim Kinney
jim.kinney at gmail.com
Wed Feb 3 23:22:46 EST 2021
I asked a grad student once what the units were of the results after the code they wrote finished processing their input data
Dead silence.
I went on. If you have data from a measurement it must have units. Sometimes it's time, or distances, or maybe a furlongs per fortnight velocity, but there's always units. If the units are changed by your code into something else and that something else has no units, or worse, has units that can't exist, then the code is crap and the process is just handwaving.
Puzzled looks slowly turned into the proverbial light bulb over the head as they finally understood why their work to date was garbage.
2 weeks later they drew pictures and explained how they reworked their process and showed how the units of their input data were transformed and what it turned into. And then they dazzled me and explained why the transformed data was more important and what it could be used for and where it shouldn't be used.
Yeah! That was a great day!
On February 3, 2021 10:33:17 PM EST, Tod Fassl <fassl.tod at gmail.com> wrote:
>Man, you got it. I have yet to meet one of these kids who wasn't
>delightful to work with. They just love math, analytics, computing. But
>
>every one of them does the same annoying thing. "I'm working on an
>implementation of Frackenholt's Theorum and I think I've discovered a
>bug in the gnu C compiler. What? You haven't heard of Frackenholt's
>Theorum? Wow. I thought everybody would have heard of Frackenholt's
>Theorum."
>
>
>No, see, you are a grad student in Math. If what you were doing was
>common place, they wouldn't give you a Ph.D for that. 99.999999 percent
>
>of the people on this planet have never heard of Frackenholt's Theorum.
>
>And 99% of mathematicians haven't heard of it either. But the good news
>
>is that there's no bug in the C compiler. Lets take a look at your
>code.
>
>
>The good news for me is that most of the time, I don't have to
>understand Frackenholt's Theorum to figure out what's wrong with their
>code. But it's getting harder all the time. There are just so many more
>
>people working on solving problems through math on computers. Once you
>start looking for it, almost everything looks like a analytics problem.
>
>The boundries have been pushed so hard in the past few years. It's
>really exciting. It's of huge importance for the entire human race. But
>
>it makes my job hard.
>
>
>On 2/3/21 4:51 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>> The 20-something geniuses are impressive. What they lack in
>experience
>> they over compensate for with enthusiasm and an ability to nearly
>> instantly absorb new tech that I have to sweat over.
>>
>> Your experience on the road underscores a need to replace 2-ton death
>
>> machines with something better and well separated from living
>> creatures in the high to medium density areas from urban to suburbs.
>>
>> I plan to use some of my retired time playing D&D and Magic The
>> Gathering again. It's been too long.
>>
>> On February 3, 2021 12:24:13 PM EST, Tod Fassl via Ale <ale at ale.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> I manage the research cluster for the math dept at a Big Ten
>> university. I'm retiring partly because I can, partly because
>keeping up
>> with 20-something math geniuses is too hard at my age, and
>because I'm
>> blind. Being blind is a drag. I'm a distance runner, rock
>climber, very
>> active in my community. But imagine your typical bad day -- spill
>coffee
>> on yourself, miss your bus, 271 messages in your inbox, etc. Then
>> imagine adding blindness to that. I've been run down by
>inattentive
>> drivers twice in the last 2 years. I mean hit and knocked down by
>> somebody on their phone when I was in a crosswalk with a green
>light. My
>> guide dog lost some teeth the last time. I just had some road
>rash but
>> the next time I had to get to my office, I found myself shaking
>when I
>> had to cross at that intersection. I got over it eventually but
>stuff
>> like that wears you down. I'm tired of being superman, of being
>fearless.
>>
>>
>> I intend to work on open-source projects for the blind after I
>retire. I
>> have a program where you can treat a normal keyboard like a
>braille
>> keyboard and create brf (braille format) text files. I'm also
>working on
>> the world's first fully blind accessible Dungeons & Dragon's
>module. And
>> I'll probably work on bug fixes in the Linux screen reader, orca.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/2/21 11:48 AM, Jon "maddog" Hall via Ale wrote:
>>
>> The Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts were a group of mostly
>> university students who loved (GNU). There are still web
>> pages existent at ale.org that tell much of the history. The
>> group founded in December of 1994, and in those days the
>first
>> thing you did was form a mailing list, so I would assume that
>> this list or something deeply connected to it started at that
>> time. The Atlanta Linux Showcase started in 1996. If I
>> remember correctly it was held on the Georgia Tech Campus the
>> first year, at the Apparel Mart downtown in 1998, The Cobb
>> Galleria in 1999 and 2000. In 2001 the original organizers
>had
>> all graduated and were busy with jobs, buying houses, etc.
>and
>> the USENIX organization took it over. USENIX made four
>> gigantic mistakes: o they renamed it to the Annual Linux
>> Showcase o they moved it to Oakland, California in November,
>> 2001 o they tried to take a free (as in beer) event and
>charge
>> 350 dollars for it o they allowed Osama Bin-Laden to crash
>> airplanes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
>> When USENIX had not sold a single reservation within three
>> weeks of the event, I convinced them to make it free and
>about
>> 300-400 people showed up, but USENIX never produced another
>> Linux only show. The ale.org web site is still there, with
>> just a few 404s. If you want to see what the original
>events
>> were like there are even some pictures. It is nice that the
>> mailing list is still active. The Linux group that I
>started
>> in 1994 and ran for ten years also has a mailing list, but it
>> is much less active than yours. Congratulations to Tod for
>> thinking about retiring....I still have too much fun and I
>> will retire with my mouse still clutched in my cold, dead
>> hands. Peace and love, maddog
>>
>> On 02/02/2021 10:50 AM Paul Manno via Ale <ale at ale.org>
>> wrote: There are probably still some of us lurking here
>> who were around when the list was first created and who
>> helped create those Atlanta Linux Showcase shows. In
>> either case, I am not going to even try to think about
>> when I started using either Linux or UNIX... LoL On Tue,
>> Feb 2, 2021 at 9:59 AM Larry Johnson via Ale <
>ale at ale.org
>> <mailto:ale at ale.org>> wrote: My memory isn't great as I'm
>> about to turn 70, but I first installed Linux in early
>> 1995, and seem to remember signing up for the list not
>> long thereafter. Which means I might have been a lurker
>> for around 25 years. On 2/2/21 8:47 AM, Robert Reese via
>> Ale wrote:
>>
>> Hi Tod, Monday, February 1, 2021, 12:19:30 PM, you
>wrote:
>>
>> Am I misremembering? Because I think I got on
>this
>> list when I
>>
>> was in grad school which would have been in the mid-late
>> 90s. The reason I'm asking is that I am thinking of
>> retiring. I was a really old grad student and now I'm
>> retiring early. Even so. Is it possible I've been on this
>> list my entire professional career?
>>
>> I'd say it's entirely possible. I joined in the late
>> 90's also. Cheers, Robert Reese~
>>
>>
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>> Cheers, Robert~
>>
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>>
>> --
>> Computers amplify human error
>> Super computers are really cool
--
Computers amplify human error
Super computers are really cool
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