> It is hard to fathom anyone on the planet less qualified than Elon Musk to opine on the value of public service experience when lives are at stake.
This is the opening line of this piece. With a hyperbolic, charged statement like that, be mindful to avoid getting into a flurry of emotions. I’m not a fan of that kind of writing I would prefer to read something a bit more level headed. I don’t care who or what it’s about - I can make up my own mind if it really matters, just give me the information to work with.
Gentle reminder to folks to use Firefox or even LibreWolf. These sites and these articles are notorious for anti-user ads. I suspect this article is intentionally lengthy and filled with flowery backdrop descriptions to get the user to scroll through all the ads that pop up. It is very distracting and, to be honest, not worth the click.
You probably don't know yet that you have been shadowbanned since today. This is the first comment of yours that was shadowbanned: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48943007
It's likely because too many of your comments are [flagged] [dead], not because of a specific comment.
Long shot - any hope of us getting an MSN Gaming Zone code release? The Lobby and Friends/Messages system? Would help us... counts on fingers 9 greybeards out.
I don’t think they are simplified but they are an introduction course for sure. I think what’s usually missing is integrating (heh) linear algebra with calculus for solving more interesting problems but I think the audience for that needs to have a big appetite first. And those are hard to come by unless it’s pushed on you to finish your degree. And even then, people barely scrape by in those classes.
My personal favorite is a former NASA employee who recorded a series of lessons for students to use to supplement their normal undergrad studies, prepare for exams, that kind of thing. He has a YouTube channel which has all sorts of topics (for free), but his site has paid videos on math, chemistry, electricity, some electronics, statistics, and a few other topics. You can find it on the high seas if you want a preview. Look up MathTutorDVD. It is not the end all, be all, but it is very helpful and I’ve learned in my own spare time lots. He covers high school math to Calculus 3 and probably beyond. I haven’t looked in a long time.
Khan Academy is also an option but I have not used it much so I can’t sufficiently comment on it. The things I’ve seen there have been decent and their main faculty are highly technical people who went into teaching. People have said great things about K.A., and likely they have a better way to track your progress and they might have better quizzes and tests.
One thing I remember specifically being called out is that majority of students who struggle with Calculus struggle almost exclusively due to linear algebra and formula manipulation. That the actual Calculus part is not the problem, it’s the lack of pre-requisite practice and learning more than anything.
The standard Calculus book by James Stewart will do. It covers most of the same. It is readable and quite affordable because it is so widespread.
A nice “1000 problems solved in Calculus” work book will also help. Practice is always good here, and it feels good when ideas learned from multiple sources work together.
Lastly, there are a couple of solid books that go into translating mathematical concepts so as to be usable in computer software, meaning how to take math formulas and turn them into usable algorithms. I want to bring to your attention their existence because eventually this is something that needs to be done, but trying to do everything at once will overwhelm you and distract you. It is however a “thing” when you get things down.
I recommend getting some notebooks - lined and square, a set of colored pens, and writing each and every exercise, lecture down. Color code notes, formulas, your own solutions and corrections. Grade yourself if need be. Keep your notebooks, labeled after each subject. I don’t know to what extent digital note taking is done today but I’ve always personally found it ineffective. So if you already self identify as a slow learner, writing things down in a meticulous way should help you greatly. Notebooks and pens are otherwise cheap, better to have an excess than not enough.
I hope this helps. I’m sure other people here have far better resources and I’ve forgotten all the stuff I used, but I’m not dead set on any one method.
Personally, I haven’t stopped buying CDs or in certain cases DVDs and Blu-Rays - not of movies but of music. I find it interesting these “went away” but I can see why: nobody I know has a cd player to begin with. A lot of laptops nowadays don’t come with disc trays, and nobody buys a dvd bluray player. Yes, the PS or Xbox can play it but everyone just streams movies or music. So somewhere along the way it disappeared and I doubt it will genuinely come back. It’s a needless headache.
I think this is a bit more complicated than that. There's more music and video being made today than ever before and social media is how it gets distributed. Attentive time spent on streaming platforms is completely dwarfed by social media. If at all, people have something streaming in the background while they barely pay attention to it and instead focus on their phones.
This aligns with the broader historical trends of the internet creating deep niches. You have to take the good with the bad. We wouldn't even be discussing physical media at all without the internet being how it is. Despite there being a large audience for physical media, they're not the majority. The majority has moved on.
The one thing I hope happens with a revival of CDs/DVDs is that hopefully we get a new generation of players.
I still buy movies on DVD but the players are a bit hit and miss. That said, I do frequently see Sony bluray players in second hand stores for a few dollars and that is how I have my collection of players, but that is not a sustainable system.
I just wish my PC case had a slot for the drive bay, that was a foolish choice on my behalf.
I have a pile of my own so I know what you are talking about. I love how even today DVD and Blu Ray players look, long after they were released. They are compact and chic, looking a tad futuristic but not at all the sort of stuff that screams attention-seeking, gaudy design. The kind that you could put unassumingly on a shelf next to a pile of books and wouldn’t even know it’s there without a closer look, or take up to a cottage and leave with a pile of old movies to watch on a dark, gloomy day, like in the old days. One looks at, say, LLMs nowadays and is amazed but, to me personally, we haven’t stopped living in the future for a very long time now. This message was typed on a device with a touch screen no larger than my hand.
This is also what pushed me to get a PS3 later in its lifetime : getting a game console, CD player and DVD + Blu-Ray player all in one box was pretty convenient.
This is also what pushed a lot of people to get the PS3 earlier in its lifetime!
Sure, it wasn't cheap at launch and it marked a leap in console prices compared to previous generations, but it was around the same price as a standalone Blu-ray player as those were just coming to market.
So at that point, why not get the more capable console?
To be fair on a technical scale, Blu-ray was the superior format so losing HD-DVD wasn't the biggest loss. I appreciate what Toshiba was trying to do but it also felt like they were trying to cut-off the competition with a lower quality but cheaper product.
audio CDs use a different wavelength for the laser (infra red) while PS game disks are BluRay (blue laser).
Of course, 99.9% of other BluRay players will also support DVD/CD, so yeah it still does seem silly.
I also remember my Dad’s disappointment when he put a standard DVD in our Wii back in the day. Those are literally the same physical format as wii disks.
That was the unfortunate side of licensing fees. The Wii has all the hardware to play DVD, there is homebrew of it, but if you want to do it the legal way Nintendo would have to pay.
Also I don't think Nintendo wanted to turn the Wii into a cheap commodity DVD player, they make most of their money on the games. It is a shame because the Wii was one of the most TV friendly interfaces and inputs, at least when the Wiimote wasn't being throw at the screen.
As I read this article I lament that the childlike naïveté angle is the dominant one used to distill the spirit of creation in most written literature. There are other, more profound and perhaps more interesting ones, but the people who are deep into it and can speak credibly about it do not generally write on it. And to those that do, it does not appeal to package it a way that professes enlightenment of a theory of creation.
There’s an old concept, I can’t remember where it’s stems from, but it’s essentially:
A fulfilling life is the life of someone who voluntarily regains what it was that they lost in childhood, with the experience and insight that comes with time.
This is the opening line of this piece. With a hyperbolic, charged statement like that, be mindful to avoid getting into a flurry of emotions. I’m not a fan of that kind of writing I would prefer to read something a bit more level headed. I don’t care who or what it’s about - I can make up my own mind if it really matters, just give me the information to work with.
Rest of the article isn’t much better.