And if you think stairbuilding is complex, you should look into handrailing [0]
The money quote from the article: "I’ve learned that the correct way to build a house is to design the handrail first, then design the stair, and the rest of the house will follow."
Part of the reason you don't notice the complexity of everyday things is that humans have spent thousands of years perfecting the details and methods that let you take your stairs and handrails for granted. And, like, 90% of everything else.
The McMaster-Carr catalog isn't >2" thick because they're trying to confuse you. It's that thick because everything they sell solves a different problem, that somebody worked out the details in years ago, and we live in a world where the experience and solutions embodied in every part gets mass produced and delivered the next day for the cost of mere money.
And then there are manufactured handrail parts, which are a grotesque and simplified perversion of a properly carved handrail (discussed in the link). But at least regular people can afford a handrail for their stairs for safety too.
I spent a bit working at a custom stairbuilder. Handrails that smoothly curve in three dimensions, either to connect straight sections or along a curved stair, are called "tangent" handrails. Constructing these tangent handrails is challenging. It requires both geometrical rigor in devising the plans as well as an individual craftsperson with a very high level of manual/visual skill. While we would work out the curvature of the rail in CAD or paper plans, a huge amount of implementation detail was left to a traditional woodworker, such as carving the profile of the tangent rail to create transitions pleasing to the eye and touch. Additionally, the variable structure of wood grain meant that the choice and orientation of the wood stock often had to be done piece-by-piece, often with custom fixtures.
I was a resident computer nerd there, so one of my projects was adapting a 5-axis CNC router to rough out these tangent rails. We were successful to some degree, but the fixturing and programming for individual tangent sections was very complex. It worked out that the CNC approach was only economical when the design of the stair required many multiples (rare in our case). Otherwise the skill and adaptability of individual craftsman was much more efficient, and the CNC was relegated to constructing jigs or 2D pieces.
My training was in high-end artisan furniture making, and the design challenges I saw in custom stairs were way more complex than almost any other field of woodworking I am familiar with, including the more technically avant-garde furniture makers. The only clear exception is wooden boat building, which appropriately enough was the background of many of my coworkers at that company.
The no-code people imagine that we are on the verge of living in a world where that catalog's equivalent in software is just a few months away.
If they were right, it still wouldn't solve the problem analysis problem, but it would certainly help out the parts problem. It would also help move software into a professional engineering phase.
Stumpy Nubs Woodworking recently put out a video about making hand rails in a way very similar to how it would have been done when hand-molding planes were still in common use
> I kept arguing because I thought I was right. I felt really annoyed with him and he was annoyed with me. In retrospect, I think I saw the fundamental difficulty in what we were doing and I don’t think he appreciated it (look at the stairs picture and see if you can figure it out), he just heard ‘let’s draw some diagrams and compute the angle’ and didn’t think that was the solution, and if he had appreciated the thing that I saw I think he would have been more open to drawing some diagrams. But at the same time, he also understood that diagrams and math don’t account for the shape of the wood, which I did not appreciate. If we had been able to get these points across, we could have come to consensus.
If you want to understand the value of “soft skills” like communication, it’s right here.
Being able to understand that there are different points of view present, and finding the bridge between them, is a super power for facilitating teamwork. Like any other skill, some people have more natural talent, but training and practice can help almost anyone.
Studying the humanities, which sometimes comes in for scorn among technical folks, can be a way to do this. Learning to read and write critically about literature and art really starts with learning to detect and think carefully about different points of view: among characters, and between the artist and various members of their audience.
> Being able to understand that there are different points of view present, and finding the bridge between them, is a super power for facilitating teamwork. Like any other skill, some people have more natural talent, but training and practice can help almost anyone.
> Studying the humanities, which sometimes comes in for scorn among technical folks, can be a way to do this. Learning to read and write critically about literature and art really starts with learning to detect and think carefully about different points of view: among characters, and between the artist and various members of their audience.
This strikes me as highly ironic given the incredible narrowing of permitted opinions on campuses over recent years. Try seriously challenging the doctrine and one is liable to be cancelled, reprimanded, chucked off a course - even physically attacked.
This is now the 12th time this has been posted on HN [0], and I see why, it is very insightful.
But his other post, 'submission and dominance among friends,' had more impact on me. Connecting our behavior to our mammal relatives like he does is not exactly novel, but combined with his frankness about his own needs -- especially the profoundly uncool desire to be "on the submissive end of this kind of clear status play" -- the piece was revelatory for me. Perhaps you'll enjoy: http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/submission-and-dominance-...
I know a guy, just builds stairs. Every significant house builder in the area has him in, all the work he wants. Heard him say on the phone "I have so much work, If I don't want to do a job I don't have to do it. And I don't want to do that. Thanks!"
To me, one of the more interesting arguments against the universe as a simulation came from Sean Carroll. I'm paraphrasing, but he noted that any simulation would be limited and it's possible detail, because it has to use the resources of the real world, and therefore is likely to be less detailed than the real world. And the logic of simulated universes is that they, too, have simulated universes, and you keep on going, and you end up with much greater probability that you're in one of the simulations then that you're in reality.
But, it would also follow, that the version of reality that you experience is not very rich in detail relative to whatever is "real."
The author, John, says that blindness to detail can make you "intellectually stuck." So I would wonder if an implication of Sean Carroll's argument, an implication of the universe as a simulation, is that we would experience less detail and therefore be more prone to getting "stuck".
It seems almost touchingly naive to assume that a superuniverse would have similar limitations as this one. We don't know anything about how different universes might be structured.
That's not just because we can't access them, but because a superuniverse system assumes a coherent set of metalogic that makes certain universe features possible and other features impossible/unlikely
Not only can we not access that, there's absolutely no justification for generalising from this universe to any metasystem in any way.
Especially if you accept the premise that this simulation has less detail than the original. Because then of course you don't know what detail is missing, or what detail is possible.
Who is to say we are experiencing rich detail? How do we know we aren’t stuck? Stuck on the planet? Stuck in this universe? Stuck in our minds?
It’s an interesting theory though but I’m not quite sure I buy the detail resolution argument as the one that defeats it, rather similar to Descartes in that you can’t trust your senses it’s hard to care about, especially with no proposed test (which wouldn’t the test be part of the simulation too?). So you kind of run into the “well who created that kind of marathon and I don’t know of any philosophical conjectures that have those characteristics that have been solved. Could be wrong though.
This always makes me think of the 'uncertainty principle' and quantized values in physics. As a layman, it seems to me like both of these combine to limit the amount of information needed to describe the state of the universe.
I don't know enough about quantum mechanics to check if this makes sense. My wild imagination suggests that 'waveform collapse' could be modeled as the result of a simulation being forced to resolve a state of a specific particle for further calculations. I imagine it is hard to come up with a plausible 'simulation model' for this that includes features like probability wave interference and entanglement of particles.
Such a model would be amazing for insight into quantum mechanics, and also have far-reaching consequence for metaphysics. It would strengthen the argument for us living in a simulation, if the peculiarities of quantum mechanics can be modeled as artifacts of a particularly efficient emulation.
That is nonsense. We can do "unlimited" detail, by just-in-time generating details on observation and extrapolating from some mathematical deterministic constants tail.
Not everything that can be seen, needs space- lots of it can be reproduced with formulas just in time on observation.
The only observable thing would be a "detail snap" and the same "high-res" details were the same hash is produced. Which could be avoided by hashing in the observer, at some level of detail.
And to add to the sibling reply by OneTimePetes, even if the simulation had to generate a nearly infinite amount of details, the simulation itself could have its internal time slowed down, and the beings inside the simulation would not be able to perceive it as such.
There is a fun little esoteric/new age youtube video* about reality glitches that explain how reality is (in loose terms) more "mathematical" in nature than "material" (as we mostly perceive it). These are the reasons mentioned:
1) speed of light is an absolute cosmic speed limit
2) wave/particle duality
3) conservation of energy - everything is eternal, nothing can be truly created or destroyed
4) quantum entanglement shows that reality is non-local
5) singularities at center of black holes where seemingly all physical laws break down
I don't know, humans exist, comparative to the most granular levels of reality, at a macroscopic level. That leaves plenty of room for lost detail in a simulated universe within ours that being at our scale would never really notice.
Separately, how do you know that we aren't prone to getting stuck? We all do sometimes-- how would we ever know if it's more or less than "normal" in an non-simulated universe?
Carrol is a physicist so he may have more technical reasoning grounded in physics-- I don't know-- but it sounds like a rhetorical rather than scientific justification.
Kind of a weird tangent but can anyone elaborate on this quote: "trap a drop of water between two other liquids and heat it, you can raise the temperature to at least 300 °C with nothing happening"
I knew you could change boiling point with pressure but is this suggesting that doing something like having a layer of oil on top of an ambient pressure pot of water would prevent boiling? I tried googling for some elaboration but only found discussions of superheating water via pressure changes.
I'm not sure of the experiment that this might be referring to, but it sounds like superheating[0]. Trapping the drop of water between two other liquids could be some version of a "clean container, free of nucleation sites" as described in the first paragraph of the wikipedia article. Other ideas?
Making stuff to specified dimensions has a well understood workflow. Order of operations matters. That problem dominates machining. It's a big deal for carpentry, too. It's not hard. Most people figure it out before the second time they build something.
(Although making anything stay at specified dimensions from Home Depot "fresh from the tree" lumber is difficult. That is why kiln-dried lumber exists.)
Wooden boat tension joinery - now that's hard. You need the results of several centuries of puzzle-solving and dealing with the effects of water to do that well.
There was some article a few years back on HN about two incompetents trying to build a cabin in the woods, with too little experience, too little planning, and too much drinking. Their worst mistake is that they didn't know that you build roof trusses at ground level. (Or just buy them prebuilt.) Then hoist completed trusses into place. They were trying to stick-build roof trusses up in the air at roof level. That did not end well.
This stuff isn't rocket science. There are books easily available, and lots of people who've done it before.
This was a great read. Another way to appreciate the endless level of detail if you look hard enough is the Coastline Paradox[1], an idea expanded and articulated by Benoit Mandelbrot.
Life has infinite levels of depth if you keep peeling back layers and look down a bit further. And when you think you know something, dig deeper and you realize you know less than you thought.
I have no formal education in physics or metaphysics or anything but it has long seemed obvious to me that reality is infinitely fractal in both the macro and micro. whenever a new particle or whatever is discovered, it seems like many people get excited that we're on the verge of understanding the elementary fundamental building blocks of reality or something, when I can't see any reason not to believe that reality will continue to be fractal infinitely when "zooming in."
if one can accept this, then one can accept that any perceptions about reality he may have can only be at best a "useful model," and such models should be constantly updated in response to new data and observations. of course, this means that there is quite a bit of incentive in deliberately shaping the models people use to perceive reality...
For some fun historical context, checkout Moxon's "Mechanick Exercises" or Nicholson's "Mechanic's Companion", which are both treatises on various tradecrafts (including carpentry and joinery, which is where stairs would come in) around the late 1600s and early 1800s, respectively. Those two books essentially serve as the foundation for the modern hand-tool woodworking movement.
I mention this because "Lost Art Press" is currently on the front page, who are an independent woodworking book publisher near the front of this movement
To make matters worst, what you see with your open eyes, is not one image, is a collection of images with all kind of distortions, blur and other smudges that your brain "photoshop" away to produce an image that conforms to the flawed/bias criteria that your brains considers to be a good image. The same happens with your ears and your taste buds. Reality in our brains is pure poetry.
In fact this is why self-driving cars are so hard! A complete newbie driver faces all of these tiny issues, which they learn to forget as they become practiced. There are so many subtleties in these scenarios, that it's mind boggling.
I always use the title of this wonderful essay to explain how "AI" works. Deep neural architectures are so performant (in part) because they make use of all these minuscule details which our brains shield us from seeing.
Can you provide an example because I do not understand. Say some small detail that humans did not see because it was so small and our brain ignored it. For me ANN represent a more complex, giant function that we "interpolated" with tons of data , give same problem to some smart people and sometimes they will gtive you the exact solution with a proof.
I thought about this the other day, thinking about how (some) people look down on other people and pat themselves on the back for being more knowledgable, better educated, more sophisticated, having better taste, being better bred (I'm from the UK lol) etc etc. But then there is always someone above one, looking down on one with the same arrogant prejudices. Who are these people that look down on me as an ignorant, blundering oaf, and what would I need to learn to fit in?
Not that even if I did know what I was missing I would make the effort, heh.
I recently had to build some stringers for a deck. We had an original CAD with 11 steps (for a total of 12 including the top). When we produced the layout somehow we ended up laying out 10 steps instead of 11 because I wanted a specific tread depth (~10 inches). I figured why would one fewer step matter for anything structural? Well it turns out that 10% extra cut into my 2x12 left about an inch less in the beam of wood which was enough for a 12' span to bounce as you walk up and down!
I have learned that a universal unavoidable element to any model is that it oversimplifies the thing it is trying to explain. Sometimes that is OK and using the model we gain useful insight into a system. Other times the simplification of the model ruins its explanatory power. Academics can sometimes forget this I think in their eagerness to understand and explain things. Some models that have varying degrees of usefulness are the following: Newton's F=ma, supply and demand economics, Marxism vs capitalism, colonialism, post modernism, globalism vs nationalism, conservatism vs liberalism. We have to be very careful applying an overly simplistic model to complex phenomena. Sometimes our desire to understand something at a high level erodes our ability to understand it at all, especially when modeling human behavior where interactions fundamentally occur at the level of the individual.
Colonialism in my mind is a good example of this. We have a model (a simplification of reality) that says this is a specific time period in human history in which people groups migrated between areas trampling on indigenous cultures in the process. The reality is that this has happened since the dawn of civilization and will continue, that some colonists at some times respected the native peoples and the movement was mutually beneficial. I believe colonialism as a model has limited usefulness and it's much more useful to look at specific movements of peoples and what happened as a result.
[+] [-] mauvehaus|4 years ago|reply
The money quote from the article: "I’ve learned that the correct way to build a house is to design the handrail first, then design the stair, and the rest of the house will follow."
Part of the reason you don't notice the complexity of everyday things is that humans have spent thousands of years perfecting the details and methods that let you take your stairs and handrails for granted. And, like, 90% of everything else.
The McMaster-Carr catalog isn't >2" thick because they're trying to confuse you. It's that thick because everything they sell solves a different problem, that somebody worked out the details in years ago, and we live in a world where the experience and solutions embodied in every part gets mass produced and delivered the next day for the cost of mere money.
And then there are manufactured handrail parts, which are a grotesque and simplified perversion of a properly carved handrail (discussed in the link). But at least regular people can afford a handrail for their stairs for safety too.
[0] https://www.thisiscarpentry.com/2009/07/15/drawing-a-volute/
[+] [-] prova_modena|4 years ago|reply
I was a resident computer nerd there, so one of my projects was adapting a 5-axis CNC router to rough out these tangent rails. We were successful to some degree, but the fixturing and programming for individual tangent sections was very complex. It worked out that the CNC approach was only economical when the design of the stair required many multiples (rare in our case). Otherwise the skill and adaptability of individual craftsman was much more efficient, and the CNC was relegated to constructing jigs or 2D pieces.
My training was in high-end artisan furniture making, and the design challenges I saw in custom stairs were way more complex than almost any other field of woodworking I am familiar with, including the more technically avant-garde furniture makers. The only clear exception is wooden boat building, which appropriately enough was the background of many of my coworkers at that company.
[+] [-] dsr_|4 years ago|reply
If they were right, it still wouldn't solve the problem analysis problem, but it would certainly help out the parts problem. It would also help move software into a professional engineering phase.
[+] [-] fsckboy|4 years ago|reply
mere money? talk about overlooking a piece of remarkable complexity
[+] [-] jedimastert|4 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ScjHsD4mI
[+] [-] snowwrestler|4 years ago|reply
If you want to understand the value of “soft skills” like communication, it’s right here.
Being able to understand that there are different points of view present, and finding the bridge between them, is a super power for facilitating teamwork. Like any other skill, some people have more natural talent, but training and practice can help almost anyone.
Studying the humanities, which sometimes comes in for scorn among technical folks, can be a way to do this. Learning to read and write critically about literature and art really starts with learning to detect and think carefully about different points of view: among characters, and between the artist and various members of their audience.
[+] [-] an9n|4 years ago|reply
> Studying the humanities, which sometimes comes in for scorn among technical folks, can be a way to do this. Learning to read and write critically about literature and art really starts with learning to detect and think carefully about different points of view: among characters, and between the artist and various members of their audience.
This strikes me as highly ironic given the incredible narrowing of permitted opinions on campuses over recent years. Try seriously challenging the doctrine and one is liable to be cancelled, reprimanded, chucked off a course - even physically attacked.
[+] [-] setgree|4 years ago|reply
But his other post, 'submission and dominance among friends,' had more impact on me. Connecting our behavior to our mammal relatives like he does is not exactly novel, but combined with his frankness about his own needs -- especially the profoundly uncool desire to be "on the submissive end of this kind of clear status play" -- the piece was revelatory for me. Perhaps you'll enjoy: http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/submission-and-dominance-...
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=johnsalvatier.org
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newsbinator|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glenstein|4 years ago|reply
But, it would also follow, that the version of reality that you experience is not very rich in detail relative to whatever is "real."
The author, John, says that blindness to detail can make you "intellectually stuck." So I would wonder if an implication of Sean Carroll's argument, an implication of the universe as a simulation, is that we would experience less detail and therefore be more prone to getting "stuck".
[+] [-] TheOtherHobbes|4 years ago|reply
That's not just because we can't access them, but because a superuniverse system assumes a coherent set of metalogic that makes certain universe features possible and other features impossible/unlikely
Not only can we not access that, there's absolutely no justification for generalising from this universe to any metasystem in any way.
Especially if you accept the premise that this simulation has less detail than the original. Because then of course you don't know what detail is missing, or what detail is possible.
So that argument nicely destroys itself.
[+] [-] ericmay|4 years ago|reply
It’s an interesting theory though but I’m not quite sure I buy the detail resolution argument as the one that defeats it, rather similar to Descartes in that you can’t trust your senses it’s hard to care about, especially with no proposed test (which wouldn’t the test be part of the simulation too?). So you kind of run into the “well who created that kind of marathon and I don’t know of any philosophical conjectures that have those characteristics that have been solved. Could be wrong though.
[+] [-] rocqua|4 years ago|reply
I don't know enough about quantum mechanics to check if this makes sense. My wild imagination suggests that 'waveform collapse' could be modeled as the result of a simulation being forced to resolve a state of a specific particle for further calculations. I imagine it is hard to come up with a plausible 'simulation model' for this that includes features like probability wave interference and entanglement of particles.
Such a model would be amazing for insight into quantum mechanics, and also have far-reaching consequence for metaphysics. It would strengthen the argument for us living in a simulation, if the peculiarities of quantum mechanics can be modeled as artifacts of a particularly efficient emulation.
[+] [-] OneTimePetes|4 years ago|reply
The only observable thing would be a "detail snap" and the same "high-res" details were the same hash is produced. Which could be avoided by hashing in the observer, at some level of detail.
[+] [-] magneticspark|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsego|4 years ago|reply
1) speed of light is an absolute cosmic speed limit
2) wave/particle duality
3) conservation of energy - everything is eternal, nothing can be truly created or destroyed
4) quantum entanglement shows that reality is non-local
5) singularities at center of black holes where seemingly all physical laws break down
[*] https://youtu.be/zcb_9j8KKdg
[+] [-] ineedasername|4 years ago|reply
Separately, how do you know that we aren't prone to getting stuck? We all do sometimes-- how would we ever know if it's more or less than "normal" in an non-simulated universe?
Carrol is a physicist so he may have more technical reasoning grounded in physics-- I don't know-- but it sounds like a rhetorical rather than scientific justification.
[+] [-] BWStearns|4 years ago|reply
I knew you could change boiling point with pressure but is this suggesting that doing something like having a layer of oil on top of an ambient pressure pot of water would prevent boiling? I tried googling for some elaboration but only found discussions of superheating water via pressure changes.
[+] [-] garof|4 years ago|reply
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheating
[+] [-] Animats|4 years ago|reply
(Although making anything stay at specified dimensions from Home Depot "fresh from the tree" lumber is difficult. That is why kiln-dried lumber exists.)
Wooden boat tension joinery - now that's hard. You need the results of several centuries of puzzle-solving and dealing with the effects of water to do that well.
There was some article a few years back on HN about two incompetents trying to build a cabin in the woods, with too little experience, too little planning, and too much drinking. Their worst mistake is that they didn't know that you build roof trusses at ground level. (Or just buy them prebuilt.) Then hoist completed trusses into place. They were trying to stick-build roof trusses up in the air at roof level. That did not end well.
This stuff isn't rocket science. There are books easily available, and lots of people who've done it before.
[+] [-] conover|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _Microft|4 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22020495 (2020; 115 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16184255 (2018; 296 comments)
[+] [-] strict9|4 years ago|reply
Life has infinite levels of depth if you keep peeling back layers and look down a bit further. And when you think you know something, dig deeper and you realize you know less than you thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox
[+] [-] adamrezich|4 years ago|reply
if one can accept this, then one can accept that any perceptions about reality he may have can only be at best a "useful model," and such models should be constantly updated in response to new data and observations. of course, this means that there is quite a bit of incentive in deliberately shaping the models people use to perceive reality...
[+] [-] teraflop|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedimastert|4 years ago|reply
I mention this because "Lost Art Press" is currently on the front page, who are an independent woodworking book publisher near the front of this movement
[+] [-] javier10e6|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] N1H1L|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uniqueuid|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simion314|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] an9n|4 years ago|reply
Not that even if I did know what I was missing I would make the effort, heh.
[+] [-] kordlessagain|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yoyar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilyagr|4 years ago|reply
https://mises.org/library/i-pencil
[+] [-] ineedasername|4 years ago|reply
That isn't much of a revelation? Although it seems like plenty of startups looking to disrupt something run headlong into the issue.
Anyway, I think a more proper title is something like "Everything is More Complicated That it Looks"
[+] [-] agustif|4 years ago|reply
https://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/myster...
[+] [-] f154hfds|4 years ago|reply
I have learned that a universal unavoidable element to any model is that it oversimplifies the thing it is trying to explain. Sometimes that is OK and using the model we gain useful insight into a system. Other times the simplification of the model ruins its explanatory power. Academics can sometimes forget this I think in their eagerness to understand and explain things. Some models that have varying degrees of usefulness are the following: Newton's F=ma, supply and demand economics, Marxism vs capitalism, colonialism, post modernism, globalism vs nationalism, conservatism vs liberalism. We have to be very careful applying an overly simplistic model to complex phenomena. Sometimes our desire to understand something at a high level erodes our ability to understand it at all, especially when modeling human behavior where interactions fundamentally occur at the level of the individual.
Colonialism in my mind is a good example of this. We have a model (a simplification of reality) that says this is a specific time period in human history in which people groups migrated between areas trampling on indigenous cultures in the process. The reality is that this has happened since the dawn of civilization and will continue, that some colonists at some times respected the native peoples and the movement was mutually beneficial. I believe colonialism as a model has limited usefulness and it's much more useful to look at specific movements of peoples and what happened as a result.