smilefreak's comments

This is exactly my experience, recently I have sometimes worked 9-5 got nothing done and gone home feeling like shit for being so unproductive. Then, to make up for it, I would find myself working some late nights and always made up for the lack of outputs. I now just start late and work late, which actually means I get more free time because I don't need to make up for anything.

As in interesting point, when I was working 9-5, I noticed that most people at work were incredibly unproductive all day so maybe it is somewhat a social construct also. When alone at night without distractions, without the context of people slacking off, I find it far easier to get focused and I don't just talk nonsense to anyone nearby.

As in every number in that set is a subset of the larger set of x < y < z. Poor language choice it's not true, yes I was wrong. I am just curious as to how much laziness and not necessarily confirmation bias has to do with the result. If getting it wrong had some kind of penalty or getting it right had some kind of reward ( money etc. ..), how much better would people do then?

Does laziness have anything to do with the responses? You get a rule that seems to work and so you seek the reward early. It takes effort to prove yourself wrong.

I was trapped by this and guessed it was exponential series n^1,n^2 etc for n starting at greater than 2. While technically true this was not the rule they had in mind.

Great article.

I am a instructor for Software Carpentry[1] , the goal of these workshops from my experience is to try and help mostly scientists get started on the journey to becoming early programmers.

In biological sciences with more and more data becoming available, the Expert blindness Zed speaks of is a major problem. We need to invent better systems and actually take heed of research based teaching methods as SW does if we wish to improve this situation.

https://software-carpentry.org/

These slides are great, I was thinking of presenting something similar to a bioinformatics lab group I am a part of. Could I adapt some of these slides?

I think that a smile should never be forced, for two reasons.

1. I want to find people who are genuinely passionate about what they do.

2. If people are truly unhappy not being o.k with that, and not faking it may bring attention to a problem they or society faces. This may help highlight, and could lead to solutions. Do not go silent.

>Growing up 'smart' made me stupid.

I agree and also have faced this problem as I was in the gifted programs all through school, then into university. However, in my third year of University I failed the entire year, owing mostly to the assurance in my ability to just wing it.

This had profound effects on my psyche and over the last two years, I have been trying to reprogram and discover strategies to not fall into this trap. In areas of life where many struggle, I am sharp, but in other areas I really struggle and learning to appreciate the talents of others in this area has been an eye-opener.

One of the major things for me was writing; I just don't find it easy. Possibly the largest change for me was actually facing up to that fact and starting to read and write again, which I hadn't done since high-school.

Now I am enrolled in a MSc program and actively engaged in learning and struggling in the areas I am weak; I believe this change is starting to pay off. The hardest thing was to accept that I wasn't good at everything, and to start working hard like everyone else.

Thanks for the useful list. The only problem with these things is that they require some time, effort and expertise to set up, which the average citizen may not have. I understand you are just being pragmatic, but we definitely need to work towards solutions, which works for more than the educated tech folk.

I guessed some of the next steps, and considering I have the automobilic knowledge of the ancient greeks, that was pretty impressive.

An education in how to present to a lay audience.

This is seriously an awesome and well executed concept.

I am working in genetics lab that studies complex disease. Many of these diseases have many environmental component and there is much interest in investigating these so-called gene-environment interactions.

Currently to investigate interactions between genes and the environment, we rely on patients to fill in questionnaires, which are problematic because people are inaccurate. Other more specific measurements are gathered with nurses taking blood, serum etc.

I wonder whether this could be deployed in anyway in medical research, using the smartphones currently on the market.

https://www.dropbox.com/jobs.

They hire for a wide variety of roles with some quite specialised knowlededge. I would expect they do not want anything different from the big tech companies.

Core CS concepts and maybe some information of the projects you have worked on while in college