I can change the combination of words I use to communicate if that would be better. Tribal knowledge is a term I have heard expressed between a spectrum of individuals from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds working in technical fields. I did not know that this term was off limits for this forum. It was not my intention that it be extrapolated as an insult towards someone’s race or social class.
I already am watching some and enjoy going to my local library as well to do so. I understand that it’s not the person’s responsibility. It seems preferable to just look it up without expressing any communication to the other.
That would help achieve this goal. I would appreciate if you sent this playlist. Social interactions confuse me as well. It is better to attempt them than to immediately jump off the page when a disagreement ensues.
As much as I’d love to know more about my car, I just don’t know how to ascertain the information to do so. Even if I did, the tribal knowledge that a mechanic has from working in a shop, personal investment in their own vehicle(s) assists greatly in literacy here.
Do you have a video of an engine tear down? How would you learn about cars? I don’t think this type of response is too conducive to keeping people curious. This could also help one communicate with their mechanic and increase literacy.
How would one develop a model for this? Would one have to create an EDA file with the bus layout and request a foundry for a prototype?
How do you ensure Edge and Teams don’t scavenge your machine for the data from your other applications? I don’t understand permissions too well and when an application is able to talk to another one. And the extent of conversations apps are able to have with each other.
As much as I would like to turn to professional developers for nearly every solution, I would like to learn how a professional developer operates.
My assumption is that Lemmy has many professionals who may be benevolent enough to lend some time and discussion regarding FOSS development. I would gladly assist, as it would improve my knowledge. My career is in hardware manufacturing, so maybe I can be useful for them as well.
A clear and transparent discussion of even the “developer tool chain” and open configurations + hotkey and macro suggestions would be great. Sometimes UX is enough to put people off from programming. This is a slight detour, but coding is as fundamental as literacy with all the semiconductor devices that surround us. I’m talking out of my ass when it comes to how a washing machine or computer console in a car is programmed, but I’m sure the concepts would be just as helpful as knowing how to wash dishes or mop ones floor.
Not everyone needs a DIY fab in their home, but as technology miniaturizes, we can achieve much more. Some of the tools when they were pioneered had their calculations performed on computers as large as an entire room. Nowadays it can fit on a table top.
I grew up under the poverty line and am sickened by how people are being screwed by software. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel are a couple to name of these monopolists that the general person is not really able to sever out of their lives. Don’t like that banking, travel, etc are all being relegated to an app.
Does this make some of my goals a bit clearer? I would like to do as much as we can as a community, as simple as possible. Arch and Gentoo are great as DIY examples, but software libraries and solutions created by others start to sound like fantasy when no actual English words are used to describe dependencies and abstract programs.
I’m not too sure about this one. No brands stick out. I will do a quick bit of searching, but this is what I’ve found on the surface level.
A howdy hello to everyone,
Getting older has made me realize the deficits in my cooking skills. I was a very picky eater growing up, and started to widen my palate so that I wouldn’t be condemned to eating some form of bread with cheese for my entire life. I love fruits and vegetables, so there’s no problem here. Grains are a bit difficult because of their texture.
I am completely dogshit at cooking. Whenever I try a new recipe, I either burn or undercook the food, resulting in about an hour wasted of poor planning.
This may involve walking back and forth around the kitchen getting ingredients as needed, forgetting to do a step, or forgetting an ingredient that is sitting on the counter away from me.
My motor skills are sometimes clumsy with cutting, so oftentimes the vegetables and fruit are cut too thick, or not to the point where the recipe expects them. When I made aloo gobi, my cauliflower was too large, the potatoes were undercooked, and the other veggies were just a pile of slop. Sometimes other dishes will not be entirely cooked and other parts will be burnt.
Oftentimes I might hate the taste of what I’ve made, so ultimately I will act to not eat anything because I don’t want to waste money cooking then going out. I have been working out and live a much more active lifestyle compared to how sedentary I was in university. Walking around 10 hours a day has made me truly realize the feeling of hunger. An emotion I normally never felt due to stomach problems and perpetual nausea.
I am very good at cooking breakfast foods, but do not want to eat French toast or Pancakes every single day. I’d like to add a broader spectrum to my breakfasts as well, as it is a quite small subset. I tried learning the cookiebookie latex package to write a cookbook as I went, but I gave up on trying to get it working. Formatting documents is an entirely different post.
This is turning into a rant, but for those of you whose special interests are cooking and who have found a spectrum of foods that are nutritious and filling, what advice would you have for me? What cookware do you recommend? Is there a set of recipes you think would be good to introduce cooking techniques? My end goal would be to cook with mostly anything I have on hand to turn it into something delicious and nutritious. Protein rich meals, vitamins, minerals, calories, etc.
I love your phrasing of “behind the back punishment”. Working in an office long enough and hearing the gossip about others makes me realize that myself personally is not exempt from being gossiped about.
I’d rather not say a “no-no” by accident when showing my candid self, which gets me grouped into being an odd ball. I have a mask personality that quite frankly I hate. He’s boring, plain, and can’t show any of his ultra specific interests or adeptness without coming off as a show off. It’s hard to talk about how I can play multiple instruments, speak many languages, and enjoy electronics and gardening without coming off as some bougie pretentious fuck. Hopefully I’m far from that, but a lot of the times my non chalantness with how I’ve taught myself all these skills make people think I’m over inflating my abilities or I’m just trying to brag.
Generally I’ve been a confidante to many people because they are willing to open up to me. But I think once I learn such deep information about someone so early in a friendship, this person regrets sharing the candid side of themselves and then distances themself from me.
I like being avant- Garde and over the top when I want to get someone’s attention… This seems to break people out of their robotic work responses, and it gives others a chance to show their fun side.
Giving compliments is fun, but I feel sometimes people think I’m complimenting them for one in return!
Agreed with not wanting to exchange superficialities… It just feels like the other person is trying to mine for a particular type of interaction when the conversation is all hot air. This isn’t a prejudice I impose on all, but if the talk is about someone’s significant other, bragging about their child, or something about a celebrity or trend I don’t necessarily see eye to eye with, these are examples of off putting topics.
Lately I have wanted to improve my own fashion sense. After getting my first career, I was able to get my teeth straightened, so this has improved confidence with smiling and showing my teeth. Agree with the smiling wrong sentiment though. It’s evident I’m autistic from how wide my face will perk up. People who know me enjoy my bubbliness, but it triggers something in strangers usually.
When I’m being trained by other professionals, I can tell I’m one of the more engaging folks in the group. If there are 3 or 4 other engineers with me, predominantly I’ll be given eye contact (which drains my social battery) and this leads to me being the most inquisitive up until my social level collapses and I nearly become non verbal. I’ll stop comprehending what the other person is telling me, start sweating, and the words start sounding like muffled noise. This can immediately change a new persons opinion with me, as 1 out of the 10 people I met got to see this during a first impression, and has a permanent burn in of that side of myself as his perception of my general personality. Sucks, but you can’t change that!
Love to hear that living your truth and with your natural neurotype is helping you 😊 I feel the same learning about my autism more and understanding the lapses in consciousness and gaps in emotional awareness…
Just posted a follow-up, but you bring up some good points.
Getting people to speak to me generally is an easy part. I don’t have trouble approaching others or initiating some sort of conversation. Usually this will be about a clearly visible article of clothing, cool earrings, pride apparel, hairstyle, the common small talk topics.
The back and forth will last generally for 2-6 sentences, where some type of awkwardness will insert itself into the situation. Maybe I don’t know how to respond after someone has shared something about an actor or singer they like. Maybe there’s an online trend I’ve missed, or they’re shocked that I’m in my early 20s and have no mainstream social media platforms. It’s not like my intention is to reveal that I’m a crazed Linux weirdo to everyone I know, but my interests are hyper specific. I could read up about what others like, but that would remove the authenticity from the conversation.
I know that depth like this doesn’t apply to smalltalk, and I don’t want to seem like an emotional weirdo to others, but I generally will also get happy and excited when others share my interests, which can be off putting in a different sense, maybe 10 minutes into a short chat.
My tendency to delve into historical facts, geography, electronics, scientific history, in order to connect something someone said about a building or a roof can also put people off. This is what I mean about being a chatterbox. I could never run out of things to say, so this oftentimes isn’t the problem. I’ve had wonderful and fulfilling conversation for hours over food and drinks with others who don’t mind this facet of me.
Once people get to know my character and who I am, this tends not to be an issue. But developing a working acquaintanceship is the difficult part so I don’t come off as a weirdo.
So let’s start off with small talk I.e 1-3 minute interactions, and branch into medium length office chats, then conclude with a lunch or dinner conversation.
Usually when I try this strategy, I might fall flat on my face by not knowing anything at all what I just asked about. Should one thing of every small talk excursion as an onion?
What I mean by an onion is to be able to organize the depth of the conversation by extent of discussion. To transform the comment into a dialogue is most desirable. Small talk is the goal here, just not the robotic:
“I like your Kansas City Chiefs Jersey!”
“Oh thanks, did you see how Frank Footballer did that pass against the Steelers?”
“Not really, but my grandmother always had the TV on and loved the Super Bowl!”
“Cool, buddy!”
After this, it’s like a game over screen is flashed before my eyes. Not to be dramatic, but this situation happens in many domains of conversation for me.
Do you have any extended advice for this?
Hello again everyone,
I’m very happy with the comments from the last post I made. Many of you had positive and constructive feedback about socializing. Made me realize that I’m generally overthinking the whole thing.
I mentioned that I was a chatterbox with a tendency to delve too deep into things and talk about whatever spontaneously comes to mind. Usually I can hold a conversation for the first couple of meetings, but then I’ll be at a loss of words for relatability.
When I thought more about why I can’t relate to others, it’s not because of any distaste towards people or their personal likes/dislikes… In fact, I would prefer to be viewed well in someone else’s perception. Generally treating others with kindness, complimenting specific items of clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and inquiring about basic things like music, weather, architecture, outdoors etc.
But when I look into myself… I went through life having mostly no preferences…
For example, when asked where I’d like to eat, I have been trying to expand my preferences. However, most of the time when I eat outside of my selective food items (mostly bread-based with some cheese), food can be difficult to chew and swallow. My music tastes are broad, but I don’t usually seek out new songs, and have difficulty discovering new songs.
Let’s continue this conversation about socialization, and extend it to preferences, likes, and dislikes. The problem with having an identity that doesn’t revolve around external activities outside of the usual hyper-specific autie hobbies, I’d like to become more relatable, learn to discover new likes and dislikes, and overall gain the ability to do this. I’d imagine it would make life quite a sum easier to change my perspective, but sometimes my mind is blank and unable to seek things out.
That sounds simple enough for me to remember! Focusing on being a better listener is what I should be working on.
But what if there are no immediate things to talk about? What if the conversation falls flat? Do you have a 3 strikes rule before you walk away from the interaction?
Maybe I’m getting too much in my head about things. Thanks for the reassurance 😊 This community always makes me feel more secure with some of my inner concerns about socializing and my perception in the eyes of others.
How do you get other people to speak with you? Usually I never know what to say in response.
Being a chatterbox hasn’t worked out too well throughout my life. Even in my second language, German, it’s evident im sort of a “parrot” when it comes to learned social phrases.
Socially exhausted right now and feeling like an alien.
I relate to this viscerally. Throughout my life, the easiest way for me to genuinely connect with others has been through a setting where we don’t have in-person body language.
In real life I’ve usually been quite bubbly, but that’s because I’m usually quite happy and enjoy spreading positive energy. It’s much better to uplift others than to break them down.
My friend groups have ebbed and flown over the years, but ultimately something drives us apart. Most of the time I’m clueless as to why. I think it’s because people don’t want to hurt my feelings because I’m polite and they have a history with me, but don’t want to continue a friendship.
I prefer to slide in social situations where we are in a small group or one-on-one. It usually feels more substantive and brings people who don’t mind info-dumping, obsessions, and more often than not, they enjoy the impact of my neurotype on my personality. It’s not like people can’t enjoy my personality… Just a specific subset. However, I’ve never felt like I’ve truly belonged in any group either. Nerdy, but not in the archetype to where I fit in with a traditional nerd. Enjoy outdoor things, but not to the point where it defines my life, as I enjoy electronics, linguistics, and musicianship. Broad range of interests that are too esoteric can put people off from a lack of relatability.
Being German American with my heritage mostly detached, I’d say this is the case in both Germany and the US. I grew up teaching myself the language, and have held a semblance of being “German” as an ethnicity, but am very clearly culturally distinct from real German people. It’s weird to observe that both cultures forego their norms and cave into their humanity when it comes to socializing. All folks follow different strokes.
It just seems like whenever you want to put yourself out there, there’s some intangible barrier that blocks a true friendship from forming. Is it ineptness? Am I perceived as selfish by talking too much about an interest? What about the questions I ask? My responses… As I’ve gotten older I’ve cared far less about the opinions of others. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t yearn for some form of involvement. Hope you feel okay. This community has made me feel far less alien than I ever have.
Amazing post! I’ve been wanting to do the same… Have you found a CLI .csv file editor? One of the points of friction for me is finding how to replace Excel’s functionality past Libreoffice. I’m more curious to see what that workflow can do when one uses no GUI whatsoever.
That’s fine, but I assume you mean that you’re not sure when to say something more substantive than a simple affirmation that you’re following along. A couple of other tips I’ve picked up that help with this:
After implementing what you've said in the past couple of my interactions, I noticed that people were more likely to smile and attentively listen after they've shared something themselves. Eliciting that initial interest from the other person removed a lot of the awkward silences, as it was filled with them talking more than myself. As I've been focusing more on what the person emphasizes, I'm able to find out more about what excites them to talk about, so I'm able to draw more attention to their interests and make them feel heard. Very good advice here.
Generally try to ask open ended questions rather than yes/no questions. And remember my first tips that the question you ask is also a way of conveying where you want the conversation to go. So if you don’t want to talk about your own parents, maybe it’s better to ask about the beach. And don’t be afraid to say “me too” and then if they say something like “really?” then it’s your turn to talk for a bit as you relate the thing you have in common with them.
To solidify this advice... Are there any "baskets" that questions generally could be sorted into? The open-ended type sometimes falls flat if I ask it from the "wrong" basket. Exactly as you mentioned with not wanting to talk about your own parents, but asking about them anyways and then not having much to say directly afterwards. Not to neg on details, but would it be unhealthy to think a certain amount of steps "ahead" in a conversation? This has been on my mind lately, but I'm not sure how to describe it other than I'd like to engage the person and get them to think about things rather than be a captive listener or have them monologue about themselves.
I feel like I don't understand eye contact or body language too well. We all know the awkward feeling of seeing someone far away in a hallway. I've never quite got this one down... If I know the person, it's usually okay to make some strange handmotions and tease a bit as you get closer. But sometimes, I can tell the other person doesn't want to look at me, but will raise their head to say hi as we are within 5 ish feet of each other. A strange autistic detail, but I just want to be more charismatic in general, and appreciate you taking the time to write these comments!
Hope everyone is having a relaxing Sunday morning/evening.
I wanted to follow up from my previous post, as some of you have indicated interest.
About logistic considerations, I believe 8 weeks is a good time commitment for a hardware project. The goal is to learn more about silicon manufacturing, lower-level computer hardware details such as architecture, circuit design, fundamental condensed matter physics, and digital logic design. Other goals involve understanding firmware systems such as BIOS and the cascade of events that occur from power-on to user operation as well as conceptualizing the small timescales that these events occur on. My intention is not to dictate the philosophy of learning, but bring awareness to details that otherwise would have never been known or to draw a larger picture using the constellation of components that is a modern computing device. We then will delve into HDLs (Hardware description languages) and look specifically at the VHDL (Verilog HDL) for how to design a chip. This is where my understanding of what is out there becomes fuzzy.
We will need a repository to store documents. It is not my intention to use Google Drive. Is there a trusted platform that offers this functionality? I am also curious as to learning a VCS (Version Control System). Git seems to be the choice for this. Maintaining our codebase, resources/references, questions/comments, presentations, notes, and miscellaneous documents in some platform that does not infringe on user privacy. Any ideas in this domain?
Individual development environments are also crucial to a productive hobby/working session. I think it'd be fun to discuss IDEs, TUI environments, barebones software to accomplish simple tasks, CLI navigation, file system implementation, and drive partitioning. Some of you are adept TUI text editor users, which your expertise would be greatly appreciated.
Because this is Lemmy, I assume most of us are interested in FOSS software/hardware. Perhaps there are open source architectures for GPUs, RAM devices, and other fundamental computing units.
Is there a such thing as open source RAM architectures? Is that even the correct question to pose? I see that "OpenRAM" exists for ASIC design. Maybe we can have an ultra-specific computing task that we could optimize all the constituent hardware pieces to perform. Maybe a game engine for a programming project, but where we patchwork the pieces, or at least examine the guts of Godot together. I've found that discussing how one actually READS documentation, can be helpful in becoming more independent during information searching.
Apologies if some parts are still unclear. I'm just happy to see some of you are interested! As per the survey and what you'd like to get out of something like this, or if the idea needs other parts glued together, feel free to suggest them here. Looking forward to your feedback.
Just cross posted! Hopefully that will get this idea more engagement.
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/36326370
> Hey Everyone, > > I'm very happy to see the engagement in my last post... Hoping to improve my communication skills and reduce my verbosity in the next couple of discussions. > > I feel like it is due time to follow-up on what I posted on this board last year. That is, to follow through with "full-stack" hardware-software-application study groups. > > If any of you still are interested, I'd like to open up this form for discussion of how that group should be run. > > On the subject of HDLs (Hardware Description Languages), VHDL (Verilog HDL) could be fun for some of us to try together. Architecture is also a large concept frequently glossed-over, enciphered with too much jargon, or taught in a very "academic" fashion with very little discussion between students... The traditional classroom model, from what I experienced, is not too conducive to neurodivergent learning styles. > > On that note, the RISC-V processor architecture could provide an amazing opportunity to gain a low-to-high understanding. Starting from the Silicon, where we delve into unit operations for chip manufacturing, fundamental solid state / condensed matter physics, and some mathematical models to describe the underlying phenomena. Then we will proceed to what can actually be configured in the ensemble of devices that constitute your "computer". What is a "piece of logic"? How do transistors actually operate? Why do certain design topologies make more sense than others...? And so forth. > > We would conclude with some software projects like writing an I/O driver for a keyboard, or pool a fund together for some type of chip we design in EDA together. Overall, it sounds like a great idea for us all to increase our technology literacy, have a fun hobby group to hang out with, and to feel like you own every part of your computer. > > On top of this, I feel that we should discuss FOSS tools with each other, as well as how they are best implemented to accomplish common tasks. I've punted the majority of my "Big Tech" stack to the curb the last 5-ish years. > > TUI tools as well as CLI interaction is a paradigm of computer operation that I feel many of us have been sleeping on. It also has helped me understand how GUI applications can be better suited for the task at hand, versus when I should be using a terminal emulator to navigate the directory hierarchy instead. Many of you are more versed in programming than I am, so I would love to hear your thoughts. > > We could even come up with a project for mobile, who knows? Not sure about the format, whether or not this would be synchronous, and the time commitment and sustainment of motivation throughout a probably 8 week period. However, I feel like a realistic solution for us all to get something meaningful out of an experience like this exists. > > Any thoughts on how to get this up and going? What would we need to do on our first meeting together? What things would you want to learn in this course? It seems to me that many of us are already quite literate in sub-domains of what we are interested in. Maybe a teacher carousel routine could be adopted? Where we adopt a general "roadmap" curriculum, and, in an ad hoc fashion, assign people to be the instructor for the desired lesson? Then that person could go and create a slide deck in Beamer, or prepare a presentation with an overhead camera or digital drawing device to use as a teaching medium. > > Those are just some ideas. Really looking forward to hearing what all of you think about this.
Hey Everyone,
I'm very happy to see the engagement in my last post... Hoping to improve my communication skills and reduce my verbosity in the next couple of discussions.
I feel like it is due time to follow-up on what I posted on this board last year. That is, to follow through with "full-stack" hardware-software-application study groups.
If any of you still are interested, I'd like to open up this form for discussion of how that group should be run.
On the subject of HDLs (Hardware Description Languages), VHDL (Verilog HDL) could be fun for some of us to try together. Architecture is also a large concept frequently glossed-over, enciphered with too much jargon, or taught in a very "academic" fashion with very little discussion between students... The traditional classroom model, from what I experienced, is not too conducive to neurodivergent learning styles.
On that note, the RISC-V processor architecture could provide an amazing opportunity to gain a low-to-high understanding. Starting from the Silicon, where we delve into unit operations for chip manufacturing, fundamental solid state / condensed matter physics, and some mathematical models to describe the underlying phenomena. Then we will proceed to what can actually be configured in the ensemble of devices that constitute your "computer". What is a "piece of logic"? How do transistors actually operate? Why do certain design topologies make more sense than others...? And so forth.
We would conclude with some software projects like writing an I/O driver for a keyboard, or pool a fund together for some type of chip we design in EDA together. Overall, it sounds like a great idea for us all to increase our technology literacy, have a fun hobby group to hang out with, and to feel like you own every part of your computer.
On top of this, I feel that we should discuss FOSS tools with each other, as well as how they are best implemented to accomplish common tasks. I've punted the majority of my "Big Tech" stack to the curb the last 5-ish years.
TUI tools as well as CLI interaction is a paradigm of computer operation that I feel many of us have been sleeping on. It also has helped me understand how GUI applications can be better suited for the task at hand, versus when I should be using a terminal emulator to navigate the directory hierarchy instead. Many of you are more versed in programming than I am, so I would love to hear your thoughts.
We could even come up with a project for mobile, who knows? Not sure about the format, whether or not this would be synchronous, and the time commitment and sustainment of motivation throughout a probably 8 week period. However, I feel like a realistic solution for us all to get something meaningful out of an experience like this exists.
Any thoughts on how to get this up and going? What would we need to do on our first meeting together? What things would you want to learn in this course? It seems to me that many of us are already quite literate in sub-domains of what we are interested in. Maybe a teacher carousel routine could be adopted? Where we adopt a general "roadmap" curriculum, and, in an ad hoc fashion, assign people to be the instructor for the desired lesson? Then that person could go and create a slide deck in Beamer, or prepare a presentation with an overhead camera or digital drawing device to use as a teaching medium.
Those are just some ideas. Really looking forward to hearing what all of you think about this.
Hey everyone!
Long time no post… The Cinny client for Matrix no longer functions even after updating, so I have lost access to the chat.
Anyways, I have been thinking a lot lately about the amount of awkward silences I’ve run into with others. It feels like some people are significantly easier to hold a conversation with, as they themselves are invested just as I am in our topics and dialogue. However, it almost feels like the other person is attempting a strange power dynamic with purposeful silences, staring, or otherwise conversations going downhill.
I’m not trying to be overly dramatic or to blame others, I just want to be as pleasant as possible for both the other person and myself. After all, good conversation can be wonderful!
Hoping to start a discussion with this nebulous afterthought and maybe get some ideas going for conversation skills and building social intuition!
Hi everyone, I've always had a special interest in linguistics and have informally studied a couple of different languages from all around the world. The different writing systems such as radicals in Chinese, Kurdish scripts and reading from right to left, to Inuit glyphs are all fascinating in themselves.
The IPA has been something fascinating, but I've yet to find a good resource that I could make sense of and hold my attention long enough to internalize the concepts.
I'm looking for books and authors that have a unique background. For example, seeing Chomsky's name in an automata formal language theory book was weird to think... But all the NLP stuff had foundation in older linguistic theory and ways people thought about the human brain, right?
Language and Information by Zellig Harris is an interesting read. John Sowa is another author I'd recommend for the whole way of ontology and computer systems. The particular book by him that I'm thinking is Conceptual Structures, I believe...? Would love to hear your thoughts, especially with all the AI hardware being released.
Hey everyone,
I've noticed this community is a bit barren. I'd like to add some posts myself but from a more ignorant POV.
It has come to my attention that there is not nearly enough software torture in my life. Hearing how companies are starting to add barriers to so-called "Translation layers" and other software pieces that give functionality to the underlying hardware...
What types of projects does the open source community need to pursue with respect to RISC-V drivers, firmware, or other necessary pieces to somewhat guarantee that the processor is compatible with GPUs, RAM, I/O, and other low level functions that hardware components perform?
Where should I start in my RISC-V journey? Is there a beginner computer or developer kit that I can purchase that won't incinerate my wallet? I don't expect to game or train LLMs off of a RISC-V-based computer, but am curious as to what a fully free hardware setup would consist of.
Love the idea of RISC-V!
Lately, I was going through the blog of a math professor I took at a community college back when I was in high school. Having gone the path I did in life, I took a look at what his credentials were, and found that he completed a computer science degree back sometime in the 1970s. He had a curmudgeonly and standoffish personality, and his IT skills were nonexistent back when I took him.
It's fascinating to see the perspectives on computing and how many of the things I learned in my undergraduate were still being taught way back to the 1950s. It also seems like the computer science degree was more intertwined with its electrical engineering fraternal twin.
Although the title of this post is inherently provocative, I'm curious to hear from those of you who did computer science, electrical engineering, or similar technical degrees in decades past. Are there topics or subjects that have phased out over the years that you think leave younger programmers/engineers ill-equipped in the modern day? What common practices were you happy to see thrown in the dumpster and kicked away forever?
The community also seems like it was significantly smaller back then and more interconnected. Was nepotism as prevalent in the technology industry then as it is today?
This is just the start of a discussion, please feel free to share your thoughts!
Hi Everyone,
I've gotten a lot of older books on mathematics, physics, chemistry, and dabbled a lot in computational simulation with programs like LAMMPS and GROMACS. I am interested in learning how to make a GUI application that I can use to automate graphing functions, understanding how sensitive a model may be to perturbations in particular parameters, and different ways of visualizing data to help me get an "intuition" on subjects. Numpy, SciPy, Pandas, Matplotlib.pyplot, numba, glob, and os, are libraries I like to use. See Gibbs'/Maxwell's original envisionment of thermodynamic surfaces from the late 1800s.
However, I am a moron with respect to software development. My interests are in the FOSS-sphere of things, but I have never made a piece of software other than botched code to calculate averages, perform PCA, and typical statistics visualizations with distributions, Monte Carlo simulations, and see how this effects the properties of the underlying system of study. I've also glanced at design patterns, know the different paradigms of computing to a basic level, and am willing to suffer for long-term educational gains.
The language I'm most comfortable coding in is Python, but I found it discouraging to start writing a software project, as I assume writing something entirely in Python isn't the best way to ship quality software.
Julia and Matlab are other languages I've written programs in. I've tortured myself with the whole gamut of toolchains/editors like Neovim (and my inability to get my lua.init file to ever work properly), and prefer to use FOSS tools. I can navigate in a clunky sense around a terminal, but whenever I try to configure my .bashrc or modify the behavior of my editor, it results in me chasing down a particular filepath for an hour just to change the color of the text, or rearrange how the text is displayed to the terminal so that I actually can read what is saying. Without color-coating, it's hard to distinguish between directories, file extensions, and so forth, and even more frustrating when you can't get the changes to work.
Essentially, I am a confused orangutan given a mallet.
When I ditched Word for LaTeX several years ago, it inspired me to take my FOSS journey one step at a time, rather than what I did a year ago, where I chucked every proprietary tool into the trash.
I need to actually be able to do work, as one would prefer to drive their car, rather than get out every 5 feet to fix another busted part.
I would like to eventually develop software that ends up in the FOSS sphere, and write programs that do not take up 100GB of space, or have 100s of bandaid layers, countless dependencies, and the whole gamut of issues that plague certain software packages.
Libraries that I've looked at are...
- Tkinter
- PyQt5
- Dear PyGui
I don't particularly care about modern esthetics for the interface. All I care is that the program functions, uses a relatively low amount of resources, and can educate me further about how to rip open a widget, modify the code associated with that particular button, and get a greater control of visualizing concepts taught in math/physics books.
Thank you!
Hey everyone,
Recently, I've found myself bogged down in sending off resumes that seem to never to be read by anyone other than myself.
I'll go through the whole gamut of picking keywords that match the job description, showcasing my previous experiences, projects, skills etc... But it just seems to never result in a call-back or even an email to tell me I wasn't selected.
Given that I'm tired of screaming into the hills and hearing it echo back, I want to write a program that streamlines this whole process. I have a couple of resume templates written in TeX script that I can populate with content. Alongside this, I have all of my relevant bullet points in assorted text files labeled appropriately.
The idea would be to feed the program the job description, relevant qualifications, and other miscellaneous text files. These would be processed to give an idea on how my resume should be modified to suit their requirements. Perhaps that could aid in creating a strong resume in a more streamlined fashion. I have no clue what metric should be used to quantify how "good" it is, so that's to be figured out as well.
I saw "nltk" and "spaCy" are two NLP libraries for Python, but I wanted to open up discussion for those of you who have worked on projects similar to this. I have read mixed comments about the two. Which one seems better suited for this task?
Obviously I'll review the resume before I submit it, but I want to see if I could get something like this working.
I'm a giant noob when it comes to NLP, but have used Python for the past couple of years for data-science applications. I'd be open to learning a different language if there is a library that has some of these functions already coded, but I'm not a developer.
Thanks for any help! I love the community over here on Lemmy. Many of you have been very helpful and encouraging and it makes me want to keep learning more :)
Hey everyone,
Last night a rabbit hole took me to an unexpected place. Gwern is undoubtedly the most comprehensive website adorned with vocabulary, statistics, programming, and a strong bias towards the Haskell language.
I found myself sucked into the site and got lost in what seemed like an endless stream of text. One page about nootropics would lead to another about properly designing scientific studies, the "Dual n back" method for increasing IQ and countless more.
From a previous post I mentioned interest in LLM inferences, but at the time I kind of only nebulously wanted an AI tool better than GPT-4. Some of so kindly brought the Georgi Gerganov Llama.cpp to my attention, for which I finally have adjusted to Linux well enough to feel comfortable downloading software in myriad ways.
Returning to the topic at hand, I have an itching feeling that some sort of ML model could be made to serve the purpose as a brain extension. I can see the uses being for picking up and maintaining technical vocabulary for an interview in pharmaceuticals, chip manufacturing, chemical processing, 3D manufacturing, and legion others.
I imagine it could be an absolute super tool for learning. I mean past the usual Ebbinghaus forgetting curve that Anki seeks to ameliorate, combined with active recall, memory palace techniques, and Anthony Metivier's lovely curated channel. He led me to Gwern in the first place. His story is very inspiring and I would recommend his book "The Victorious Mind: How to Master Memory, Meditation and Mental Well-Being".
I think this is a great place to begin discussion on this topic. Given that we are neurodivergent and many of you have also resonated with the monotropic brain theory, what are your thoughts about having a "Brain Inference" or "Brain Buddy"? Here are a couple of questions to chew on:
- What features should a program do that has the Brain Buddy incorporated in it? Could this be analogous to orgmode in Emacs? Some sort of an fzf-esque program to globally search for something you vaguely recall?
- How would we design it? What facets do we need to consider?
- What training sets could we use? How do we clean up the set to ensure the model doesn't digest falsehoods?
- How large do the models need to be w.r.t. parameters?
- How much computing power would we need?
Hey everyone, I've been parsing through the Huggingface website and am having a bit of trouble picking out an LLM inference to help me parse through legal documents. I am not a lawyer, but I would like to understand my rights and how to search for answers to legal questions with concrete answers using an inference.
I have heard a multitude of things around Llama being a privacy nightmare and something about Gerganov ML files? GGMU is also a nebulous term to me and I understand the basics about how a model is trained and validated, but not how to pick one for personal use that isn't GPT-4.
Any suggestions or things to add on to the discussion?
Hey everyone, I've been searching for a bit on getting local LLM inference to process legal paperwork (I am not a lawyer, I just have trouble through large documents to figure out my rights). This would help me have conversations with my landlord and various other people who will withhold crucial information such as your rights during a unit inspection or accuse you of things you did not etc.
Given that there are 1000s of pre-trained models, would it be better to train a small model myself on an RTX 4090 or a Daisy chain of other GPUs? Is there a legal archive somewhere that I'm just not seeing or where should I direct my energy? I think lots of us could benefit from a pocket law reference that can serve as an aid to see what to do next.
After chatting with some of you on this forum and seeing that we all are on Lemmy rather than Reddit, I think it would be a good idea for us to have some study groups to improve our technological literacy and competency.
During my time on Lemmy, I've been able to increase my digital literacy and overall knowledge surrounding my system. I've loved the nearly endless rabbit holes Wikipedia has pulled me into, as well as the resulting happiness that comes from finally fixing a broken Linux system or piece of technology.
But what exactly does technological literacy encompass, one might ask? I'd like to illustrate via anecdote. When I first got into Linux, I was told to "Get a terminal emulator to SSH into the HPC so that you can run computational jobs". To most of you this sentence is completely normal, but to my unconditioned mind, I felt like a big bright light was flashed before my eyes while my PI spoke martian to me. After the initial disorientation, I downloaded what I thought was my only option for a terminal emulator (MobaXTerm), and found myself sitting in front of a pitch black terminal screen with a blinking prompt. Not knowing what a host was, how to manage a network, any Linux commands (coreutil, never heard of her...), or really do anything past opening up WoW and Google Docs. The only things more advanced than the plug and play Google/Microsoft software solutions I'd use, was my botched LaTeX setup. I used it to typeset math equations for my students, homework, and lab reports from how much faster I could type in the TeX format than click on every Greek letter/symbol I needed. Overall, it really messed with my ability to do the research I was tasked to do. I was supposed to learn how to use Vim as my IDE when the only IDE I had ever worked in was Spyder from Anaconda! VSCodium, CodeBlocks, Emacs, etc, I did not know that any of these existed.
Needless to say, this was extremely discouraging to be thrown head first into a difficult scenario with very little assistance whilst trying to juggle coursework and outside responsibilities. Humble beginnings reinforced in me that if I experimented with my computer and messed up on the OS side, that I'd brick my hardware and have some variation of Homer Simpson holding up the "So you Broke the Family Computer" book.
I'm sure that we all come from varying origins of computer literacy, which IthinkI've proposed a couple of possible areas of study, that we could set up in small or large groups depending on interest. The frequency, literature references (textbooks, white papers, blogs, forums, etc.), and the project goal (could be concrete or abstract) should be drawn up and worked towards to keep the topic focused. I've come up with a couple of fields for us to start with, feel free to add to the list or modify what I've written.
- Cryptography with a rigorous mathematical foundation applied to both classical and quantum computing paradigms (AES, RSA, Hash functions deeper than just the surface, information theory (We love our boy Claude Shannon), Cryptographic primitives, Shor's Algorithm, etc.)
- A hardware agnostic study of firmware (What are some unifying principles about firmware that can empower the user to understand why certain aspects of the device are not functioning)
- Hardware architectures (GPU, NPU, TPU, CPU, RAM, DIMM)
- Form factors (How geometry can impose certain design decisions, and so forth
- Fundamentals from First Principles, i.e condensed matter physics theories to understand the classical computing systems. The group can also choose to segwey into topological states of matter (Dirac fermions, Weyl semimetals, Mott insulators, and a myriad of other cool matter states that aren't really discussed outside of physics / graduate engineering classes) Qubits (Bloch sphere representations) and loads of other things that I'm sure exist but am unaware of.
- LLM Inference technology and how it can be applied to case law, accounting, stocks, and various other fields where the solution to the problem lay somewhere in an encoded technical language.
I'd like to begin the discussion with this as our starting framework, does anyone have any interest in the topics listed above or suggestions for other subjects? How should we manage these groups? Should we add some chats to the Matrix instance?
Hey everyone, I've been using an Arch system for the past 2 months and I've had an absolute ball learning more granular details about my hardware. Never in my life did I think I'd be looking at kernel modules and contemplating swapping out init systems and trying different kernels.
I write this post somewhat open-endesd because I'm clueless as to where Gentoo can take me in terms of hardware acceleration and help me learn development of software/firmware deeper. To my understanding, everything must be compiled from source code, which I'd like to learn more about as well. Ive dipped my toe in a myriad of programming languages too and found a more terminals focused work flow was ideal.
My major use cases for my computer are to benchmark hardware and pick more features in software that I'd have to compile from source anyways. I do work in molecular dynamics from time to time and have used software distributions like GROMACS and LAMMPS. Any advice that could be wouldbbe greatly appreciated. The thoroughness in the Gentoo Wiki's documentation is amazing, but its a overwhelming lol
My foundation is a little like swiss cheese though. Don't know what I don't know! Looking forward to becoming a part of the Gentoo community. I'd love to develop software like DWSIM someday.
Hey everyone, I'm still pretty new to using my GrapheneOS phone and have been slowly transitioning to a more privacy oriented technology lineup than I previously did.
I searched for clients on Google and found "Total Adblock", "Adblock", and "Adblock Plus" but I'm not quite sure how to audit an adblocker for security flaws or malicious intent. I also would prefer to install apps through the F-Droid store and learn how to compile from source code on mobile (if that's possible on GrapheneOS or if that's even something desirable)
Thanks for any help! Been lurking a lot on Lemmy and have really enjoyed the energy in the community. Definitely has made learning Linux and the countless times I've had to fix my Arch system much more enjoyable. GrapheneOS has been quite stable too other than the phone having interfacing problems with my cellular provider's network...
This week I finished setting up Arch Linux (It felt so good to nuke Windows 11 off my laptop!) and GrapheneOS for my new Pixel phone.
I am interested in getting a NAS for multiple purposes such as accessing files, hosting a small website, and to upload security camera footage to name a few.
Is there a particular brand to buy? I'm basically illiterate when it comes to networks aside from what an IP is and what DNS is. Any suggestions for books and reading material is greatly appreciated. It feels liberating to know more than I did before with tech!
Hey everyone! So I've been doing some playing around with Mint Linux and have quite enjoyed it in the virtual machine. Thank all of you for the insight into the mindset I should take when approaching a new distribution.
Now that I'm not struggling as much with the terminal and other general computer organizational problems, I wanted to learn how to train my own chat-bot assistants. These assistants would be trained on monographs, textbooks, and other scholarly resources on topics I've been trying to learn more deeply.
I was wondering if anyone here has done this before, and if you have any advice to lend me!
Thanks for all the help!