I had a goal of introducing my kids to piano, and also wanted to pick it back up myself (I'd been forced to as a kid and hated it, never progressed beyond beginner).
I got myself a casio privia (it's a costco special 88 weighted keys, was the reddit recommendation for beginners at the time). Then paid for lessons with a teacher for my family which by far outweighed the cost of the keyboard.
About 10 years later: rest of family have given up piano, they didn't progress far, and i didn't do any forcing; but it was nice to hear them play when they did. I've kept it up although progress is very slow.
I think my feelings are:
- I could have spent more on the piano (my dad got a significantly more expensive piano, and it is more pleasurable to play): quieter keys, better action on the keys.
- I feel pretty good about how far my the rest of my family progressed, and am happy that i didn't push
- I feel like a teacher somewhat forces you to keep practising even when you don't want, and maintains some progress, I don't think I'd get this from an app.
First thought was of John McWhorter's book [The Language Hoax](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18579574), where he refutes Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I think in that book he talks about this phenomenon too.
I'm saying: observe the broad range of epistemic territory covered by the word "refute" (the first definition is a blend of complete incorrectness and not absolutely perfect, the second is literally subjective opinion, ie: "at least one human holds this opinion"), something that seems rather untroubling to people (believing themselves to be) considering the truth of this theory. (See also if you can spot any other instances of this sort of thing in this thread, or all other threads).
I wonder how Westerners would react to a new word being invented that directly references this phenomenon, and I also wonder whether doing that would have zero effect on people's cognition (which is essentially what is being claimed impossible), especially if they were reminded of its existence every time the common habit of speaking ambiguously/meaninglessly arose.
Such a word would have to sustain substantial memetic attack though, cultural "truths" are usually defended passionately. I think the most that could be achieved in this culture and era is adoption in the counterculture scene.
As for whether he doesn't "prove" it false: which of the many conflicting meanings of the word "prove" (or "doesn't" for that matter) would we be using, and would it even be possible to achieve a demonstration of it, that people who despise taking the meanings of words seriously could agree on?
>In America, refute = disprove.
In Britain, very commonly, refute = deny.
What "is" in a geographical area is a function of human cognition as it is in that area. When actual values are not available (like now), the mind supplies simulated values, and no notification that it has done that.
Some cultures have some insight into these matters/phenomena, some do not. Western countries tend to be in the second group, they consider (to the degree that they do, technically) such topics "woo woo". Consequently, they make the same error, over and over, and have no clue.
> As with most ambiguous words, the intention is usually clear from context anyway.
I agree that any given human agrees with their own personal opinion (what is "clear" to them).
There are literally languages that depend entirely on context to ascertain the meaning of the words spoken bc the words mean many things depending on context.
Like, entire languages of read vs read - as in "He reads that" or "He read that" , context is part of a words definition
> You seem to me to be taking the meanings of words so seriously that you've lost the value those words provide.
Do you believe this to be free of both error and irony? I don't intend this in a rude way, but as a purely intellectual undertaking - this is, after all, Hacker News, where intellectual curiosity is a thing, reputedly anyways.
Yeah Bud, we all have different definitions for words in our heads that are based on our individual understanding and experience of reality - we have things like dictionaries to establish an agreed upon definition but few people actually know those definitions, they just have a functional understanding of what words mean.
We just pretend we all actually are operating with the Merriam-Webster definitions bc it's easier.
Words are just to convey ideas - if you can pickup what someone means contextually but you choose to ignore that and focus on incorrect word use, you've missed the point of communication
> we have things like dictionaries to establish an agreed upon definition
I suggest you reread my comment, taking into consideration whether that is logically even possible in this case with the breadth of meanings attributes to this particular symbol.
>if you can pickup what someone means contextually
and
> you've missed the point of communication
If you missed the mark, would you necessarily be able to know?
Would you mind explaining, since I didn’t read the book but saw the movie.
IIRC, the main character knew her future daughter would get sick and pass - and the conundrum was, does she tell her husband before the daughter is born (to potentially prevent pregnancy but doesn’t) … which after the daughter was born, the dad/husband learned she knew the future fate - led to their divorce. Was the book different?
In the book, the death happens to do an accident, not cancer, as the sibling comment says.
So just to spell it out more than the sibling comment - the story doesn't ask "do I decide to have a child, even knowing that they die".
Instead, the focus is on her literally knowing, that morning, that her daughter was heading out to a place where she would die. One word of warning could've prevented the death. Of course, that "isn't possible" from their point of view, but from "our" point of view it seems like it is possible, so she effectively let her daughter die.
Very different emphasis. Both the movie and the Chiang story are great.
Not only is it possible, but there's a narrator part in the book where she chooses to do this. It's been a while, and tell me if I'm misremembering this, but what I remember is her choosing to live this way, to know the future but to "act it out" so that it will happen, rather than trying to change it.
Well this is kind of a philosophical question, I think from her point of view there's no choice involved - if you throw a ball, it doesn't have a choice but to fall to the ground, and she likewise "acts out the scripts" that she knows happens.
I think that's kind of the challenge the story poses. From our point of view, she knows what will happen and "chooses" not to change it, from her/their point of view, it's all already happened, she can't change it.
I can't really speak to it as it's been years, but I remember her likening this to a play, where the actors can change the words, but they don't, for the sake of the play. IIRC she was very clear that this was a choice that the aliens were making, and not something that was enforced on them, but, as I said, it's been years.
You're right that she compares it to that, but my reading of it is that that is the whole disconnect/point - she does it view that way, but also doesn't change it in a way that is incomprehensible to the way we view it but that is the only way it could go from their perspective.
I don't think we're disagreeing, just viewing the same actions from a different lens.
You may be right, I read the story again and she does say that it's a completely different viewpoint, where free will doesn't apply. Not that it doesn't exist, but it's not applicable.
I just re-read the short story after reading the GGP comment. In the written story, the daughter dies at 25 in a rock climbing accident. The written story makes no mention of Louise talking about her perception of consciousness with anyone, except to note that she assumes a colleague who has learned the alien language (Heptapod B) also experiences that mode of consciousness.
Really beautiful and entertaining story, definitely worth the ~hour of reading.
(Also, this isn't much of a spoiler, the daughter's death is mentioned very early in the story's non-linear narrative)
If perceiving the future laid out beforehand is just the same as reading the Book of Ages, then I take the italicized part below to mean not only that she wouldn't reveal what she'd seen in the future but she wouldn't even reveal she'd seen the future at all:
> Similarly, knowledge of the future was incompatible with free will. What made it possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now that I know the future, I would never act contrary to that future, including telling others what I know: those who know the future don’t talk about it. Those who’ve read the Book of Ages never admit to it.
we went in the opposite direction, not because haproxy was bad, just because nginx had a simpler config, and i think we were paying for haproxy but don't pay for nginx.
all that said, neither drops existing connections on reload
Netflix and Youtube streams are less GB/hour than a typical movie rip. Roughly 3GB/hour at 720p and 8GB/hour at 4K. A decent-quality pirated 4K movie is more like 20GB/hour. A high-quality rip is 40GB/hour.
I'd expect a lot of interjections (yeahs, okays, ums, rights, etc) in normal conversation, but people don't keep repeating back everything that's said for the "benefit" of an audience. Not in my experience anyway, although I suppose there are probably some people who do... maybe as a vocal tic or something. You'd get none of the pauses for sound effects or music in normal speech either. The podcast comes off as being very "produced" as opposed to having a natural conversational tone, and some people love that aspect, but the low information density is what gets to me the most.
I mean, here's an except from another transcript and even ignoring that they're using a ton of sound clips to explain something simple, the amount of repetition would be insane in a normal conversation:
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Grief often comes in five stages.
RACHAEL CUSICK: I'm not sure when or how exactly I came across it, but...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) You're going to go through what we call the five stages of grief.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Five stages of grief.
RACHAEL CUSICK: It was this five-part checklist.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: There are five stages of grief.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: What are you talking about?
RACHAEL CUSICK: You might have heard of these stages. The idea is pretty simple. It's basically that in the wake of losing a loved one, you'll go through a series of feelings.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RACHAEL CUSICK: First...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Stage one.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) Denial.
RACHAEL CUSICK: Denial.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Denial.
RACHAEL CUSICK: Then stage two.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Step two, that's anger.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) Anger.
RACHAEL CUSICK: Then bargaining.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) Bargaining.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: OK.
RACHAEL CUSICK: After that is...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Depression.
RACHAEL CUSICK: ...Depression and...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCRUBS")
DAVE FOLEY: (As Lester Hedrick) Finally, acceptance.
RACHAEL CUSICK: ...Last but not least, acceptance.
This is traditional, leisurely paced “slow media”. Nothing wrong with it. You can get the same content in short form by reading an encyclopedia if that’s preferrable.
Totally anecdotal, just tonight i saw a video my child was watching with generated images. At first i thought, I've seen that face in generated images, i think, then we looked a little closer, and noticed obvious mistakes (extra or weird fingers, weird body positions, cross eyes where you wouldn't expect them).
Of course it's the first time I've spotted it in the wild where it wasn't explicitly marked as generated content, so maybe i've missed a bunch.
I had a goal of introducing my kids to piano, and also wanted to pick it back up myself (I'd been forced to as a kid and hated it, never progressed beyond beginner).
I got myself a casio privia (it's a costco special 88 weighted keys, was the reddit recommendation for beginners at the time). Then paid for lessons with a teacher for my family which by far outweighed the cost of the keyboard.
About 10 years later: rest of family have given up piano, they didn't progress far, and i didn't do any forcing; but it was nice to hear them play when they did. I've kept it up although progress is very slow.
I think my feelings are: - I could have spent more on the piano (my dad got a significantly more expensive piano, and it is more pleasurable to play): quieter keys, better action on the keys. - I feel pretty good about how far my the rest of my family progressed, and am happy that i didn't push - I feel like a teacher somewhat forces you to keep practising even when you don't want, and maintains some progress, I don't think I'd get this from an app.