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#clojure-europe
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2022-09-20
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reefersleep06:09:43

Good morning!

otfrom07:09:39

madainn mhath

genRaiy07:09:52

Good morning

reefersleep10:09:37

The efficiency of this spider. It was already handling a recently caught fly when a wasp joined the party. The speed and ease with which the spider descends upon its prey and swaddles it in webbing is really amazing. Around and around you go, whoops you’re incapacitated.

borkdude10:09:01

My sister messages me yesterday: she found a spider of 15cm in her kitchen and was terrified :)

reefersleep10:09:24

I think I would be, too!

borkdude10:09:47

Me too. My wife is much better with insects and spiders than I am haha

reefersleep10:09:09

And I’m not particularly skittish. I just prefer my insects to be under 3 cm or so. Send the rest to Australia or into the sun

reefersleep10:09:39

Great that one of you are 😄

pez10:09:14

It's good that they have exoskeletons, setting a limit to how big they can get on earth.

borkdude11:09:40

Are you saying the big spider in The Wizard of Oz is fake?

pez11:09:57

Kansas is on earth, so, yes.

borkdude11:09:58

damn another childhood fantasy destroyed

borkdude11:09:56

I will say that they didn't stumble across that spider in Kansas though

borkdude11:09:08

but it likely was on earth, so yeah

pez11:09:58

Ah, long time ago since I watched it.

reefersleep12:09:28

Doesn’t Dorothy specifically say to Toto that they’re not in Kansas anymore? 😄

😆 5
borkdude12:09:47

Pez might have missed the first episode ;)

🤓 1
pez16:09:33

Haha! It's complicated. I got scared to panic the first time I saw it, and the next time(s) I saw it I was scared about getting scared. 😃

lread12:09:40

G:spider_web:🕸️d m:spider_web:rning!

borkdude12:09:31

Morning @lee - 🕸️

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Ben Sless13:09:39

I'm trying to get network manager and Palo alto VPN to play nice via open connect Suffering

lemontea14:09:53

ya troubleshooting networking problems is hard… esp. since it is not that composable

lemontea13:09:32

morning

1
lemontea18:09:31

btw, you guys are so creative with the mornings 😃 this reminds me of my time in my previous job…

lemontea18:09:07

where I’d bump into a rather senior management in the office, and he’d say “Good morning! How’re you?”

lemontea18:09:07

I didn’t know that “How are you” is just a generic greetings, and tried fairly hard to come up with a unique response each time that captured special things that happened during that day

pavlosmelissinos20:09:25

Well, joke's on them, if they didn't really want you to tell them about your life, they shouldn't have asked! :man-shrugging:

lemontea20:09:52

I can’t tell which case it is actually… and he does nod along and smile nicely, maybe giving some sharp/relevant comments… but even then, I can’t tell what he actually thinks of me :face_in_clouds:

pavlosmelissinos20:09:48

I don't get "how are you" either. I'm kind of forced to do it because "it's rude not to say it" but then you're also expected not to follow up with an honest answer? That's what's weird!

pavlosmelissinos20:09:27

Right, yeah, of course. People say stuff they don't mean. It can be confusing.

reefersleep07:09:00

I wonder how many people who experience this as weird are unknowingly on the autistic spectrum.

reefersleep07:09:29

Maybe most people, spectrum or not, unknowingly agree that it’s kind of dumb, but everyone’s going along with it.

pavlosmelissinos07:09:26

Who knows! It's not really as bad I make it to be but I do think about it sometimes and ask myself why people do it. 😂 Re: autism, I haven't been diagnosed (yet) but I'm pretty sure I am on the spectrum 🙂 > Maybe most people, spectrum or not, unknowingly agree that it’s kind of dumb, but everyone’s going along with it. That's probably it

reefersleep08:09:13

I think, sadly, that’s the way for a lot of things. We don’t have the capacity to care about every aspect of our lives, so for many aspects, we just go along with the norm. I feel like we should be way more caring, critical and discerning about anything in our lives, really.

reefersleep08:09:32

Great that you’re aware of it!

reefersleep08:09:52

I keep feeling like I’m missing a diagnosis or two to help me better fit into my skin and the world.

lemontea15:09:33

I was told to have been diagnosed as borderline autistic when (before?) I was in kindergarten… not sure if that’s a formal one though…

lemontea15:09:13

ya, if we consider that one major aspect of the spectrum is not having that automatic grasp of “social cue”, this explains a lot

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lemontea15:09:32

by “automatic” I mean some sort of subconscious processing by the brain

lemontea15:09:18

i.e. “How are you” is not “How are you”. Think of it like gensym in common lisp etc

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lemontea15:09:25

it is a symbolic placeholder, a prompt, for “the socially appropriate response” - which is “a pleasant, positive ethos” projected to smooth over social interaction

reefersleep17:09:13

I feel like I have some sort of linguistics processing problem. For me, it's not grasping the concepts, but rather, grasping them in real time, or maybe rather, at the pace that others do. I always feel like I'm lagging behind in understanding what other people say, like there's a buffer that all verbal language has to go through before it reaches my cognition. Trying to keep up with others means I say odd stuff at times 🙂

reefersleep17:09:49

I don't think this is the same as what spectrum people describe.

lemontea18:09:59

not exactly the same, but probably related. People on the spectrum generally have problem with cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy. So it’s like if someone point out the exact chain of reasoning used, you can follow and understand it alright - just not in real time.

lemontea18:09:25

oh, and a third aspect is “theory of mind”

lemontea18:09:02

looking back now I’m like 😳 🙈

lemontea20:09:56

not funny? ok, guess I’m a weirddo/nerd then

lemontea20:09:33

but then, I suppose, if I’m truly weird at heart, it’s gonna show in some other way sooner or later

lemontea20:09:48

so in the long term, doesn’t matter 😃

lemontea20:09:32

(for the record: I heard the idiomatic response is “good. and you?“. Meanwhile the usual response in textbooks of English for non-native speaker is “I’m fine, thank you” :man-facepalming:)

reefersleep07:09:09

Both seem fine to me, interchangeable in terms of how generic they are. But generally, I try to remember to not make any conversation one-sided, which I can do at times by only answering questions and not asking them 😓

borkdude20:09:07

Yes, it is funny. I also thought that "How are you" was a question rather than a greeting for a while

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pez20:09:47

It is a bit like that in Swedish too for me. ”How are you?” is asked rather sloppily. It's not fully just a greeting, like in the US. But still, most often people don't really like to hear how the other person is doing...

reefersleep07:09:04

what is it? hur mår du or something like that?

reefersleep07:09:14

or tjena or whatever

pez08:09:39

”Läget?”

pez08:09:18

”Hur mår du?” (”How are you feeling?” for non-Swedish speakers) is different, I think. It would be asked out of concern rather than as part of some protocol.

reefersleep08:09:52

It sometimes seems weird to me that I don’t know Swedish better, given that we are so closely related (I guess?)

reefersleep08:09:13

I don’t think I had anything in particular about Sweden in school, actually.

pez13:09:05

We had some few lessons in 7th or so grade where we were taught some Danish. I guess it can be easily fixed if the need arises. Usually when I speak with a Dane we can quickly agree to switch to English. 😃

reefersleep14:09:00

well, when the objective is to get work done, I do the same…

reefersleep14:09:33

Which feels silly!

reefersleep14:09:51

We’re so close, but just far enough apart to be less than easily comprehensible

reefersleep14:09:55

at least without exercise

reefersleep14:09:11

I think Danes were taught Norwegian and Swedish in the past? dno

pez16:09:00

Agree it feels silly. We often spend some weeks in the summer in Denmark. To me it is like a better Sweden. 😃 But on vacation like that I don't get to speak all that much and train my ears. Also, my wife understands Danish perfectly.

reefersleep16:09:41

We've been going to Malmö for some years while we lived in CPH. Cozy place!

reefersleep16:09:14

Funny, sometimes Sweden feels like a better Denmark... Same goes for Norway.

pez19:09:52

They have fjords, so of course it is better. 😃

reefersleep07:09:16

+ mountains. The mountains are beautiful, and have some utilities, but I think I’d be annoyed living there, having to travel up and down to do anything.

lemontea20:09:33

The way I rationalise it myself is that it’s the “implicit vs explicit” culture thing

lemontea20:09:24

although, it can also be that I’m over-interpreting things (blue curtain etc)

lemontea20:09:35

it can simply be a matter of habits

lemontea20:09:44

and the funny thing about habits

lemontea20:09:57

is that it is kinda like an automation by our brain

lemontea20:09:17

so doesn’t matter if it “make sense” or not - our brain just executes it

seancorfield20:09:04

It can be dangerous to ask some Brits "How are you?" because they'll tell you all about their aches and pains and the woes of the world 😆

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lemontea20:09:40

oh… the rains?

seancorfield20:09:35

Heh, "How are you?" can often lead to long complaints about the weather, yes, it's true...

lemontea20:09:47

rainy everyday = no mood :rain_cloud:

seancorfield20:09:14

"Ooh, the rain's playing havoc with my gout!" 🙂

simple_smile 1
lemontea20:09:14

though that can be a positive in some very specific instances

lemontea20:09:38

like, I read somewhere that someone asked a random stranger on the street “What’s the time?”

lemontea20:09:48

only that he slipped and actually said “What’s time?” instead

lemontea20:09:04

turns out, that man is no random stranger - he’s a professor of philosophy

lemontea20:09:20

the next 30 minutes is a lightening lectures on the metaphysics of time

lemontea20:09:50

(that escalated quickly, yes)

seancorfield20:09:52

That reminds me of an old Jasper Carrott skit about him and his friend attending a football match and his friend's accent makes "What's the time?" sound like "What's the team?"... and they're in the "wrong" end of the stadium so they're in with the opposing team's fans and Jasper starts beating his friend up so the opposing fans don't attack him "Shut up! I'm saving your life!"

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jasonbell07:09:01

“..there were 135 of us and 80,000 Manchester United fans…..“, I can recite that sketch/story pretty much line for line. ❤️

seancorfield14:09:53

Ah, another Carrott fan! 🙂 It's been a long time since I last listened to the sketch and my ol' memory ain't what it was. Loved his humor, back in the day.

❤️ 1
borkdude21:09:47

When I was in high school, we had English and I didn't have to put much time into that to get good grades. But after a while, the teacher was fed up with me getting As (10s in Dutch on a scale from 1-10 where 10 is best) all the time, so she graded me an A- (9 in Dutch) for translating "What time is it?" as "What's the time?" because the former was how it was written in the text book.

lemontea21:09:14

that’s… mean

lemontea21:09:44

I’m curious though… are you a gifted student back then?

borkdude21:09:26

In the first class of high school I tried and got good grades, but my investment in school work suffered from other interests and getting out of bed way too late

borkdude21:09:00

still I managed to get through it and end up at university, I think I always just did everything just in time

lemontea21:09:22

oh… did you sleep late at night? That’s the real question

lemontea21:09:28

I mean back in high school, not now

borkdude21:09:51

yeah, I stayed up way too late listening to radio

borkdude21:09:28

there was this rock show with all kinds of new progressive rock and metal bands I wanted to listen to

lemontea21:09:51

just-in-time… something about JVM…:face_with_monocle:

lemontea21:09:04

or “just-in-time procrastinator”

borkdude21:09:25

My teachers were surprised what I could accomplish in just one weekend of pulling all-nighters

borkdude21:09:13

I think I also didn't know how sensitive I was to caffeine and my parents were evening coffee drinkers, a habit which I took over together with smoking

borkdude21:09:28

which screwed up my biorhythm pretty badly

lemontea21:09:36

ya, youth is powerful. That’s not good study hygiene though - applying the same habits to college level and beyond are probably going to backfire eventually

borkdude21:09:40

I almost never made it to school before noon

lemontea21:09:38

oh… (I think I mentioned before about the relatively long metabolic half life of caffeine)

lemontea21:09:04

(and yes, caffeine makes my heart pound like crazy)

borkdude21:09:14

it probably wasn't like that all the time, but this is how I remember it. The biorhythm thing became even worse when I moved out of the house to live on my own with other students. I had two weeks in winter in which I didn't see any daylight. I have never felt more depressed than that

lemontea21:09:51

(so if I have to drink coffee now, probably the decaffeinated version)

lemontea21:09:33

(jokes about disgruntled former employee exacting stealth revenge on company by secretly replacing the coffee in the machine with decaff version notwithstanding)

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borkdude21:09:15

but when I lived on my own I felt more responsible for my own work, and at the university they left you pretty much to your own, that system worked way better for me than the authority-driven atmosphere at high school

lemontea21:09:48

(to be fair, if a software company is so reliant on overworking that it completely collapse upon withdrawing coffee, then it might just deserve that)

borkdude21:09:26

anyway, to summarize: I was an ok high school student who did just enough to pass everything ;)

lemontea21:09:06

that’s my own personal ethics in college: be relaxed and laid back, just not that laid back when exam’s there

borkdude21:09:20

yeah indeed

lemontea21:09:37

(context: that ethics is a counter-culture to the prevailing culture in the other two major college/university in my region, though that’d be a story for another day)

borkdude21:09:13

Feel free to elaborate if you want

lemontea21:09:01

(about giftedness and study habit: a common pattern for the gifted is that they zone out during class, doesnt care to put in hard work etc, and can still pass at the end…

lemontea21:09:40

… and depending on how gifted you are, may then get a shock lesson when they progress to harder classes later and their methods suddenly aren’t working anymore

borkdude21:09:26

oh, I certainly had a shock lesson like that near the end of high school when mathematics/calculus became harder than what I could get away with

borkdude21:09:41

and the dean told me, if I wanted to go to university, I should work on that

lemontea21:09:43

another common issue is that egos can get in the way and hinder socio/emotional development

borkdude21:09:55

that's when I started really working on math and started to love it

borkdude21:09:27

when I got to university, my favorite subjects were maths while most fellow CS students hated it

borkdude21:09:39

finally, the proofs for the theorems that were just a given at high school

lemontea21:09:53

I was very lucky in that I got understanding/loving teachers/peer group who gave me a liberal environment all the way back to high school

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lemontea21:09:58

like, the usual “acceleration vs enrichment” dilemma in gifted education

lemontea21:09:38

I’m blessed to be able to get both

borkdude21:09:00

At high school I found out that if I put enough work into math (which was mostly calculus, it was called Math B), I could derive most of the other analytical courses from that: physics, Math A (which also contained probability, etc), economy I and II, ...

borkdude21:09:26

Physics was more or less just applied calculus

lemontea21:09:39

the teachers made some accommodation in that the class is interspersed with short tidbit/segment directed at my abilities

borkdude21:09:42

so if you understood Math B, and squinted, you got that course for free

borkdude21:09:11

ah you are lucky then, I never got this special treatment

lemontea21:09:50

and tolerate me going hyped pulling off stuff like printing notes that change/extend what’s said in the math textbooks, and sharing it with classmates

borkdude21:09:14

I was also mostly interested in just hanging out with friends, drinking beers, smoking, mid high school.

lemontea21:09:17

yes, I observed this too: if you fully grasp pure math early on, it can be a powerful tool for the other required subjects at school too

lemontea21:09:25

so it’s like “economy of scale”

lemontea21:09:45

aka “how to study less by studying more”

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borkdude21:09:15

I was loving math so much that I started a second major in the second year at university, but after three months I almost burned out trying to do it all

borkdude21:09:22

so then I took it easy again

borkdude21:09:49

yes exactly

lemontea21:09:37

oh, you’re in US system?

lemontea21:09:46

where you’d pick a major in 2nd yr

borkdude21:09:22

oh major is probably the wrong word. I meant 5 year study program

borkdude21:09:37

this was before the European system was introduced of bachelor/master

borkdude21:09:55

I'm based in The Netherlands where I also attended uni

lemontea21:09:03

where I did the degree, major is fixed when you enroll. (With some exception)

borkdude21:09:17

yes, same here. but I enrolled into another one

borkdude21:09:41

a bit unrealistic but I wanted to try it

lemontea21:09:19

(note: I actually is in a double degree right at the start, plus - I’m doing early admission)

borkdude21:09:43

ah nice. what is early admission?

borkdude21:09:54

and where are you based?

lemontea21:09:57

(which means lots more required courses. They do give you an extra year. However, the operation of “extra year” is idempotent…

lemontea21:09:38

based in HK. Early admission is when you can skip your last year in high school and also skip the admission test (kind of)

lemontea21:09:53

(I was in the old system where to enter university, you need to go through 2 public exams)

borkdude21:09:01

further down my degree the program was pretty flexible so I could take a lot of philosophy, logic and maths courses to fulfil my interests

lemontea21:09:13

(if you completely aced the 1st one, then you earned the right to skip the 2nd and just enter)

borkdude21:09:16

HK = Hong Kong?

borkdude21:09:47

ah cool, so yo are in your first year now?

lemontea21:09:13

no… done with it a decade ago approximately lol

borkdude21:09:28

ah with two degrees? which ones

lemontea21:09:58

though if you mean that I’m still young, well, I’d take that as a compliment 😆

borkdude21:09:59

I also got into a progressive rock band during my degree which ended up taking a lot of time, lol

borkdude21:09:14

I can't tell from your handle and without any further info ;)

lemontea21:09:30

double degree means that you do both concurrently

borkdude21:09:46

yes, got that

lemontea21:09:58

and it’s different from double major in that it counts as separate degree even though some courses are shared

borkdude21:09:15

that's what I did for a while, but I felt that if I would pursue with that, I couldn't enjoy my social life anymore

borkdude21:09:50

so did you do double major or double degree?

borkdude21:09:55

and if so, which ones?

lemontea21:09:06

double degree, math + information engineering

lemontea21:09:21

(don’t ask me what that mean exactly… I dunno either >_<)

borkdude21:09:30

information engineering was like the bonus degree, right? ;)

lemontea21:09:47

officially, both have the same weight

lemontea21:09:14

though most ppl slant towards one or the other somewhat in terms of personal interest

borkdude21:09:15

yeah, here too, but some things just take more time and energy than others

lemontea22:09:28

I’d say math took more of my time (but only because I love it so much I go extracirriculum all the way - reading graduate textbooks in the classroom lol)

borkdude22:09:57

it also varies per university, but the program I was in you had computer science (informatica) and information engineering (which was like the easier version)

lemontea22:09:37

ya it’s CS adjacent but not CS - I didn’t take OS course for instance.

borkdude22:09:37

the program I was in took 5 years, but now they split it into bachelor (3) and master (2)

lemontea22:09:14

ar I see… I’m only a bachelor

borkdude22:09:16

so you could for example do a CS bachelor and then do something totally different

lemontea22:09:59

some people would very much need that flexibility as a lifeline

lemontea22:09:23

if they picked a wrong major for bachelor, or the job market change, or anything and they want to move forward in their career

borkdude22:09:31

yeah, it's probably easier to complete a shorter program than a monolithic longer one

lemontea22:09:50

soooo… you finished that monolithic one?

lemontea22:09:43

and the burn out thing refers to taking on both CS + math that, if it pans out, will be at master level for both?

lemontea22:09:47

ic. That’d totally make sense

lemontea22:09:59

even if you don’t burn out right away

lemontea22:09:06

math at master level is no joke

lemontea22:09:24

and CS also takes lots of labor

borkdude22:09:05

yeah, and following two times the classes is a bit much, if you also want to relax sometimes

lemontea22:09:07

probably the only combo that’s comparably/more deadly is sth like math + physics, or philosophy, or law, or medics etc

borkdude22:09:27

unrelated anecdote

borkdude22:09:52

I remember having the flu in the second year of my studies so I couldn't attend the algebra classes (about groups theory, etc)

lemontea22:09:00

there’s a joke of a trilemma of school life: “party + good grades + sleep. Pick any two”

borkdude22:09:27

so I went on IRC in the #math channel and asked them to explain "Given X, prove Y" type of assignments to me. And this is how I ended up passing the exam

👍 1
lemontea22:09:49

(hint: you may sacrifice sleep when you’re young. But it is actually a hidden debt with interest. Eventually you’ll have to repay it)

borkdude22:09:22

(this was around 2000, the internet wasn't that old)

lemontea22:09:13

is broadband prevalent by then? or still 56k/modem? :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing:

borkdude22:09:23

we had a cable modem

lemontea22:09:06

ar, forgot telecomm system can be completely different in Europe… nvm

lemontea22:09:38

(here, if you use 56k, you are sharing the same frequency band with landline. So no telephone when browsing the internet and vice versa)

borkdude22:09:56

yes, we had that too, but this was a bit before 2000

borkdude22:09:15

cable modem was already a lot faster

lemontea22:09:43

Coaxial 😮

borkdude22:09:49

yeah that one

lemontea22:09:57

I thought it’s all in museum already

borkdude22:09:25

we also had access to the university network to which the whole campus was connected. it was one of the biggest pirate software networks at the time

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borkdude22:09:39

with high speed downloads

borkdude22:09:10

and if you were on the campus, also high speed uploads (glass fiber already at that time)

borkdude22:09:38

we lived outside of the campus though

lemontea22:09:17

Copyright… ask the copyleft crowd :thinking_face:

lemontea22:09:46

all in all… college life is lots of nostalgia

lemontea22:09:01

(things change a lot once out there though)

borkdude22:09:32

yes, agreed, it's fun to remember those times

lemontea22:09:06

and… wrapping up today! gotta rest/sleep…