What is your field/career?

[Krill]

Good luck automating anything like nursing, psychological therapy or stuff related to residential care without androids.

[DaveV]

I fenced for my university during my undergrad too, what weapon(s)?

Too short for epee, too wimpy for saber, so foil. You?

[Mr. Cairo]

I fenced for my university during my undergrad too, what weapon(s)?

Too short for epee, too wimpy for saber, so foil. You?

Foil and Epee both. I had kind of a strange trajectory. The club I learned at in Canada (started grade 9) only taught foil, but after 3ish years I decided to dabble in epee. I was tall enough for it, but there was no-one (willing) to teach me (the clubs main coach was at that time too focused on the olympian he was training). So I fenced that mostly the year prior to going to university, and I continued with epee as my primary weapon when I got there. But after about a term on the first team I was "demoted" to the seconds, which made me happy. There was an awful lot of pressure on the firsts at my uni. But there weren't enough people onthe seconds for a complete team of nine, so I pulled double duty, and I was much better at foil than epee, even after focusing on epee for a couple of years. So now, I only fence sporadically, but when I do its foil.
I never even saw much sabre until I got to uni.

[Khan]

I enjoyed reading through this and seeing the number of similarities in tastes/professions and educational backgrounds. I guess Civ really does appeal to a certain demographic.

As for my own,

1) What degrees and diplomas do you have?
None. I have professional qualifications, but none from school. I think the American equivalent would be that I completed High School but never went to University.


2) Is there anything of note you specialized in during your education?
Nope.

3) What is your current job and/or your career?
I own a smallish will writing business.

4) Is there anything of note you specialize in at your job?
I deal with wills, lasting power of attorney documents, probate and funeral plans. Morbid.

5) Are there any past jobs you've done that are of interest?
I met a fair number of 'famous' people in my previous role for a company in London including a multitude of professional footballers. They mostly just swore at me, it was not the most fun role.

6) What is your name, address, and credit card PIN?
42.

[TheHumanHydra]

In the developed world, jobs will just move on.

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for the explanation. I suppose I don't feel quite as confident in saying jobs will be replaced at an equal rate to their loss, or that technology won't eventually catch up to the job creation (such that when you think of a new demand to fulfill, automation can already accomplish it).

OH: Thanks! I'm not sure I deserve it more than many others, though. I can't believe it's been three years since that Pitboss.

[Ichabod]

After reading Couerva's post, I'm starting to believe the bathroom inscription.

About the novel I'm writing, it's a coming of age story about a boy that changes schools. It's very realist in nature, and it's written in third person narration, as opposed to first person, which I think most coming of age stories are. I've been working on it for about 5 years, but not in a consecutive or properly organized manner.

I would love to share the bits I have ready, but it's all in portuguese.

I used to be a humanities major in an absurdly arcane combination of fields (one of my professors labeled it a "bijou subject"), and I doubt that regurgitating Hilbert's Hotel proves anyone smarter than studying law; I think it's a beautiful example of a mathematical proof with surprising results, which has the advantage of not requiring much of a knowledge of maths -- just an interest in it -- to understand and appreciate it. I assume that's why Adrien brought it up, too. By contrast, I once calculated zeta(2) and was unreasonably proud of myself (using a Fourier transform and the Parseval equation), in a proof that I also found beautiful -- but nobody who chose e.g. law or archaeology instead, Fermat included, could fully grasp all the necessary prerequisites in an evening. It's less about capacity than experience. For the record, I'm convinced that I'm a piss-poor mathematician, much as I like the subject; thus I study computer things -- which might not be a stringent argument at all

In all seriousness, if you're considering to return to university for computer things, I'm sure you'll encounter the above early in the first semester.

I can hardly read Portuguese beyond simple texts, but I'd like to improve, and would give it a try.

Just realized I forgot to answer this.

I was mostly kidding about the humanities thing (though graduating in Law in Brazil is very easy indeed, hardly requires a knowledge of the portuguese language, from what I can see while doing my job). I had a teacher in University that used to say: if you don't understand something, either you are lacking a prerequisite knowledge you need to understand it or there is nothing to be understood there (i.e. it's bullshit). He used it in the context of reading books about Law that were famous, but bad (as is pretty usual here), but I tend to agree with the proposition in a wider sense. In the case of the math problems, I think it just comes down to lack of previous knowledge/experience (I hope, at least).

About my writing, is there an e-mail I could send them to? I'd be very grateful if you try to read them. By the way, was there a special reason that you learnt portuguese? It's pretty uncommon.

Finally, about maths again, I want to ask some advice from you guys. If I am to start a programming course, what are the subjects you would recommend I start studying to prepare a bit for it? I have no plans of working in the field (right now), so studying it would be mostly for fun. Considering this, I like the "logical" (not sure if that makes sense) part of programming more than anything else, so I guess I'm asking about maths subjects. My knowledge of maths is pretty basic, only the high school stuff, so I'd probably have to start with simple things, I guess.

As you can see, even asking the question of "what should I learn?" is a bit complicated for me right now, but I'd appreciate any advices. 

[Dark Savant]

High bread prices which were caused by low wheat production due to an important drop in temperatures caused by the eruption of an icelandic volcano. It's funny how you can link major world events with random natural disasters

Huh, didn't know that. Thanks.

We also haven't actually had one of those truly catastrophic volcanic eruptions for quite a long time.

You've probably heard of Krakatoa blowing in 1883, which killed tens of thousands of people, but didn't cause worldwide crop failures.  Some eruptions of the "oh god crop failures" kind happened in 1600 (Huaynaputina), 1783 (Laki), and 1815 (Tambora).  The first one contributed to the Time of Troubles in Russia; the second the French Revolution.  The second and third also drove US expansion westward -- a lot of people stopped farming marginal land then and moved west.  1816 was a terrible year, but it's hardly remembered now.

That's not a giant sample size, but it does suggest that we may well be overdue for a big one.  The actual lava/ash aren't too much of a direct threat (except on a geological time scale) -- we get enough warning that with halfway competent governance, even third-world countries can evacuate just fine.

I may or may not know extra about volcanoes right now because I recently visited the volcanic areas of northern California.  

[AdrienIer]

Finally, about maths again, I want to ask some advice from you guys. If I am to start a programming course, what are the subjects you would recommend I start studying to prepare a bit for it? I have no plans of working in the field (right now), so studying it would be mostly for fun. Considering this, I like the "logical" (not sure if that makes sense) part of programming more than anything else, so I guess I'm asking about maths subjects. My knowledge of maths is pretty basic, only the high school stuff, so I'd probably have to start with simple things, I guess.

As you can see, even asking the question of "what should I learn?" is a bit complicated for me right now, but I'd appreciate any advices. 

Arithmetics is probably the most useful thing for you now. Usually the instinctive way of solving a programming problem is through brute force, which is very ineffective, but usually knowing the right mathematical propriety leads the way to a much easier solution. And the mathematical proprieties that are most useful are in the field of arithmetics, with stuff like modulo operations (Congruência in Portugese) being very useful.

[Dreylin]

We also haven't actually had one of those truly catastrophic volcanic eruptions for quite a long time.

You've probably heard of Krakatoa blowing in 1883, which killed tens of thousands of people, but didn't cause worldwide crop failures.  Some eruptions of the "oh god crop failures" kind happened in 1600 (Huaynaputina), 1783 (Laki), and 1815 (Tambora).  The first one contributed to the Time of Troubles in Russia; the second the French Revolution.  The second and third also drove US expansion westward -- a lot of people stopped farming marginal land then and moved west.  1816 was a terrible year, but it's hardly remembered now.

That's not a giant sample size, but it does suggest that we may well be overdue for a big one.  The actual lava/ash aren't too much of a direct threat (except on a geological time scale) -- we get enough warning that with halfway competent governance, even third-world countries can evacuate just fine.

I may or may not know extra about volcanoes right now because I recently visited the volcanic areas of northern California.  

Well kinda.

You certainly cannot take a series of large eruptions at different volcanoes and draw any sort of conclusion that we're "overdue for a big one" because the connectivity between those volcanoes erupting is vanishingly small. You can look at an individual volcano - e.g. Vesuvius, Mount St. Helens, Monserrat - analyse previous eruption histories and other factors including the type of volcano, and come to a guess at when it might next erupt. However the standard deviation on those can be very large and operate on a Geologic timescale, and believe me no-one is very good at thinking on a Geologic timescale.

Maybe the most famous (in the US, at least) "we are overdue" is the Yellowstone Caldera, which has experienced major eruptions 2.1 million, 1.3 million, and 630,000 years ago. Now you can say "it is due" for another eruption, but not with any accuracy on a human timescale.

Another thing "we are overdue" for on a Geologic timescale is a flipping of the Earth's magnetic field. In recent times (say past 5 Million years) this has averaged every 450,000 years and we are 780,000 years from the last one. However the duration over that time period has ranged from 1 Million down to the 440yrs of the Laschamp Event. And then there's the Cretaceous Normal which evidence suggests lasted a full 40 Million years.

So yeah, Geologic Timescale.


As for warnings; sure there are often (but not always) warning signs, but these are also often subtle and can extend over such a period as to breed complacency: you'll end up in a "Geologist who cried Volcano!" situation more often than not. And besides, it's not like it's going to stop humanity settling these areas, or even adequately preparing for the risks. California is still woefully unprepared to deal with an Earthquake. Hurricanes still cause widespread devastation in the Caribbean & Southern US even with good advanced warnings....

[Dark Savant]

5) Are there any past jobs you've done that are of interest?
I met a fair number of 'famous' people in my previous role for a company in London including a multitude of professional footballers. They mostly just swore at me, it was not the most fun role.

I don't know if it works in the UK like it does here, but a surprising problem for a lot of US professional football players (you know, the gridiron kind) is that they are too friendly and give away too much money, and later get into financial trouble.

This happens with lottery winners too.

I get the impression that "I'm better than those rich people, I'll give more to charity" causes many more problems than people think.  You can do this, just be careful with whom you give to.  (Not nearly as bad as "investing" in get-rich-quick schemes, but a lot of people do know those are usually bad.)

Finally, about maths again, I want to ask some advice from you guys. If I am to start a programming course, what are the subjects you would recommend I start studying to prepare a bit for it? I have no plans of working in the field (right now), so studying it would be mostly for fun. Considering this, I like the "logical" (not sure if that makes sense) part of programming more than anything else, so I guess I'm asking about maths subjects. My knowledge of maths is pretty basic, only the high school stuff, so I'd probably have to start with simple things, I guess.

As you can see, even asking the question of "what should I learn?" is a bit complicated for me right now, but I'd appreciate any advices. 

Well, nothing actually helps more than learning at least basic programming on your own.  It doesn't matter much which language you learn as your first, as long as people actually use it.  Don't bother learning a second language until you've mastered your first one -- I feel doing so is a common mistake; it impresses HR much more than software engineers.

Make sure you have mastered basic calculus (single-variable differential and integral).  This might already be covered under high school mathematics, but it isn't for some people here in the US.  You should also have basic probability and statistics down pat.  (Assuming you know the rules for poker, you should be able to compute probabilities/EV in any common type of poker.)

Once you have that down, the most useful course is what is now called "discrete mathematics" in the US.  There are now courses in that specifically for computer science degrees, even at US community colleges -- it's usually required in the US for any real degree.

It also helps to know some linear algebra.  (In a few contexts, you need to know a lot.)

The mathematics coursework is most useful when you actually formally study computer science.  At least in the US, you can get away just fine with knowing how to program.  Plenty of programmers here in the Silicon Valley don't actually have a formal degree in the field -- something like 25% don't.  I'm one, though I do have much more mathematics education than most of those.

If you want to directly learn how to program, you can use sites like HackerRank to practice.  Or, if you're mathematically inclined, Project Euler.  (If you spend time with Project Euler, it helps to use a language that natively supports giant integers -- Python and Java do, and that works out well because both are widely used in the real world and both are standard for teaching programming to n00bs.)

Also, if you do learn to program, learn to use Unix too.  (If your OS is Windows, download and use Cygwin.)

(Bear in mind that much of what I know about Brazilian technical education amounts to what Richard Feynman wrote about it.)