Ask a Wizard

I think having wounds that do not heal is not a lo...

2011-07-31T11:06:20.947-07:00

I think having wounds that do not heal is not a long-term solution and should not be a state of mind to be content with.

Life either grows or decays, it is never stagnant, so if wounds are not healing their effect on you must worsen over time.

I had a rough time during high school and university too, not to the extent of ending my life (I don't think like that) but it affected me deeply and set me on a course of life where my painful feelings were pushed far away within me. The problem is over time you forget how it feels to feel and how to interpret your subtle feelings leading to decision making that is more guided by the mind than the heart.

We all know what mind-guided decisions lead to and for me it drove me to work more and build my identity around my work success and learning which I saw as more important at that time in my life than my own well-being.

The problem was that I was heading in a direction my body (health, sanity) could not sustain. I felt weaker and weaker over time and if you looked at me you would have seen it crystal clear.

Then I cried, cried and cried some more. Probably weeks if you add it all up over a period of a few years. What got me to cry was the love and compassion my girlfriend (now wife) showed me even though I just told her I did not want to see her any more and we had just broken up with her very mad.

At the realization of what just happened (breaking up) I started weeping. At first it seemed to be about the situation but quickly shifted towards (based on what I was saying while weeping) to some of the feelings and pain I had suppressed.

I had the opportunity, unconsciously, to go there because my girlfriend realized that the level of my sadness had nothing to do with us just breaking up. She put her feelings aside, put her friend and fellow human hat on, and let me explore my feelings by guiding me through my sadness.

This event was one of the triggers that eventually put me on a path of working through my suppressed feelings and altering my life as a result. When you start feeling again I think many of your mind-based decisions about your life need to be undone because they were originally made for the wrong reasons. That means a lot of change for your life.

It has been seven years since that incident and I can report that I can feel subtle things again. I start feeling tears whenever I see someone or a group of people doing something kind that you don't see people usually doing these days. I guess I have gotten soft but I really like it that way.

My point is that I think crying, especially for men, is something that we were born to do and should be encourage throughout our lifetime to make us better people. It opens a world of peace that is unimaginable until you experience it by making more heart based decisions and putting your own well-being first while being kind to others.

I am proud to be a crying man and better for it.

Just watched your presentation (yes, I'm a lit...

2011-03-17T23:26:44.792-07:00

Just watched your presentation (yes, I'm a little late), and really enjoyed it. Thanks a lot for a concise but clear explanation. It's a reasonably mind-bending topic, at least for those of us that haven't yet spent much time in the world of async and callbacks.

Thanks again for all your contributions.

Sold! I'm gonna add q to FlyLib.

2011-01-04T07:22:30.575-08:00

Sold! I'm gonna add q to FlyLib.

@Wes, perhaps you can provide an example. I'm...

2010-01-07T14:19:02.874-08:00

@Wes, perhaps you can provide an example. I'm familiar with "tee" but not familiar with how, in conjunction with "exec", this can be harnessed to create branches in a pipeline, which is what I presume you mean to address.

Producing multiple output streams is fully support...

2010-01-07T13:58:08.342-08:00

Producing multiple output streams is fully supported in shell (bourne, korn, bash) with external call-outs like tee. Simply use the exec keyword to open/close file descriptors.

This is a good point. In Chiron, when I provide t...

2009-12-17T14:25:24.624-08:00

This is a good point. In Chiron, when I provide the Set and subclass Dict types, the internal Object hash to Array collision bucket prefixes all hash keys with a "~" to prevent collisions with identifiers. The translation is entirely transparent.

Forgot to add link to a recent discussion on relat...

2009-12-17T13:51:04.584-08:00

Forgot to add link to a recent discussion on related subject — http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.javascript/msg/d617552bb7d881a2

If you need truly robust hash, I would suggest not...

2009-12-17T13:49:58.530-08:00

If you need truly robust hash, I would suggest not to rely on `hasOwnProperty` and instead go with key augmentation. `hasOwnProperty` is known to lie in certain environments and setting unaltered keys can have side effects on an object itself (think "__proto__" in Gecko, where it's a "write-once" setter which changes object's [[Prototype]], and so an object itself indirectly).

@icosidodecahedron Your "Platinum Rule" ...

2009-12-08T10:29:46.677-08:00

@icosidodecahedron Your "Platinum Rule" is good, and definitely exposes a flaw in the Golden Rule. However, what it lacks is the dynamic of self-regulated "fairness". I think we all start life as self-absorbed infants who want far more from the world than we are willing to give. To do unto others as they would wish for us to do would be an idealistic, selfless, altruistic, and impragmatic practice. Naturally, what we should do unto others and what we should expect from others probably lies as a compromise between Gold and Platinum.

@jfries no, the revision to memoize curries then a...

2009-12-08T10:23:12.493-08:00

@jfries no, the revision to memoize curries then accepts the function argument on the second application:

memoize(cache)(function)

@memoize(cache)
function

On the other hand, it could be revised to only partially apply if a function argument is not provided, but I'm content to leave that as an exercise. Thanks!

in your revised memoize function, you dropped the ...

2009-10-12T12:32:47.768-07:00

in your revised memoize function, you dropped the function argument to your decorator:
"def memoize(cache = None):"
should have a function argument, I think.

Since the time of this posting, I've created h...

2009-06-18T17:25:18.569-07:00

Since the time of this posting, I've created http://codi.sh, a dictionary for Codish.

Wow. A long post, but I read the whole thing. You ...

2009-05-23T19:29:19.834-07:00

Wow. A long post, but I read the whole thing.
You touched on so many topics that I can only make a couple comments.

I disagree wholeheartedly on the Golden Rule, in preference of one I might call the Platinum Rule (but which may be flawed enough that it doesn't deserve that name): Do unto others as they wish you to do unto them.
It's obviously a lot harder to follow, especially if you don't know what someone wants, but the exercise helps one to realize that different people are completely different, and enjoy different things.

Also, I live my life on the basis that I'm wrong, and I think that's really at the core of who I am. What you had said about it gave me of those, "So I'm not alone!" moments.

Editificated, updatified. Credits and links now w...

2009-03-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

Editificated, updatified. Credits and links now worky.

If you're looking for JavaScript modules, I used t...

2008-11-30T00:20:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for JavaScript modules, I used this technique in the Chiron module loader, http://modulesjs.com. You can read the source at https://cixar.com/tracs/javascript/browser/trunk/src/modules.js

I love the cylinder! Er... I mean, "Martian Unpowe...

2008-11-09T21:03:00.000-08:00

I love the cylinder! Er... I mean, "Martian Unpowered Inter-planetary Attack Cannister." Excellent addition.

Whoa...that's creepy. With the starred song breakd...

2008-11-09T11:38:00.000-08:00

Whoa...that's creepy. With the starred song breakdown and everything...

Hah. Who finds it bizarre that someone else would...

2008-11-09T02:18:00.000-08:00

Hah. Who finds it bizarre that someone else would blog the same topic on the same day. Stephen Green calls the process I've just described "Brilliant" playlists. http://vodkapundit.com/?p=10626

@bryan Well, the fact is that I don't know. I'm g...

2008-11-08T18:49:00.000-08:00

@bryan Well, the fact is that I don't know. I'm guessing that Dirk is getting paid (and dissertating) to figure these things out, but he hasn't been fluently spouting solid conclusions, or conclusions of any kind, so I'm guessing he isn't sure yet either. I'd say the only safe bet is that most people have a lot in common but are also special in at least one subtle way. It'll be hard to pare out what parts are experience and which are genetic, of course. I'm still waiting for the Popular Science article.

Well done. Very cool examples of advanced smart pl...

2008-11-08T18:32:00.000-08:00

Well done. Very cool examples of advanced smart playlist usage...

I discovered early on in life that I cannot fall asleep to music of any kind. I can deal with audiobooks for some weird reason though, so I'm not convinced it's simply a matter of processing any language input.

I tend to program sans-music, but I can get away with listening to ambient electronic music or minimalist composers (Bang on A Can's "Lost Objects" is excellent). Tracks with vocals completely kill my ability to code.

Music fuels my inspiration while designing though. Maybe that's because the two points of focus engage different senses?

Do you think sensory input processing is a totally personal science or are there commonalities for all humans?

Here's a post I wrote about you guys on GeeksAreSe...

2008-11-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

Here's a post I wrote about you guys on GeeksAreSexy.net. The story also has a link to my bloggings during the invasion.

http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/11/02/did-you-survive-the-war-of-the-worlds-20-wotw2/

@ryan aye…so it is done.

2008-11-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

@ryan aye…so it is done.

Cool! You should add a link to your first post, a ...

2008-11-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

Cool! You should add a link to your first post, a link to the update and then link this post in the wotw2 profile, oh and maybe you should tweet it?

This was awesome and elegant! It was amazing for m...

2008-11-01T00:28:00.000-07:00

This was awesome and elegant! It was amazing for me, since I've never read the book, heard the broadcast, or seen the movies. I was completely in the dark about what might happen next. That was chilling!

This is fun. I made an invasion collage of LA.