Comments on: 337: TZ Discussion – Eurisko

By: Danilo Celic

Danilo Celic — Thu, 20 May 2021 19:44:20 +0000

Great to hear the updates with Math Academy and the introduction of Eurisko. Really sounds like you’re on a nice trajectory.

Listened to the Fragmented episode that you were on, I’ve heard a few details in various TZ episodes over the years, but good to hear the Uber non-CTO story in more detail.

By: Matt D

Matt D — Mon, 10 May 2021 09:11:01 +0000

Enjoying the resurgence of techzing, keep at it please!

Really looking forward to following Jason as you start to market Math Academy. Would love to hear your response to some of the comments in this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27060677

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 06 May 2021 16:09:18 +0000

@Mark – Just to be clear, I’m all for using advanced technologies, my only point is that PHP is like C in that it’s so straight-forward and supported everywhere, probably isn’t going away anytime soon, and is just fine for doing run of the mill stuff like my blog. Languages like Rust and Elixir are definitely going to play a big role in the future. No argument there.

Issue crenetials as NFT’s…? That’s an interesting, if not potentially brilliant idea – particularly from a marketing standpoint. HN would love that. Thanks so much for the suggestion!

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 06 May 2021 12:23:32 +0000

Ack, just got an error, trying a post again here. I'm a fan of developer productivity and getting things done. That said, somebody's gotta make the case for the advances in software over the past 15 years, so here goes: C and PHP have been used to make a lot of useful things. However, the bar for security used to be much lower. PHP and C been at the center of so many serious incidents that it was a meme even two decades ago. Writing anything that's concurrent and reasonably complex in either becomes an engaging but fraught mental exercise, at least for me. Rust is better than any legacy language for this class of problems and that's why the largest 5 software companies have all started adopting it for pieces of their infrastructure. I'd also say that there's no way I could have done the last gig I did in the time I did without Elixir. It was a greenfield project, building the infrastructure for an algorithmic crypto trading system. It had to simultaneously connect to hundreds of feeds on multiple exchanges, some on private sockets others public, handle streaming updates for multiple users, recover from individual system or network failure, and any failures cost money. It took me three weeks to build the infra and hand it off to the trading strategy design devs. If I'd written it in JavaScript, which I have more experience with, it would have taken months and the result would not have been as reliable. Blockchain is also very exciting and I believe will be a bigger shift than going from desktop to web was! Here's an example of an NFT (non-transferable token) that would be interesting: Students who complete an ordinary differential equations track on an educational site get a certificate as an NFT. Even if they earn the certificate under a pseudonym, the credential is near instantaneously verifiable to anyone online, including other software like a gig platform that filters some jobs down to holders of certificates for specific skills. It's got to be non-transferable because credentials that can be sold lose their ability to be credentials. If you think of web platforms such as Twitter running on open protocols, then consider that blockchain-powered platforms also have open databases. Any crypto analogue of Twitter would enable a Cambrian explosion of other apps built on top of its public data that we'll never see on a centralized platform. tldr; Super 30 > Black Mirror

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 06 May 2021 11:47:11 +0000

In defense of the advancements in software over the past 15 years… C and PHP have been used to make a lot of useful things. However, the bar for security used to be much lower

By: William R

William R — Mon, 03 May 2021 19:45:20 +0000

Btw. I think the name techzing is fine–it also means that I don’t have to update my feed.

By: William R

William R — Mon, 03 May 2021 19:42:57 +0000

Jason, a number of national labs/universities take on summer interns. For example, I have an intern (11th grader) this summer who is playing with semi-supervised learning and physics. In your area, you might check with Caltech and JPL. For us, we’re doing everything remote (our deadline has passed) and I imagine that a number of other places are as well this summer, so they might try other universities as well. I think an internship makes for a nice contrast with classwork for high performing students. The first part is that problems may not have solutions and they get to exercise a lot of creativity in solving problems. They also get a chance (at least if they work with me) for collaborative work and learning when to DIY and when to use libraries.

By: William Ratcliff

William Ratcliff — Mon, 03 May 2021 19:34:31 +0000

Welcome back guys! A few thoughts–Jason, your market really is parents. Have you thought about reaching out to homeschooling groups? Also, people who normally enroll their kids in enrichment activities (Kumon, etc.)? Also, apparently the bit on accelerated math classes stopping in VA is not happening (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/virginia-advanced-math-classes-equity/2021/04/26/41f3dbd0-a6a3-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html).

By: Matt S

Matt S — Sun, 02 May 2021 23:57:01 +0000

Some shows you might checkout:

“Devs” (Hulu) is an sci-fi/thriller show about a software engineer at a Google-esque, secretive technology company. Limited miniseries from the writer/director of “Ex Machina” and “Annihilation”.

“Mythic Quest” (Apple+) is a comedy made by the people behind “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” about a video game company that makes a popular MMORPG. It’s a slightly dumbed down version of “Silicon Valley” but set in the gaming industry.