2014.03.09 01:00 - Changes

The Guardian for this meeting was No Self. The comments are by No Self.

Qt Core: Hi Wol
Wol Euler: hello qt!
Wol Euler: how was the gym ysterday? :)
Qt Core: almost empty, just as i like it :-)
Wol Euler: heheheh
Wol Euler: and how were the exercises?
Qt Core: there is one that my shoulders hate but for the most part are ok
Qt Core: i really noticed how much energy one have early in the morning respect late in the evening
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: +more
Wol Euler: so, a good experience?
Qt Core: would not like to attach anything good to going to the gym, beside good health but yes
Wol Euler laughs.
Qt Core: again being use to go there late in the evening having all the day to live after it in the morning is a nice feeling
Wol Euler: at least that "yes" came out at the end :)
Wol Euler: that is good
Qt Core: and your saturday, how was that ?
Wol Euler: pretty good!
Wol Euler: walked around in the sunshine, shopping, some laundry, had a lovely long nap
Wol Euler smiles.
Qt Core: yes, sunshine is good (bar for the eyes) got some sun here too and temps iat about 17/18

--BELL--

Wol Euler: wow
Wol Euler: it#s not htat warm here yet, only about 12°
Qt Core: as we had almost a months of cloud and rain for most pf this non cloudy if not sunny week i was weirded out by how much more daylight we already have
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: the days lengthen so quickly
Wol Euler: the time change must be coming up soon ...
Qt Core: teh clock dance
Wol Euler smiles.
Qt Core: US is doing it today, probably in a couple hours
Qt Core: http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/events.html
Qt Core: we are going to do it on the 30th
Wol Euler sighs.
Wol Euler: and once again, two countries change and 197 don't.
Qt Core: ohh, there is no consensus even on at which hour to do it, for international travel is evem more hell!
Wol Euler: it seems that most countries change at their 2am on whichever day
Wol Euler: Germany calls them "2am A" and "2am B" in the wintertime change
Qt Core: the idea being the least disruptive you can, but change at 4am or at 11pm is crazy
Wol Euler: yeah
Qt Core: same time here
Wol Euler: it should happen when the least number of people are awake to actually see it happening and be confused by it
Wol Euler: IMHO
Qt Core: so 2/3 or 3/4 is good
Wol Euler: ah, I see, Eastern Europe changes from 3 to 4 because they are an hour ahead of us, it happens at hte same solar time
Qt Core: i'd like to be at a station.airport at least once at the time and see it happen
Wol Euler smiles
Wol Euler: I wonder whether people at work on that day get an extra hour of pay, if their shift crosses the change?
Qt Core: i think so and one less in fall, they compensate, but you may not work there anymore
Wol Euler nods.

--BELL--

Qt Core: maybe without going to a station/airport i could look at what my pc would do at the change time
Wol Euler: most current machines seem to figure it out for themselves now
Wol Euler: I only change analog clocks - and what a lot of them there are
Wol Euler: well, non-computer clocks. My heating system is digital but non-self-changing
Qt Core: many of operating system updates, are about dst and timezone changes too
Wol Euler: I'd be curious to know who decides when a particular country will change, and why
Qt Core: a very interesting and funny video about keeping up with time/dates in compuiterland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY
Wol Euler: before I saw that link (thank you) I'd assumed that there were only two sets of changes, US/Canada and Rest of world.
Qt Core: politicians, money
Wol Euler: perhaps, but why and on what basis? Do they go by their kids' school holidays?
Qt Core: lately some island switched from a timezone to another (having to change date too) to be in line with new zeland and australia with whom they do most of their business
Qt Core: i hadn't thought that country with different majority religion would do the DST dance on different weekdays, but for the least disruption principle it is obvious, and complicating things more ;-)
--BELL--
Wol Euler: that was very funny (computer tiime calculatilon video)
Wol Euler: he was so obviously speaking from (awful) personal experience :)
Qt Core: yes, thank god for libraries :-)
Qt Core: (in the IT sense of code written by someone else that you can use to solve something without knowing anything about it)
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: architects do something similar, outsourcing knowledge and bringing in a black box in the form of collaborating engineers
Wol Euler: "don't tell me how the heating system works, just confirm that it will work"
Wol Euler: we put a rectangle on the plans and write in it "see HVAC drawings"
Qt Core: most of our life is like that, we use tools, ideas without knowing everything about it
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: knowing some of the principles they are based on may help (or it may even be a necessity) but we ignore most of the details
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: knowing everything would just be impossible, how many sciences you should master to use a smartphone ? or "just" your fridge ?
Wol Euler: absolutely
Wol Euler: let alone having to make one from scratch

Wol Euler: there was a TED talk a while back about toolmaking
Wol Euler: the difference between our tools and those of a quarter million years ago is that older tools can be made by anyone
Wol Euler: literally anyone who can hold two rocks, can make a flint arrowhead
Qt Core: yeah, that little things called culture
Wol Euler: obviously with different degrees of quality, but still: anyone can do it
Wol Euler: but take a computer mouse (his example). There is nobody in the world who knows how to make a computer mouse
Wol Euler: because the people who know how to mould plastic do not know how to program software,
Wol Euler: and the people who drill oil wells do not know how to refine oil into plastic
Wol Euler: and so on
Qt Core: sometime that bring me a technological form of the stendhal synbdrome
Qt Core: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome
Wol Euler: what's that?
Wol Euler: ah :)
Wol Euler laughs.
Wol Euler: what a lovely thing to suffer from
--BELL--
Qt Core: Who knew about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisztomania_(phenomenon) i thought it started with The Beatles!
Qt Core: damn wikipedia ;-)
Wol Euler laughs.
Wol Euler: yeah, me too
Wol Euler: sorry, RL calling, back in a bit
Qt Core: ok
Qt Core: for me wikipedia is sometimes a source of Stendhal syndrome, sometimes of delusion of the possibility of becoming virtually omniscient and sometimes of the opposite, the sadness to know you can't be omniscient , in the end... who knows ?
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: I think it may be a general malaise of the time: too much content being produced too quickly for anyone to keep up
Wol Euler: even with incredibly narrow specializations
Wol Euler: XKCD wrote a piece about this some time back, let me see if I can find it
Qt Core: he often do a good impression of a omniscient guy ;-)
Wol Euler: http://what-if.xkcd.com/76/
Wol Euler: yeah :)
Wol Euler: "At what point in human history were there too many (English) books to be able to read them all in one lifetime?"
Qt Core: the "what if" secton is amazing
Wol Euler: indeed :) I love it very much.
--BELL--
Qt Core: the conclusion of the article are quite sad
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: but even if one filters out the books that are not worth reading, probably the vast majority, there remain more than one could read
Qt Core: at least it leave my with the illusion that Leonardo da Vinci was (could have been) omniscient as he died just in the early 1500
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: it was still possible then
Wol Euler: that last generation of people who did groundbreaking work in many disciplines
Wol Euler: after them came the specialists
Qt Core: don't know how much he read, with all that he had to write/paint/invenmt
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: and all that by candlelight
Wol Euler: we forget how incredibly expensive light was in past times
Qt Core: and books too before printing
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: now i can put a university course on a backlighted kindle without even thinking
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: this is paradise, really, at least in material terms
Wol Euler: any one of us who isn't actually homeless has a more comfortable life than the Medicis did
Qt Core: that is why modern students may/should know less in the form of facts dates but more about methods/critical thinking
Wol Euler: absolutely
Qt Core: i need to go, as they say lunch would not cook itself
Wol Euler: heheheh
Wol Euler: enjoy the day, qt, and happy reading :)
--BELL--
Qt Core: :-) ty, happy reading to you too