In 1754, a belle-lettrist named Horace Walpole retreated to a desk in his gaudy castle in Twickenham, in southwest London, and penned a letter. Walpole had been entranced by a Persian fairy tale about three princes from the Isle of Serendip who possess superpowers of observation. In his letter, Walpole suggested that this old tale contained a crucial idea about human genius: “As their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” And he proposed a new word — “serendipity” — to describe this princely talent for detective work. At its birth, serendipity meant a skill rather than a random stroke of good fortune.

Pagan Kennedy’s terrific NYT piece on how to cultivate the art of serendipity. Double points for the mention of Gay Talese’s obscure, absolutely wonderful New York: A Serendipiter’s Journey. (via explore-blog)

sci-universe:

Happy 74th birthday to

Stephen Hawking!

Not a year has gone past when

Stephen Hawking’s achievements, both in terms of science and popular culture, have not made global headlines.
His work has revolutionized

theoretical physicis and cosmology, made him the Commander of the Order of the British Empire and earned the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, all while his body suffers from

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). 

Here are some of his great thoughts and moments:

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“Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can’t be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution.”

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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”

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“We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.”

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“It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly. People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.”

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“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.”

Being a consultant who works for someone else, there is an ever present conflict: do I do what’s best for the client, or for the revenue of the company that employs me?

Oddly, I find that my relationship with the client (and, by extension, her relationship with my company) is more important. So, I end up doing small bits of work for them and not billing for it.
I know that my company (and my manager), concerned only with short term profit and not long term reputation, would disagree.
Doing what I think is right is therefore my own tiny bit of rebellion.

This is why I will never have my own company.

Instead, I am sitting here and writing a penalty check to NY State IRS for apparently not-prepaying taxes for the year I was freelancing and clueless about having to pay state taxes for the pitiful income I had immediately and not during filing.

The lady at their audit dept was kind and sympathetic but couldn’t help.

How do people who live in this city ever have children?

A day care, which is a cheaper option than a nanny, is $110/day, or $2200
for 4 weeks. And this is a tiny day care on the low end (though I like
people who run it a lot).
That’s pretty much the entire income of someone who makes $42K/year
pre-tax.

How do people do it?

And then I see moms (and it’s always moms – never dads) dropping off ONE of
their children in the mornings, and holding on to another – which
presumably means that they don’t work – and their husbands are the ones who
magically provide for all of that.

Once again, I have to question my past choices. But I’m not going back
(even if they took me, which at this point is doubtful).

I can’t help but think that this is yet another reason this city doesn’t
want us here.

Feeling like a fake

import-os:

curiosityandcode:

Sometimes, I have days where I feel like a total fraud. I feel as if I have no business being a cs blog. These feeling prompted me to write the following post:

Now that I’m gaining more followers, it is just making me feel like more of a fake. I center my blog around computer science yet I feel like I have no knowledge on the topic. I still consider myself to be a beginner. Sometimes I just feel like I’m pretending or something, since I’m not as passionate and knowledgeable as other people.  

One thing I like about coding is that it gives me a task to focus instead of thinking of sad things. When I find a coding challenge, all of my thoughts focus on that. But now I just think about how much a I suck.

It’s not a very nice feeling. And it really hard to get out of this spiral, which is literally making my question everything.

That has sat in my draft for a few days. These are thoughts I have of-and-off again for a few months now. While many aspects of it still ring true, the sadness I was writing with as disappeared. I still feel like I’m “faking till I make it” but I also know that its okay to feel that way. I can see clearly that even though I’m far from where I want to be, I have also come so far.

I felt terrible as I was writing that. But once I wrote that draft, (along with some sad depressing poetry), I stopped worrying. I stopped thinking about a I felt and focused on something else for a few hours. It does not help to hold on to negative feelings.

I know how hard, confusing, and scary it is to start learning something new. And I wanted to post this  because I know what I’ll probably feel that negative about myself again. So I want to let myself and everyone feeling unsure of themselves, that you are not alone. Sometimes, you will feel like an impostor, and that’s okay. Take a minute, breathe, and feel what you need to feel. And then let those feelings go, and keep learning.

I think that applies to everyone. Not just beginning coders, but artists, writers, scientists and everything else as well.

If you feel like you are not good enough; like you are a fake just pretending, welcome to the club. I feel like that too. How about we stop worrying about being good and just focus on learning?

I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of cs, but that’s not going to stop me from jumping in to the fray and helping others! If I Fuck up, I learn from it. I’m constantly learning about cs and honestly that’s why I love it so much. You read an article on a topic and there’s always something that intrigues me to learn more, and that cycle repeats itself. None of us cs blogs on here are experts, and we all have our own strengths. But the fact that we have a community on here is what makes us great!