I find the topic of self-esteem super interesting.
Somehow it seems to be one of the most fundamental factors of our well being and the course of our life. Yet we usually don't even try to measure it. Do I have below or above average self-esteem? I couldn't say.
Googling around brought up the "Rosenberg self-esteem scale" questionnaire. I tried it. Scored is 14. Which is considered low. Uh oh :)
I am running a popular website. In 2008, Firefox made up for over 80% of my users. Then Chrome came along, using all cpus and cores of the computer it runs on. A huge performance advantage. Firefox usage started to decline. Year after year, they added features, branding, etc. Never addressed the performance issue. Now Firefox is used by less then 10% of my users. And even with E10s, Firefox uses only one core for all scripts in all tabs. It even gets completely clogged up if there is one slow script in some tab.
I would love to know how the roadmap is decided on over at Mozilla. Everybody I talk to says "Nah, it's slow. I use Chrome". Yet they did never address it. Why?
Right. That's also what I typed in the search query, but then there was Mao in the first image and then somone would claim it was in fact communist and not soviet propaganda after all. I guess that soviet propaganda is the best term for the graphical ism, but I wonder if there is a better term. It's all quite awesome.
You have to remember that Firefox's core was first written in a very different era of computing. E10s required a complete rewrite of really core components for Firefox. It took years to get it working, and it turned out to be impossible to make compatible with existing extension code, etc etc.
FWIW, give a try to Firefox with E10s, or better yet, firefox developer edition. I find it much faster than chrome.
try nightly or developer edition. Its fast without consuming 10gigs of ram as chrome does wit 20tabs.
Lets not forget that big part of what made chrome leader was branding. Even the idea that chrome is so fast was put into our heads using those expensive chrome lighting ads.
So to explain the world we see, we combine quantum theory, theory of relativity, dark matter, gravitation, electromagnetism, two types of nuclear force and a zoo of now 62 elementary particles?
I often wish for some kind of "Physical Philosophy". That tries to make sense of the world independent from those theories. For example: what if the theories just keep growing indefinitely? If we keep "finding" more and more complex theories that explain some aspects of what we see better then the old ones and keep "finding" new particles? What would that tell us about reality? What if we found a very simple formula that explains everything with just one type of particle and one dimension? Would it matter?
The world is complex, but we haven't gotten to the stage yet where you should feel lost, even as a layman. It is absolutely possible to know enough classical physics, QM, and theory of relativity to have a decent understanding of our current models. You absolutely don't have to be able to recite a table of elementary particles in order to understand this.
> I often wish for some kind of "Physical Philosophy". That tries to make sense of the world independent from those theories.
If your sense-making framework can (or must?) be independent from the facts, there is an enormous multitude from all cultures available for you to choose from. But if facts are important to you, and you don't know where to start, watch some popular science documentaries. If you prefer a touch of philosophy, I can suggest the original Cosmos series by Carl Sagan. But on the whole, sense and meaning is not something that can be prescribed by scientific knowledge - it can, however, help inform your own decisions about sense and meaning.
> For example: what if the theories just keep growing indefinitely?
This does not describe the current state of physics research. In fact, we are almost struggling to discover new physics, and so far most particle physics experiments line up so well with theory it's almost frustrating. What we can see right now is not the bottomless fractal recursion into nothingness which you describe.
Look, its just that it's all so complex. These must be emergent phenomena of something deeper - otherwise you have a universe which pops into existence fully formed with these particular properties, this particular family of particles and forces. These experiments are a bit like 3d scanning a tree in millimeter detail and then declaring that you have a perfect knowledge of trees. Don't get me wrong this is very important stuff, we need this knowledge to find the underlying systems. But it creates a degree of philosophical unease in the sensitive individual. For me it seems necessary to say that if this universe is all that exists, it must necessarily exist from first principles. My hunch is that what we are seeing is the population dynamics of all possible systems of interacting elements - or atleast a tiny little piece of it.
> These must be emergent phenomena of something deeper
Deeper might be the wrong word in this context, but I don't think many physicists would disagree that there is probably a small set of rules and variables that makes up the substrate of reality. For all we know, the universe could be a really basic cellular automaton.
> These experiments are a bit like 3d scanning a tree in millimeter detail and then declaring that you have a perfect knowledge of trees.
That does not describe our current scientific process at all, which is to find underlying abstractions and models instead of just cataloguing concrete findings.
I also think there is a problem with the understanding of higher-order (emergent, as you say) phenomena: they often do not follow from the basic underlying rules in an immediately obvious manner. What they do is they become systems in their own right, with their own mechanics worth studying.
To use an analogy, just because you know everything about sugar and flour doesn't mean you know everything that's going on in a bakery.
> But it creates a degree of philosophical unease in the sensitive individual.
It's not the universe's job to make us feel comfortable, nor is it science's job to discard findings on the grounds that we personally don't like their implications. The universe does not care about our comfort, and philosophical considerations are not part of the fabric of nature outside of your personal mental frameworks.
There are many things about nature or the universe at large that make me uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean these facts should somehow be discarded.
> My hunch is that what we are seeing is the population dynamics of all possible systems of interacting elements - or atleast a tiny little piece of it.
I read this several times, and I have no idea what that means.
The universe is what it is, and may not be to anyone's taste. No one is declaring perfect knowledge. If anything, experimental physicists are much more humble than theoreticians (let alone philosophers) and are interested in teasing out the truth without regard for its conceptual elegance.
That's pretty much exactly what theorists are trying to do. For example, we used to think that electricity and magnetism were different forces and subject to different equations/rules. Then we united them into a theory of electromagnetism and realized they're governed by the same equations. Next we discovered the weak nuclear force which seemed totally different, only to later realize that the weak and electromagnetic forces are actually both part of the same (electroweak) force, and both are governed by the same fundamental equations.
It is suspected (and/or hoped) by physicists that this trend continues; that the other nuclear force can be united with the electroweak forces under a single theory; there are already hints that this is the case (see: Grand Unified Theories).
So far not much progress on getting gravity to fit in with the picture though :/
Having things be complex and messy is hardly ideal, but I think Neil deGrasse Tyson's sentiment is important to keep in mind: The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
But as cshimmin mentioned, we already unified electricity and magnetism. I am reasonably confident we'll find something equally nice and elegant for the rest. Maybe not tomorrow, or in a hundred years, but it'll happen. If only because we're too stubborn a species to let it be.
>So to explain the world we see, we combine quantum theory, theory of relativity, dark matter, gravitation, electromagnetism, two types of nuclear force and a zoo of now 62 elementary particles?
Well, the standard model includes all the forces and particles, and neither the particles or the forces are arbitrary, but arise from various symmetries in the laws of physics.
The symmetries in the standard model have been so good at predicting and explaining particles and forces that many physicists are convinced that there are a whole class of undiscovered particles to go along with another type of symmetry.
They didn't build the LHC just to see what's out there. They have pretty strong reasons to believe that there are these other particles. The fact that they can predict these particles (like the higgs) should tell you that there is a underlying theory that explains all of this.
The LHC is mostly just helping the physicists discover the details about the particles that aren't predicted by the theory (such as the mass).
I had a hard time reading computer and technology books. They are getting much better, but a few years ago, when reading some books in this field; I felt like I was reading a 500 plus page phone book. That said, I haven't looked at the list, but most books have gotten much better at conveying the information.
When I wanted to understand front and backend website developement, I downloaded the free courses in computer science colleges(MIT, and Harvard) through ITunes. I would listen to the lectures while exercising. They helped me a lot. I slowly got used to the lingo, and it all started to kinda make sense.
I still gave a long way to go, but at least when I pick up a book now; it's not like I'm reading Latin.
The posters at this site have pointed me in the right direction more times than I can count. If I wanted to get the "skinny" on the latest technology; many times I go straight to the comments.
(If I wrote a computer/technical book; I would try to include an audio version--if funds permitted? Reading is not easy for myself either! You are not alone. Oh yea, I'm surprised more technical subjects are not written in well thought out comic book form? I'm not looking for elaborate artwork, but a few visuals go a long way. Teach Youself Visually publications are a favorite go to of mine-- when I do buy a book in this field.)
Code listings in audio books are going to be, er, interesting. I remember seeing a video of a blind coder's set up and the audio was incredible - really fast and hard to tune in to.
I think there's a service idea here - something to hook people up to others who want to read a book and are prepared to read it out aloud and record it. Build a library of books. Audio books tend to be edited mind you.
>> I think there's a service idea here - something to hook people up to others who want to read a book and are prepared to read it out aloud and record it. Build a library of books.
Somehow it seems to be one of the most fundamental factors of our well being and the course of our life. Yet we usually don't even try to measure it. Do I have below or above average self-esteem? I couldn't say.
Googling around brought up the "Rosenberg self-esteem scale" questionnaire. I tried it. Scored is 14. Which is considered low. Uh oh :)
Now what?