I am a programmer who has spent the last three years prototyping, studying, and thinking about what software we need.
There is a lot of software that is just now becoming possible to build and I have been extremely excited to be exploring just some of those possibilities. One thing that has challenged me has been trying to determine which projects are the most important, so that I could focus my effort on them. Additionally, running at the scale required (~350 million people in the US and ~8 billion people worldwide [though only about half currently have Internet access]) presents many challenges that do not have many well-known solutions. Much of my last year-and-a-half has been spent searching, finding, researching, and creating tools that might allow the software I have been envisioning to be created and distributed.
At the top of my list of must have software is a publicly-owned, -built, -supported, and -maintained database of everything our leaders have ever said or done that has been recorded. The database will be web-accessible, so that anyone can quickly and easily access and search the entire known-history of a politician. Using technologies that have just become available to the web, anyone will be able to contribute live audio and/or video streams to the database as well.
There is a lot to think about with this project and I look forward to having many discussions about it. Ask me anything!
~~Edit: my comment votes and replies have been rate limited since starting this AMA. My apologies if I don't get a timely response to you, it is only because I can't :/~~
Edit2: I've been able to make some more responses ~~(though I cannot vote on comments for ~23 more hours apparently)~~. If I'm not responding to you, there is a good chance it is because I am rate limited and waiting to be able to submit my response.
~~Edit3: I'm going to try to get some sleep. I'll be back when I'm up!~~
Edit4: I'm back and responding~~, but rate-limited again~~. I will get to your question soon!
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[–] WhiteRonin 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Ah! Speaking in the language of your listener or using language to express confidence and knowledge of your topic.
If I used the example of life insurance to explain this. Some people want to know that their loved ones will be taken care of so you target that feeling and change your sales pitch to accommodate them. The same for those who want to know that they'll have everything taken care of while hospitalized and finally a group like me who wants to know when I should have which policy in place meaning that I don't want cancer insurance at 20 when I really need broken bones and such covered more.
I also agree with learning from those who are better at word usage and such.
If you look at your response and how I just answered you'll see that I didn't pull up and CS major vocabulary. I could but I wanted to show how the difference exists :-)
I find programming to be an actual language like French or Spanish but I'm old school and studied by myself thus bringing different design patterns is a concept understood but the actual names I have never given thought to.
I'm enjoying or conversation. Thanks!
[–] jsprogrammer [S] ago
:( Unfortunately I just lost a great reply to this comment. I had left my tab open and I guess my response got ate... that kind of bug pisses me off so much. I'll try to recreate it soon.
Sorry for the slow response. I've been a bit tired and burnt-out and have been taking some time to recover. I've been enjoying the conversation too!
Saved for later (nowhere near as good as the original): I think programming languages are very similar to other human languages. The major difference I can tell is in how much ambiguity the users will allow for. Programming languages
[–] jsprogrammer [S] ago
Programming is definitely very similar to prior human languages. The biggest difference that I can tell is in how much ambiguity the users allow for in their language. Programming languages typically try to remove all ambiguity. More than just writing down words though, I think the systematic approach that you must apply when programming can really help in all other aspects of reality. Try to put yourself in the position of the reader/listener; what do they need to hear to understand what you are trying to communicate? Your C compiler isn't going to be able to do much with PHP code (unless it has some built-in handler for such input).
I think that confidence can be dangerous. What is really important is the accurateness of your sentences. Confidence can be mistaken for accurateness, but I also think that if you are not confident about something, then you need to do more work to verify the accuracy of your understanding.
I'm enjoying the conversation too, but got a little tired and a bit burnt-out over the last few days. Sorry for the slow response.