
Please share your knowledge - aerovistae
I saw this highly-upvoted submission earlier today and was blown away; in which the author explains sophisticated data mining techniques in ways even a non-technical individual could understand on first read.<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;rayli.net&#x2F;blog&#x2F;data&#x2F;top-10-data-mining-algorithms-in-plain-english&#x2F;<p>I never understood k-means before nor cared to. I don&#x27;t see posts of this quality very often, that make complex topics accessible and interesting to outsiders of that field.<p>There are a lot of very skilled people here on HN, and I want to ask you all to think, &quot;what do I understand very well that many others don&#x27;t?&quot;<p>Even if it&#x27;s just a really clear explanation of a single algorithm, security technique, hardware component, equation, biological phenomena, what have you-- share your knowledge!<p>And if English is not your first language, please don&#x27;t let that stop you! I have read many articles with imperfect English that were nonetheless EXTREMELY interesting and informative. And there are also many of us willing to translate articles if necessary and worthwhile!
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nemexy
One of my goals for the next few years in my life is building a proper
personal knowledge system, combined with everything that is needed for
something like that to work. Mostly online, but there might be access from
desktop/mobile apps. Included system like Anki. Wiki-like website for everyone
with good tagging/linking between each posts. You can then make each piece of
content accessible for everyone, behind a password or just accessible for you.
Additional features like daily journal, todos, short/long range goals, asking
you for permission to open all your content to the public if something happens
to you/or you decide to not pay(small monthly charge for hosting and
maintenance), of course if you want you are free to not allow that.

I feel a lot of people on HN have great and organized knowledge system and
open sourcing the system with the knowledge/the knowledge part is important/
would be great. Of course it will take some time and effort, but I would love
to have access to such system of some users like patio11 for example and
gladly will pay money for something like that.

P.S Feel free to copy the idea, I am pretty sure that it is not unique
anyways, though I am not aware of something that has done a good job in this
area. Think of it like an open source knowledge system with a hosted version.

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yellowapple
My contributions probably wouldn't be quite appropriate for this particular
audience, but I've gotten pretty adept at explaining technical concepts to
laypeople, particularly in the context of "WAI AINT MAH CUMPYOOTER
WORKIN?????!!!". This comes from years of desktop support for friends, family,
and paying customers.

Some examples:

* "Well John, computers sometimes overheat just like people do. If you wear a parka in 100-degree weather for a day, you'll probably get pretty sick. So do computers, which is why your computer was acting up. I'd blow out the dust every few months and make sure your computer has plenty of room to breathe; do that, and it'll be happy and healthy!"

* "Well Susan, a computer stores numbers in a certain number of 'bits', which are like our digits. However, most programs are written with a specific number of these digits in mind for a particular number, not unlike a mechanical odometer in your car. Computer numbers - just like an odometer - will roll over once they grow big enough, and funny things will start happening once that happens, like programs crashing. I think that's what's happening here; let me collect some data and send a bug report to the vendor."

* "Well McCready, computers are like gremlins: bad things happen when you expose them to water. Worse things happen when you expose them to whiskey on the rocks, so _please_ stop pouring your booze into the Chess Wizard!"

The common theme here is to reinforce computing concepts with other not-
necessarily-computing-related concepts and giving your audience the tools to
base their understanding of those concepts around those metaphors.

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josefdlange
When you are cooking, and your recipe calls for transferring a pan from the
stove to the oven for finishing, do not forget that the handle to said pan
will indeed get very hot while in the oven, and you should wear oven mitts
when retrieving said pan.

Source: I am very skilled at burning the palms of my hands.

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meeper16
I know a ton about how to get paid for sharing. Pay me and I'll tell you.

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aerovistae
Admittedly funny.

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keerthiko
I have a fairly good understanding of colors, light, and how our eyes process
them, including things like "why are wet spots on cloth darker?" and "why does
mixing blue and green light yield cyan but mixing blue and green paint yield
black?"

These are all things that can be wiki'd, and somewhat simple to understand,
but I think wrapping one's head around the first principles so you can answer
any related question on human visual interpretations of light is valuable, and
something I can try to explain if anyone is interested.

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dudul
What's in it for me? Why would I invest some time writing articles to share my
knowledge instead of doing something else?

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dudul
Not sure why this got downvoted. I am serious. It is easy to seat at your
keyboard and demand for people to invest time to write articles/posts etc but
why would they? Wouldn't they be better off learning new things, spending time
with friends/family, working for money?

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rmxt
Why does anyone comment on the stories posted on HN? Why do we have leisure
activities? I don't think that anyone is commenting on HN in lieu of learning,
spending time with family or friends, or pursuing a career. (Though many may
be procrastinating at work!) I think the request was a less a demand, and more
a polite suggestion for more content of this nature. No one will banish you
from HN if you don't participate, but the site and its users might reap the
mutual benefit if you do.

Also, I think there is something to be said about the whole "learning as you
teach" mentality. Often times I find myself explaining something (which I've
done a hundred times) to someone (who has never done it before) and I catch
myself saying things that I had not paused to reflect on before; or, I find
myself finding even better ways to do things as I explain them to someone
else. Those are the sorts of benefits that might be in store for yourself,
without any consideration to mutualistic benefits.

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yellowapple
> Though many may be procrastinating at work!

Guilty as charged :)

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vassilevsky
I would really want to read same-style articles on the Linux kernel.

