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I caught wind of the series a few months back, and hunted the episodes down as well as I could. I'm up to 56 Up and I've found it really interesting especially given the timeline on camera is roughly in line with my father's (before he passed away a few years ago.)

The biggest takeaway for me was that, while you can't necessarily 'see the man' in a seven year old, you can most certainly see the seven year olds in the adults. Everyone's just trying to get along; but we're all still just kids inside, a little scared and a little uncertain about how to deal with the world at large.


while you can't necessarily 'see the man' in a seven year old, you can most certainly see the seven year olds in the adults.

That’s a very keen observation. Not quite as strong a claim, but it fits better with the minority of participants whose lives seemed to take an unexpected direction.

Growing up as a successive winnowing of possibilities; a lot of the winnowing complete as early as age 7, but by no means all.


Adults are children in bigger clothes.


My first born cured me of childish ways.


My experience with having kids was that it taught me that adults/parents are mostly getting through life by guessing. You don't figure life out at some point, you just pick up small things along the way and get better at rolling with the ups-and-downs.


Indeed, this was my point.


And yet many a 50-year old will get a fast car, chase younger women, etc, despite having 1 or more children already...


My kids reminded me how much fun it was to be one.


I similarly didn't appreciate this approach. It pillories those who think like this, whether that's within their control or not.


I didn't like it when Gmail did it either, and removed tabs almost immediately.

Let me control what I see and how I see it. Provide me the tools to move things into other 'feeds' if I want to, but don't force me into using these tools. Otherwise, give me what I've asked for (posts, emails, etc) in the order I've received them.


And I loved it immediately when Gmail did it.


See also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31594956 'Nutella jar house blaze' kills Twickenham family's dog


Hopefully not too close, or else the parabola will be set on fire.


I LOLed


Probably a huge amount given that ~50% of the mathematicians* who have ever been alive are alive today.

Source: Pure Mathematics Hons BSc, St Andrews - I took the St Andrews "History of Mathematics" course this site's information is used in.

*For a given value of 'mathematician'. And 'alive', I guess.


Nice to see another St Andrews person on HN - I took that course too! I only wrote two essays during my four year degree, one for this class! (I wrote about Alexander Aitken, a gifted mental arithmetician)


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