biswaroop

Joined 11 years ago

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512
Submissions
156
Member since
May 15
http://biswaroop.me/
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Comment · 5 years ago
Do you by any chance have the base model? I'm trying to see if folks think it's sufficient for their needs. It's hard to calibrate memory needs coming from Intel.
Comment · 5 years ago
This may be off-topic, but it's incredible how Brian Josephson went off the rails with his paranormal quantum theories.

A fascinating read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

The list is full of people who are obviously 'smart' in some way, but somehow also incredibly full of bad ideas. It's possible that being insightful also requires you to have bad ideas as well - as if they're fountains of ideas, good and bad.

Crucially though, these Nobel Laureates possess a lack of critical thinking to filter out the bad ideas (that are often outside their field of expertise). They're definitely not unique among scientists.

Comment · 5 years ago
It's worth repeating Mark Kac's famous quote:

>In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber. Hans Bethe, whom [Freeman] Dyson considers to be his teacher, is an “ordinary genius”.

Einstein was unquestionably a magician. He had an incredible ability to come up with simple ideas, and follow the chain of logic wherever it leads, without prejudice against its outlandish conclusions. Those ideas appear as seeds of 'genius' to those studying his work. I'm not sure if it's 'smart', but it's definitely insightful. I've met clever people, but sometimes, they're not insightful. I've also met many insightful people who aren't clever in many ways. To quote Kac again:

>I am reminded of something Balthazaar van der Pol, a great Dutch scientist and engineer who was also a fine musician, remarked to me about the music of Bach. “It is great,” he said, “because it is inevitable and yet surprising.” I have often thought about this lovely epigram in connection with mathematics… The inevitability is, in many cases, provided by logic alone, but the element of surprise must come from an insight outside the rigid confines of logic.

Comment · 5 years ago
Interesting you mention Russia. The leadership of Russia spends a lot of time thinking about how to denigrate LGBTQ+ folks. Racism is alive and thriving in Russia. They even recently went through the trouble of decriminalizing first time domestic violence. Could you elaborate on why you think a trip to Russia would be useful to [eta:American] progressives?
Comment · 5 years ago
Sorry honest question: why is that dystopian? Also :+1: gives me the usual yellowish emoji.
Comment · 5 years ago
Thanks for linking this article! I loved reading it. I'm curious to hear any counterpoints from experts to the main ideas presented here.
Comment · 5 years ago
Fun fact about sardines: they used to be super popular in the US, until they were massively overfished on the west coast (Cannery Row is the classic example). They were gradually replaced over the 80s with milder fishes like tuna and tilapia.
Comment · 5 years ago
I usually eat them with cheese and homemade bread. Sometimes I'll add a caprese salad on the side, and that's dinner.

Another fantastic recipe is pasta con le sarde. It's a classic Sicilian pasta with sardines, fennel, saffron and nuts.

Comment · 5 years ago
It's exactly the same with quantum computation right now.
Comment · 5 years ago
This is a wonderful idea. Children (and adults) learn best by doing. There's such a big difference between watching some tv show and making an actual experiment to see structures invisible to the naked eye. I know I would have been psyched to see atoms as a kid.
Comment · 5 years ago
> relying on vaccination and sterilisation too much, causes the immune system to be weak

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the mechanism of vaccination.

Comment · 5 years ago
True. Our brain also makes similar guesses, e.g. in the blind spot, and in most optical illusions.
Comment · 5 years ago
They're private companies. They're free to decide which countries to serve in. That is very different from dictating the laws in the countries. In one case, they're sacrificing profits for company values. In the other case, they're forcing others to follow their laws. I honestly wouldn't care if a conservative Christian software company decided not to do business in California because they thought the state had immoral laws. That doesn't mean they're forcing their laws on us.

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