bsaunder

Joined 19 years ago

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Feb 25
@codeisdata on X recursivedesigns @ google's free mail service https://www.linkedin.com/pub/bruce-saunders/3/650/434
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Comment · 2 years ago
Have you looked into profiling with strace? You should be able to see the actual system calls each of your tests are making. This will probably give you some good insights into what accounts for the speed differences.
Comment · 8 years ago
D3 particularly excels at graph animations and data transforms (as might be helpful to facilitate graphing). Its one of the most comprehensive graphing libraries around. Well written code that uses it looks like pure elegance. Its amazing how much functionality you can get out of so little code. It does take some time and a solid understanding of javascript and scope.
Comment · 9 years ago
Opiate addiction is an important, yet unrelated problem. With regards to UBI, its no different than a million other addictions (gambling, alcohol, social media, etc)... We, as a society should look at reasonable ways to address addiction issues of all sorts, coupling that solution with UBI implementation doesn't seem like a great idea.
Comment · 9 years ago
As others have mentioned, I think requiring education would be a bit of fighting reality (with eventual automation outperforming humans in many tasks). I think, as in the current world, some people will naturally choose to produce and contribute while others will not. Largely this is okay... (open source software, wikipedia, school PTA groups, hacker news, ...). Encouraging people to contribute to society seems like an undebatable good thing, requiring them to do so, not so much.
Comment · 9 years ago
I think for UBI to work, it has to be paired with a VAT/sales/transaction tax. Its also not a boolean: no UBI or gushing UBI. In fact it seems much more reasonable and palatable to start small with periodic up/down adjustments to keep the economy running (perhaps very similar to the current fed interest rate adjustments).

Surely at some modest level UBI is likely to greatly benefit the bottom (who will likely immediately inject the money into the economy). As with anything in life, yes, people will argue over it. That's probably a good thing.

Comment · 9 years ago
This is the use case for universal basic income. Its largely not their fault for their current economic situation. They played by the rules. They worked hard. If we could only remove the "necessity" of a job and the puritan shame of unemployment to live a moderate life of meager means. People should be encouraged to contribute to society not to simply "get a job".
Comment · 9 years ago
Aren't your own thoughts similar to a CPU's registers or cache? One's thoughts seem to occur within the context of the brain and the billions of neighboring (to the ones inducing the current "thought") neurons. Its as obvious to me that you can't perceive another's thoughts just as surely as one CPU can't "perceive" the registers of another.

The perception of ones own thoughts seems very physical, as is the equally obvious (to me) explanation that you can't directly perceive the thoughts of another.

Comment · 9 years ago
“You have to recognize realistically that A.I. is qualitatively different from an internal combustion engine in that it was always the case that human imagination, creativity, social interaction, those things were unique to humans and couldn’t be replicated by machines,” he said. “We are coming closer to the point where not only cashiers but surgeons might be at least partially replaced by A.I.”

I think the politicians will finally get it when income tax revenues start eroding (maybe as soon as this year?). I'd expect this to force a pivot to a sales/transaction tax model. Hopefully (but I'm not optimistic) this is paired with a final capitulation on the necessity of a UBI.

Comment · 9 years ago
Its a NLP problem if your boss/client wants to talk with you. At the end of the day, they don't really "want" to TALK WITH YOU, they want the functionality they get as a result of talking with you.

If there are other ways for them to efficiently get the functionality, they are good with that (as much as they might like you).

Similar to you wanting a pizza. You could call and talk with someone (which you don't really want, it was a necessary step), or you fill out the right form/app. Either way, you want the result, not the process.

Your boss/client wants the result of your work, not the work process required to get it necessarily.

It seems likely to me that modern deep learning enabled tools will make it easier for your boss/client to get the result they want directly.

Deep learning + more graphically oriented data flow UIs seems like it will heavily erode the need for traditional programming as users will be able to more directly achieve the functionality they are looking for.

Comment · 9 years ago
> I didn't think would be possible without someone very skilled in photoshop going over the images

And this is similar how deep learning will likely erode the need for programming (IMHO).

Deep learning won't necessarily write programs (any more than this AI manipulates images via photoshop). Folks that say, don't worry, we can't write programs easily with AI are missing the vector. Writing programs isn't necessary for there to be widespread disruption.

Most programming is essentially hooking up I/O (of which UIs are a subset) to APIs, data stores and data manipulation. The "goal" of programming is not the code, but the functionality it provides.

AI's don't need to learn to code any more than they need to learn to use photoshop. They need to learn to provide functionality (or in this case manipulate image data).

Comment · 9 years ago
Yes, codec licensing costs are one of the reasons people choose to not use the better codecs. Also, yes there is a CPU trade off as well.

The decision is more complicate with many trade offs. But in general, the OPs issues are either fundamental network ones or an intentional choice of one of his providers (typically for cost reasons - manifested in some manner).

Comment · 9 years ago
If you're audio sounds great for a network game and crappy for a phone call (to the same person you are playing a game with), its because some one (your ISP, your VoIP software, the other parties ISP, or VoIP software, or any network hop in the middle), is intentionally choosing poor quality codecs for you to lower your bandwidth utilization.

I've heard directly of novice VoIP engineers unintentionally taking out corporate networks trying to "help" improve audio quality, by picking a higher quality codec. It worked great when they tested phone calls in the middle of the night maintenance window. It really sucked the next day when packets started colliding. Crappy sounding codecs sound a heck of a lot better than 50% packet loss.

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