mbaytas
Joined 12 years ago
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482
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95
Member since
Aug 21
http://baytas.net
@doctorbaytas
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Comment · 1 year ago
immediately ordered the book
fascinating checkout flow
Comment · 1 year ago
Improving model capability with more and more data is what model developers do, over months. Structure and prompting improvements can be done by the end user, today.
Comment · 3 years ago
In fact I think this is a ripe space for opportunities to build new institutions that provide value.
The value of college is not only education, but also community.
We are seeing, and will continue to see, many new online and IRL ventures that provide community and learning to young people, which will serve them much better than colleges.
Buildspace (https://buildspace.so/) is a beautiful example.
Comment · 3 years ago
> I think college is broken. But my question is whether it’s broken and useful or broken and harmful.
A better question IMO is: Is college more useful than the alternatives?
College is a huge investment: tens of thousands of dollars, plus 4 years of full-time work.
When I went to college in 2007 (not in US, but I digress…) it made sense to go in for a 4-year degree because there were no alternatives. Coursera, Udemy, etc. did not exist. YouTube was just born. And to start with, we didn’t even have broadband in my house or school, that could stream video.
It’s a very different world today. The opportunity cost is too great. Even without being a Thiel fellow, there are many alternatives to what you can do with 4 years of your life that will set you up for success – not only educational opportunities but also starting a business, freelancing, etc.
Comment · 3 years ago
Exciting! A few years ago, as an academic design researcher, I pondered the same question and wrote a few research papers.
Like the author, my inspiration for doing this work had come from a vintage watch I received from my dad!
Turns out, there’s a rich literature in design and psychology research on the heirloom status of objects. And more generally, on why and how people imbue things with value.
Here’s a link to the page from my academic projects archive, with citations: https://www.baytas.net/work/computational-heirlooms
We even went as far as to apply for (and receive) a grant for UX design research, exploring how to create for heirloom value in the digital world. I’ve moved on from academia since then, but AFAIK our PhD is working on it at KTH in Stockholm: https://www.baytas.net/work/digital-preciousness
Comment · 3 years ago
> “In the exercise, someone picks a number of adjectives from a list, choosing ones they feel describe their own personality. The subject's peers then get the same list, and each picks an equal number of adjectives that describe the subject. These adjectives are then inserted into a two-by-two grid of four cells.”
> “Room one is the part of ourselves that we and others see. Room two contains aspects that others see but we are unaware of. Room three is the private space we know but hide from others. Room four is the unconscious part of us that neither ourselves nor others see.”
I wonder how the fourth room, which neither the subject or their peers see, is populated…