newhaus1994

the natural language tasking for actions between apps is the first thing that's made me excited about anything related to the latest AI craze. if apple can keep it actually private/secure, I'm looking forward to this.

"Oxen of the Sun" is, in a sense, the apex of English literature to me. The modernists had a knack for essentially believing that if they just tried hard enough and wrote with enough complexity, they could capture essential truths about existence, and this chapter is the height of Joyce's effort in that regard. It is a chapter both about and structured like the birth and evolution of language, incorporating a density of reference and linguistic type that is somewhat absurd in its breadth.

This is all to say that Ulysses is a book written for people who like the idea of a Rube Goldberg machine of literature. I happen to be one of those people, but there are brilliant literary scholars who hate the book.

Yeah, my understanding is the ULMFit paper was the “genesis” Of fine-tuning in the way we mean it now.

IR theorists sometimes try to get around this by narrowing the focus to direct great-power wars, which always felt like a cop-out to me (I'm a political scientist)

EDIT: although to be clear, the last time I checked, I believe the stats still back up that overall fatalities from military conflict have been at historic lows. I generally prefer what little Hegemonic Stability there may be to the multipolar shitshows of the early 20th and mid-to-late 19th centuries.

I really do love New England towns in general. I went to undergrad at a small Vermont college and being walkable or bikeable to restaurants, bars, grocery stores, etc. but also being immersed in nature was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had.

Perhaps I snuck in a bit of a hot take I had when doing my thesis ;) I find that GR’s cadence and vibe follow Ulysses; the psyche deconstruction that occurs alongside physical meandering through mundane locations are so similar (to me) as to be inescapable.

I think it's worth trying again--it has a story, but its plot structure is in direct conversation/opposition to the modernists, so it's looser, more chaotic, and more deconstructed. As such, I read GR forcing myself to let go of the pressure to comprehend the plot and rather to focus on the impressions the book was imparting on me.

To be entirely clear: it's weird as hell.

I wrote my undergrad thesis on Gravity's Rainbow and the book has stuck with me more than perhaps any other. It's a post-modern retelling of Ulysses, for one, but not just that. It's a post-apocalyptic novel but also a novel incredibly concerned with reconstruction following WWII. It's a critique of industrialization, but also a critique of the pop movements resisting industrialization.

It's the most difficult book I've ever read--took me several months to work through. But I treat it similarly to how Finnegans Wake should be treated: don't try to understand everything, but rather find something on every page you can relate to or appreciate.

“Just” linear alg, LOL. I made it through calculus 2/3 in high school but linear algebra gives me fits, especially since I only ever learned it in a data science context. Linear algebra is freakin’ tough!

My understanding is that multi-modal models are the primary focus of OpenAI right now, due to their stated goal of achieving AGI. This product is probably better thought of as an offshoot of their work to create a fully generalizable model, rather than a specific attempt to provide translation/transcription services.

This appears to be heterodox here, but this statement is nothing to be alarmed about. IRBs have been mandating this type of risk analysis for decades for the subjects of research, and it is barely a leap to start thinking about collateral damage as well.

This feels weird at first glance, but the IDE is staying as RStudio. I love the company and all they’ve done to make data analysis more accessible, so good on them and may they succeed even more in the future.

Still not sure what Quarto is above and beyond a normal RStudio notebook, though.

Zerohedge really shouldn’t be tolerated here at this point in time, to be honest.

This is some good climate news for once. The fast pace of renewable energy rollout can and will help us avoid catastrophe.

Love the design but debit cards always feel a bit dicey to use.