Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago
I like your distinction between contrarian and independent.

Also. The part on being good at identifying the right experts is interesting...

Comment · 1 month ago
Haha. Ok by some. As far as shows go.
Comment · 1 month ago
interesting, can you point me to some examples?
Comment · 1 month ago
The pervasive culture in the west seems to elevate pessimism as intellectual, while optimism is stupid or naive. This bias is interesting considering how much lives have improved by many important quality of life metrics in the last 150 years, partly due to technological progress, which has enabled social progress as well. Yet most people systematically mis-predict a lot of the quality of life metrics toward whatever side is negative (the book Factfulness makes a good case for multiple results of this kind). In high school, people read Brave New World, and it seems the thinking gets stuck there. It is often a signal of education to reference these books in conversation, and you see it. Does our collective thinking get stuck at the level of an emo high-schooler?

Along the same lines, most current western sci-fi I am aware of (mostly mainstream) is dystopian. Black mirror the show is a good example, also considered intellectual by many. I feel this tendency is even stronger in Europe than in the US, at least when I visit.

In contrast, China is somehow more optimistic. Consider AI right now. Some recent poll shows Chinese people are far more optimistic or positive about AI than western people, an interesting perspective considering their own government has made computer vision surveillance and face recognition far more widespread than it is in the west.

Do these kinds of popular sentiment matter for our collective decision making? are they a needed precaution to ensure things keep getting better? or do they create self-defeating collective behaviors? wdyt.

Comment · 1 year ago
The video was interesting. Seems like a nice way to start a shopping search if you have a picture with something you want where the look matters. Eg, cars, furniture. etc.
Comment · 2 years ago
I have not compared it. Have you had issues in this front?

If you are asking in human terms, its instantaneous to start, it simply creates a few files etc and starts a process. If you were using Sqlite, there is no extra associated process. But the processes are simply waiting for your input, so normally this is not really extra work.

In benchmark terms, the way I'm using it startup time is not a huge issue, instead being able to use postgres is helpful (has extensions and you know you can eventually move to a hosted postgres if you want)

If startup really matters, the startup can be amortized (if multiple processes want to access the same file, they get a handle to the same already started process, so only the first one would have waited for startup).

In terms of ongoing resource consumption, I can easily have a bunch of separate servers running for different files (it depends on your workload how much work will happen behind the scenes.) I'm not sure how much extra work postgres needs to do vs sqlite beyond what is kind of inherent for a workload (eg index creation, saving a bunch of data etc).

Comment · 2 years ago
Comment · 2 years ago
I've done both, and been on the receiving end of both, but hadn't thought of this similarity. I think it's a good analogy.
Comment · 2 years ago
Hm, not exhaustive but I think these are potentially useful to you:

The deeplearning.ai math basics for deep learning, seems self-contained. MiniTorch repo (implement your own tiny torch) seems also helpful to understand what goes on during training. MinGPT repo (to understand a basic version of GPT model structure) Dive into deep learning (textbook avail online, more focused on practical DL)

Comment · 3 years ago
How did you get access to the model?

I have been waiting for weeks, and am still waiting, to get access to Llama2 (released a month+ ago), and access to this model goes through the same form, so I'm not very hopeful. Are you getting it from other methods?

Comment · 3 years ago
Does anyone know of good tools to practice tone-listening and recognition for cantonese? or tools for drilling jyutping more generally,

I've used https://chaaklau.github.io/cantorocks/, but I would like to also try others, as the audio is not great sometimes and I'd like to listen to different voices.

When studying Mandarin I found that getting the phonetics right early on really helped me, it can be done in a relatively short time and its hugely motivating.

Comment · 3 years ago
If you have basic Mandarin knowledge, you could try Duolingo's Cantonese course for Mandarin speakers. I think it is helpful to get familiar with how words are pronounced and what expressions people use in vernacular Cantonese so far. As with the Mandarin course, there is little explanation, you kind of have to complement it eg with some drilling for tones.
Comment · 3 years ago
I really like this idea, though I haven't tried it yet. Spotify has lyrics for many songs, but for characters the first hurdle is you cannot really sing along even with the lyrics unless you know them.

Is there some easy way one change the font used by Spotify to be this font somehow?

Comment · 3 years ago
I'm not sure the author will ever read this, but I am also a PhD student, have been one for far too long, and in the past have struggled with similar `time management' issues, though I'm not sure that's really the problem. As time passes, especially when things go wrong, projects and writing become very emotional. Having memories of looking at something a few years ago and looking at it again a few years later to try to resubmit it tends to trigger guilt, anger etc in me. I've found some strategies to help me, because I'm close to finishing and think the marginal benefit/marginal cost makes sense (benefit is large, finish your phd in 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, depends on where you are).

One tool I use to help me work even when I'm not feeling it is Focusmate (google it). I've found that sometimes, working out my issues is useful , but sometimes the emotions are overpowering and no amount of working them out will make me not regret something. That used to make me stop. Nowadays if I use Focusmate, I tend to think less of such `large picture' issues and instead work on just a little bit, and get a little done. then after a day, a get more done, and so on. I do sometimes get upset and avoid it altogether, but I'm definitely much better at `time management' this way. Also, I don't want to leave a focusmate in the middle of a session, i just need to stick around 25 minutes, and the feelings can pass and i can even enjoy some of the craft of the specific thing I'm doing. I hope it helps someone.

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