Posts

Link Retrospective for 2020 Q1 2020-04-08T12:38:09.925Z

Comments

Comment by mraxilus on Link Retrospective for 2020 Q1 · 2020-04-13T16:47:42.947Z · LW · GW

The 30 was crossed out in the original quote. (between 30 15 and 120 minutes of clean dialogue for each character). I guess quoting it didn't take the formatting with it.

Comment by mraxilus on Link Retrospective for 2020 Q1 · 2020-04-13T16:44:15.085Z · LW · GW

No problem, let me know which ones you find the most interesting. I'll try to improve the quality per link over time.

Comment by mraxilus on Jan Bloch's Impossible War · 2020-04-08T12:27:12.163Z · LW · GW

Is that something an individual user can set up for themselves or do we have to message an admin for that?

Comment by mraxilus on CFAR Participant Handbook now available to all · 2020-01-23T01:56:03.781Z · LW · GW

Awesome, thanks! Is there an e-book version?

Comment by mraxilus on The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Learning · 2018-10-06T12:01:48.433Z · LW · GW

Great post, but I would suggest avoiding cliche titles such as 'The Unreasonable Effectiveness of X'.

It provides a lot less information about what the post contains than a more carefully crafted title would, for not much gain (maybe people are more likely to read TUEoX posts?).

Basically, I always feel a discomfort when people have 'TUEoX' as a title, and never provide a strong argument for why the effectiveness of X is actually unreasonable (i.e. beyond the limits of acceptability and fairness).

Sure, it's effective yes, and it certainly was unexpected, but is it fair to say it's unreasonable?

Comment by mraxilus on Reductionism Revisited · 2018-04-29T15:48:23.665Z · LW · GW
We know that students can’t move on to algebra until they have perfectly memorized their times tables.

That's how most people progress into algebra, but I don't think you need perfect memorization of the times tables, simply the ability to reproduce it.

Comment by mraxilus on The Epsilon Fallacy · 2018-03-17T17:01:06.019Z · LW · GW

As a fellow programmer, I think the epsilon fallacy is more memorable. If it were Amdahl's fallacy, it would be one of those fallacies I have to constantly lookup the fifty times or so (terrible memory, and not enough slack/motivation for a fallacy memory palace).

Comment by mraxilus on Two kinds of Agency · 2018-02-13T12:04:49.973Z · LW · GW

There would come a point where, if a large enough amount of people believe it, it would start affecting you. Would make it harder to find jobs, to find other people to discuss ideas with, to convice people of an argument that relies on statistical significance, etc. It would have a huge effect on economical progress if the majority of people started believing that math is of no use to anyone.

Comment by mraxilus on The Desired Response · 2018-01-21T13:47:35.384Z · LW · GW

I initially read it in the same way you did, however I also think SquirrelInHell has a point. But I would say the place where he's going wrong is sometimes (possibly most of the time) people don't know what it is they're seeking from a conversation. A lot of people don't know themselves well enough, so having been promted with that question allows them to properly introspect, perhaps.. but I do agree that password based conversations are frustrating.

Comment by mraxilus on Plan to Be Lucky · 2018-01-16T12:02:58.757Z · LW · GW

I'd like to know more about the argument for why tribalism should be indulged rather than surppressed. Anyone got any good links for the topic?

Comment by mraxilus on introducing: target stress · 2018-01-15T13:21:13.589Z · LW · GW

I for one, would be all for a swap over to a no caps English, but my desire to not cause such a ruckuss as this over trivial aesthetic things out weighs it. If you think of all the extra effort/time you waste breaking your typing flow by having to capitilise letters at the beginning of sentences. Isn't that what the period is supposed to before, to denote the end of a sentence and the start of a new. I do think capitals should be used for emphasis though, and for proper nouns if they intentionally choose to have a capital letter. Such as LaTeX.

Comment by mraxilus on More Babble · 2018-01-12T14:27:38.770Z · LW · GW

I actually used control-f for every letter in the alphabet before I read the last sentence... Touché. Reminds me of an old exercise in school where there are a bunch of random instructions on a handout and the last is to ignore all previous instructions. Moral of the story was to read all questions before answering them. A more useful one would be to don't get to focused on what's right in front of you, explore a little bit first to ensure that you're taking the best immediate action.

Comment by mraxilus on The list · 2017-12-12T09:11:14.481Z · LW · GW

Possibly because at first glance your writing comes across as remarkably similar to poetic profundities without substance. Perhaps, try being more straightforward with your definitions, assertions, and claims.

Comment by mraxilus on LDL 8: A Silly Realization · 2017-12-06T09:12:11.991Z · LW · GW

I would agree, a lot of DL concepts became much clearer after I worked with tensors enough to be able to manipulate them in my mind. Before that I just sort of just made sure the shapes matched up and hoped for the best. Also, you tend to see a lot of beginner questions/confusion on DL libraries (Keras especially) about tensor shape mismatches, suggesting that it is quite a common problem area.

Comment by mraxilus on Joy in the Merely Real · 2014-11-05T09:54:57.640Z · LW · GW

Fair point, I never really considered that. It also tends to be the path followed by a large portion of our population.