My impression is that companies like to add/test a lot of features separately - and individually these features are good, but together they form complex clutter and end up being a net negative.
278 karma · joined February 24, 2021
My impression is that companies like to add/test a lot of features separately - and individually these features are good, but together they form complex clutter and end up being a net negative.
The point I'm making is that society as a whole is worse off if companies are too risk averse to hire and train juniors up to a certain level of quality. This results in too few people capable of doing a specific, presumably valuable, job well. The consequences of this are a society that underperforms it's true potential in the long run. In monetary terms, as you raise the question, that means that less taxable value is generated. So society as a whole pays the consequence.
A common complaint nowadays is that it is very difficult for juniors with no experience to get hired, unless they have a degree from a prestigious university, and even then that's not often a guarantee. It seems that companies are more averse than guilds to take the risk of training someone up to industry standards.
I believe that it would be very beneficial to society to create schemes that encourage learning with a similar system. Mentors can sometimes accomplish this role, but that relation is far more informal.
I suspect a bias towards more common topics might be occurring.
[0] https://indico.cern.ch/event/1074510/contributions/4519384/a....
1. Standard JPEG compression uses the Discrete Cosine Transform, not the Fourier Transform.
2. It is easy to be dismissive of any technology by saying that it is 'just' X with Y, Z, etc on top
3. Vision transformers allow for much longer range context - the magic comes in part from the ability to relate between patches, as well as the learned features, which JPEG does not do.
Most importantly, I believe that chapter 5 on reversible computation and the thermodynamics of computing presents the spirit of the work done by Feynman while he was at thinking machines. This addresses a topic which often comes up on hacker news: how did Feynman use differential equations to describe a binary system?
As many other commentators has mentioned, it is impressive that such an approachable paper would lay the foundations for a whole field. I actually find that many subsequent textbooks seem to obfuscate the simplicity of the idea of entropy.
Two examples from the paper really stuck with me. In one, he discusses the importance of spaces for encoding language, something which I had never really considered before. In the second, he discusses how it is the redundancy of language that allows for crosswords, and that a less redundant language would make it harder to design these (unless we started making them 3D!). It made me think more deeply about communication as a whole.
To me, it feels as though the boat has been missed somewhat. The restrictions on Gemini make it unhelpful, but more than that, Claude 3 has really blown me away with its code suggestions. It's performing better than Mistral Large, GPT4 and Gemma in my tests, especially for large bits of code. It also returns the whole hog with changes, making it much easier to plug and play. Astonishingly, it also manages to combine ideas much better than any other LLM I've seen to date.
I suspect these fixes and the knowledge gained will be helpful to the community however, and will help improve the next iteration of models.
I've found that creating a shared document or flowchart can work wonders if key team members engage and build upon it. And once everyone has said their share you can then have a meeting to discuss how to progress. I've found this method to work well as you can take your time to reply to suggestions and comments and research them better. It also removes and element of emotionality from the decision making: everyone can see the suggestions and counter points, but the conversation is often less defensive and more considered as people have time to second guess themselves. So by the time you hold the meeting the benefits and drawbacks of the contending options in meeting your goals are clearer.
My goal in pointing out the difference was not to be snarky. It was to point out the very real statistical consequences. Any model can be accurate on a sufficiently biased dataset, but what matters once a screening test hits the real world are the precision (positive predictive value) and negative predictive value. These are the hurdles that the test will have to pass to see widespread adoption.
Also, diagnosis would typically be done using a mammography. The cost of such a scan is lower - around $100[0].
A fitted wardrobe would be pricey (~$4000), barely fit depthwise and half of the space would just be covering the flue if we wanted it wall to wall.
On the other hand I can just buy 3/4 of these for each wall and still come out ahead. The grooves in the rods are well thought out and mean that I can saw them to size myself, as can anyone.
The only drawback I can think of is having clothes up directly against a wall. This could obstruct airflow and be an incentive for mould to grow.
Might be time for my first ever pledge.
There's got to be some give and take in a relationship with an employer. If you're feeling exploited, you're not in the right role. And that will show in the quality of your work. Work can be fun and interesting, and someone who enjoys what they do will relish the opportunity to learn. I know that for me interviewing, though tough, has always been an opportunity to solidify my basic understanding of the field I'm in. Maybe figure out what you enjoy, and find an employer who respects you equally?