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andersource

1,192 karma · joined July 24, 2019

https://andersource.dev/

hi@andersource.dev

Have a nonstandard optimization problem? Could use an interactive visualization to explore complex data? I'd love to hear about it!

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andersource··on There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]
I'm asking people not to be so unkind to other people grieving the (potential) loss of a significant part of their life. "If you cared so much about the problem, you'd be thrilled when a solution is found; since you're not thrilled you must be in it for selfish reasons and deserve to be displaced." You didn't write it, but the comment I replied to pretty much did.

I agree that there's room for optimism, but the conduct and messaging of the AI labs isn't very inspiring in that regard. The feeling I get from it is "we're going to push forward at any cost and make humane considerations only when we can afford to. Which isn't a lot because we've got to be the first to AGI or others will make it first and do it wrong." People then get pushed to the sidelines, many whose work contributed to the feasibility of LLM capabilities in the first place. Free market and such. But then they get criticized when they're upset about it?

Give them space to deal with it and help them find optimism, or at least, don't judge them.

andersource··on There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]
I feel like we're arguing past each other. My point is, it's hard for me to see lack of empathy towards mathematicians (and other professionals) who stand to be displaced by these developments. I know I shouldn't take internet strangers too seriously but, when I read the comments here, I feel like some people have deep resentment for those mathematicians, portraying them as going into math in bad faith or something, and now fighting to keep their ill-gained positions.

> I personally think they’re enough problems left for humanity to solve.

For sure, whether those displaced will be able to get to work on them - and whether it will be as fulfilling as their previous work - is not at all guaranteed.

"The market doesn't owe you to do fulfilling work" Yes, but it costs you nothing to be sympathetic to the individual humans that have to undergo these changes, which can be all shades of scary and sad.

> Of course I am not denying the brutality for those who are right in the middle of finishing something.

And those who worked on a problem for 5 years, trying dozens of approaches, and weren't close to finishing something? People over-fixate on the specific problem. The big picture narrative here is, in the best case, "the way we're going to do math will be completely different", and in the worst case, "we'll need much fewer mathematicians".

> I am optimistic for those who haven’t started, which the video is referring to.

Perhaps. This comment chain is about the other side, the so-called rent seekers.

andersource··on There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]
I don't think you can so easily call for separating them when so many people grew up in an environment that ties economic value and a respectful place in society so strongly.

> So the question remains: is it about solving the problem for humanity? Solving the problem for yourself? Or getting paid?

Say it's a mix, which I think is most likely. They enjoy the problem-solving, like doing something that feels meaningful to humanity, and obviously need to get paid. Now what?

andersource··on There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]
I don't think that's the same. Would you let robots raise your kids if they provably did it better than you?

These people knew someone else could solve the problem. Presumably they figured there'd still be meaningful work for them to do - exploring ramifications, new frontiers opened by the solution. Other problems, at worst. Now it all seems far from guaranteed.

I agree about well-adjustedness, but what do you propose these people do to get paid if the number of researchers with grants reduces significantly? Reskill to something that pays less, they like less, and might be automated too? Can you frankly say this wouldn't be a moral blow to anyone, well-adjustedness and all?

andersource··on There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]
I really don't understand such takes. Extend this to every problem in every profession, which seems to be both the trend and the intent (if still far off), and you vaporise the meaning from a lot of people's lives. Sure, they can find other sources of meaning - assuming having their job automated doesn't leave them constantly scrambling to make a living. This would require major social restructuring that nobody's really talking about.

Many people pursue careers based on the intersection between their interests and what society considers valuable. Being upset when what they chose to spend their lives doing either loses value or changes so much it becomes a wholey different job is understandable, and calling it "rent seeking" is very unfair, in my view.

andersource··on The age of Pump and Dump software
pumpndumpware. catchy
andersource··on Ask HN: Share your personal website
https://andersource.dev
andersource··on Fifteen Years
This is a reference to the "wanna feel old?"-style comics, another recurring xkcd theme, for example [0], [1]. But yes, feeling old sucks.

[0] https://xkcd.com/1393/

[1] https://xkcd.com/1686/

andersource··on Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels
Is there a diagnosis for the tendency to collect diagnostic labels and use them to absolve oneself of responsibility?

On further thought, not sure if this would solve the problem or exacerbate it...

andersource··on Sequence and first differences together list all positive numbers exactly once
Ah :)

From my (limited) experience the OEIS titles lean strongly to the descriptive side too. But maybe also to avoid ambiguity regarding to which one is it from his sequences?

andersource··on Sequence and first differences together list all positive numbers exactly once
Hofstadter introduces several sequences in GEB, [0] may be an interesting submission on its own but I was especially captivated by this self-referencing one. Plus a title including both Hofstadter's sequence and a description is too long for HN and I preferred the descriptive one

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadter_sequence

andersource··on What makes a good engineer also makes a good engineering organization (2024)
I too think they're gorgeous. They're by Mark Ferrari, you can find more here[0].

[0] http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/

andersource··on Adventures in Imbalanced Learning and Class Weight
Really neat visualization! And thanks for the tip on MCC.

Out of curiosity I plugged it to the same visualization (performance vs. class weight when optimized with BCE) and it behaves similar to F1, i.e. best without weighting.

andersource··on Adventures in Imbalanced Learning and Class Weight
Yeah it gets tricky. I think eventually it has to be about tradeoffs - no ML system can be 100% correct. I do think there's a "right" decision (up to a point) in the context of the product or business.
andersource··on The FFT Strikes Back: An Efficient Alternative to Self-Attention
A fully connected layer has different weights for each feature (or position in input in your formulation). So the word "hello" would be treated completely differently if it were to appear in position 15 vs. 16, for example.

Attention, by contrast, would treat those two occurrences similarly, with the only difference depending on positional encoding - so you can learn generalized patterns more easily.

andersource··on The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?
If the questions were pre-determined, which they're usually not. Reminds me of Huffman coding and the reason that compression challenges measure submissions looking at artifacts required to run them in addition to compressed size. I tend to agree with OP that this doesn't pass the smell test
andersource··on Ask HN: Procedural generation, creative coding artists / communities / resources
Thanks!
andersource··on Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?
Preparing my PyCon IL workshop, a competitive platform where you write code to solve simple games (think snake, pong etc.). Here are some screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/VDKfmjO

After it's done I hope to add a demo to my blog.

Cheers for all the interesting work going on here!

andersource··on Collection of Dark Patterns and Unethical Design
HN hug of death? https://web.archive.org/web/20240718075133/https://hallofsha...
andersource··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (July 2024)
SEEKING WORK | Machine learning / Data science / Fun UI / funky algorithmic stuff | Remote (Israel)

Machine learning engineer with strong software dev background. Excited about:

* Algorithms and optimizations

* Computer vision

* Translating experts’ domain knowledge and intuition into concrete methods and metrics

* Finding patterns in behavior

* Creating interactive visualizations to explore complex data and interactions

https://andersource.dev/ | daniel@andersource.dev

andersource··on What kind of bug would make machine learning suddenly 40% worse at NetHack?
I can imagine it's a bit like if gravity suddenly changed to 0.9g. Everything(?) is easier but a lot of people would probably stumble around a bit before muscle memory, coordination etc. get used to the change.
andersource··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (June 2024)
SEEKING WORK | Machine learning / Data science | Remote (Israel) | 10-20 hrs/week

Machine learning research engineer with strong software dev background. Excited about:

* Algorithms and optimizations

* Computer vision

* Translating experts’ domain knowledge and intuition into concrete methods and metrics

* Finding patterns in behavior

* Creating interactive visualizations to explore complex data and interactions

https://andersource.dev | daniel@andersource.dev

andersource··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2024)
SEEKING WORK | Machine learning / Data science | Remote (Israel)

Machine learning engineer with strong software dev background. Excited about:

* Algorithms and optimizations

* Computer vision

* Translating experts’ domain knowledge and intuition into concrete methods and metrics

* Finding patterns in behavior

* Creating interactive visualizations to explore complex data and interactions

https://andersource.dev/ | daniel@andersource.dev

andersource··on Ask HN: Time to kill at work; what to do?
Make shaders https://www.shadertoy.com/
andersource··on 5 minutes of coding yields a 6%+ boost to Linux I/O performance
Sounds like a variation of the Ford-GE $10k chalk mark story:

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2b4n7a/til_h...

andersource··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2023)
SEEKING WORK | ML & DS | Remote

Have a nonstandard optimization problem? Could use an interactive visualization to explore complex data? I'd love to hear about it! daniel@andersource.dev

andersource··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (September 2023)
SEEKING WORK | ML & DS | Remote

Have a nonstandard optimization problem? Could use an interactive visualization to explore complex data? I'd love to hear about it! daniel@andersource.dev

https://andersource.dev

andersource··on Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?
https://andersource.dev

Small & random :)

andersource··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (June 2023)
SEEKING WORK | ML & DS | Remote

Have a nonstandard optimization problem? Could use an interactive visualization to explore complex data? I'd love to hear about it! daniel@andersource.dev

https://andersource.dev

andersource··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2023)
SEEKING WORK | ML & DS | Remote

Have a nonstandard optimization problem? Could use an interactive visualization to explore complex data? I'd love to hear about it! daniel@andersource.dev

https://andersource.dev

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