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sjg007

6,164 karma · joined July 20, 2012

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sjg007··on Stanford gets $1.1B for new climate school from John Doerr
All new construction in California has to have solar panels. So the long term end game is set.
sjg007··on Lego to expand online ambitions by tripling total of software engineers
There is a huge pile of money for Lego if they can execute. * Metaverse concept with Epic. * AR applications * Movies * Next generation Mindstorms
sjg007··on OPT: Open Pre-trained Transformer Language Models
How about smaller more performant models? There’s so much redundancy in language that it should be possible.
sjg007··on An engineered barley plant that ‘orders’ soil bacteria to manufacture fertiliser
Drewmal is wrong, it’s just nonsense. Call up your local university extension program and ask. Not hard.
sjg007··on How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare
A racist would make the same argument about Brown vs Board.
sjg007··on How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare
Maybe something about the Thomas’s …
sjg007··on How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare
If the Supremes overturn Roe vs Wade they will lose all of the legitimacy they’ve spent the last 70 years building.

At that point the Court itself is fubar. It probably already is fubar since Trump anyway. Clarence Thomas and his wife’s Jan 6th involvement is just the cherry on top of a shit show.

In the end they are falliable humans like the rest of us so perhaps we hold too high an opinion.

sjg007··on An engineered barley plant that ‘orders’ soil bacteria to manufacture fertiliser
How do you know they don’t? The bacteria will die if they don’t get what they need to live.
sjg007··on An engineered barley plant that ‘orders’ soil bacteria to manufacture fertiliser
We use less herbicide if the crop is roundup ready vs conventional crops.
sjg007··on An engineered barley plant that ‘orders’ soil bacteria to manufacture fertiliser
Talk about selective quoting…

Read the whole paragraph. Less herbicide if the crop is roundup ready.

sjg007··on An engineered barley plant that ‘orders’ soil bacteria to manufacture fertiliser
You all think you know what you are talking about but never look at the research.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14865

sjg007··on An engineered barley plant that ‘orders’ soil bacteria to manufacture fertiliser
Nope I meant herbicide. Look it up.
sjg007··on An engineered barley plant that ‘orders’ soil bacteria to manufacture fertiliser
Ummm no, less herbicide actually
sjg007··on Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings
It is a strange hill to decide to die on. Even if you are the expert in the area, AI is weird and changing the world.

Most Nature papers have something wrong with them. I don't see any reason that reinforcement learning cannot learn the best layouts or what not. I don't know the space though enough to say more than that.

The NYTimes article alleges that he waged a misinformation campaign against two researchers. So there's that in the mix as well.

sjg007··on Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings
Checks a box that outside regulators can look at. Otherwise outside regulators would likely try to investigate and regulate. Also Google's own research can be used to counteract AI ethics claims that are existential to Google. These are likely going to be Big Data type claims. Big ominous future threats like the GDPR for example.

We know the oil and gas industry produce copious amounts of CO2 causes global warming -- they knew because they funded the research. But publicly their position was "uncertainty".

sjg007··on Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings
Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Data.
sjg007··on Ask HN: Engineers Running a Business?
Assign the role to one of yourselves and rotate the position. When you get large enough, hire someone when you understand the role.
sjg007··on US plans campaign to attract Russian scientists, engineers to America & CERN
>PhD are super-specialized

Yes they have specific expertise in some field. But also they know how to do intendent research. This is the critical skill.

sjg007··on US plans campaign to attract Russian scientists, engineers to America & CERN
We do need a big ARPA like investment in research. Right now we depend on defense spending but we are simply not spending enough on research.
sjg007··on US plans campaign to attract Russian scientists, engineers to America & CERN
I use to think this way. I do not anymore. A PhD is independent research training which is by far the most important skill for new knowledge and hence new business and new technology creation. We need way more PhDs than we have if we are to survive and thrive as a species.
sjg007··on Research helps explain how Ritalin sharpens attention
There's epigenetics. This is why we see differences with monozygotic twins.
sjg007··on 90% of software engineering done today is integrating poorly documented APIs
It's APIs all the way down to the ones and zeros.
sjg007··on 90% of software engineering done today is integrating poorly documented APIs
What do you call architecting?
sjg007··on 90% of software engineering done today is integrating poorly documented APIs
That's a weird definition of engineering. I think you are confusing implementation (construction technique) which is of course valuable, with the more general principle of designing in safety margins, redundancies, and tolerances for specific loads/forces. This is a lot of applied math.
sjg007··on 90% of software engineering done today is integrating poorly documented APIs
Programming is an onion, it has many layers of abstraction layered on top of each other.

You can work at any level you want but it helps to understand how the onion peels.

In many senses there are programs that write programs and in that regard all of our jobs are automatable.

The higher levels are closer to "no codification" than the lower ones at this time. Remember when we had web developers writing HTML? Now it is JavaScript.

As you learn to code together APIs, use frameworks, take the time to peel the onion and learn how it all works.

sjg007··on Research helps explain how Ritalin sharpens attention
ADHD is certainly not Mendelian. There are likely multiple genes involved probably around specific pathways.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-018-0070-0

sjg007··on The confounding politics of camping in America
You can camp anywhere you want in the national forests.
sjg007··on The confounding politics of camping in America
Student loans?
sjg007··on Michael Lewis on why Americans don’t trust experts
You make a great example here. Many folks are not expert in economics or social scientists and they criticize them to no end with no actual understanding. Maybe that's the problem of the scientists/researchers not being able to communicate the statistics and real understanding of uncertainty... which is exactly what Michael Lewis discusses in the article. It's not just lay people, but even scientists in different domains, who should know better, will criticize fields outside their expertise often with no real understanding.

If you want to understand why Americans don't trust experts, look to weaponized disinformation campaigns started by the Soviets, continued on by Koch and big oil. The PBS Frontline special on Big Oil in illuminating. Many resources on the history of Soviet and Russian disinformation campaigns.

These things exploit our fear that politicians lie to us. And not wrongly because some do and that results in terrible things. But they also prevent us from making progress.

sjg007··on Paris suspends electric bus fleet after two fires
Cooling system breaks down. Gas drips onto hot exhaust.
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