gbjw

12 ms·

1.
by gbjw 4mo ago
I have a PhD in STEM. I started believing in my late 20s in graduate school. Readings that were influential included: accounts of high profile scientists who were also believers (e.g., Freeman Dyson), Tolstoy's "Confession",
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by gbjw 5mo ago
> Fun example from a friend: his family were extremely direct but his girlfriend’s family was very indirect. As a young naive guy he was having dinner with his girlfriend’s family and her father asked: “is there any salt” and my friend l
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by gbjw 7mo ago
Don't think it's 16:9, just lower PPI than the air -- Neo: 2408x1506, Air: 2560x1664.
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by gbjw 7mo ago
On the announcement page, they say "Studio Display XDR replaces Pro Display XDR" in the footnotes, so doubtful.
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by gbjw 7mo ago
Do they still sell the Pro Display? https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/ redirects to the Studio Display XDR now.
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by gbjw 7mo ago
Yeah the quote assumes you're riding without speed limits. In a typical commute, it does get easier once your cardiovascular ability exceeds the upper speed limit given the route.
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by gbjw 8mo ago
Strange "curse" if it can be rid of with some perspective change.
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by gbjw 8mo ago
You think it's a curse to be alive?
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by gbjw 11mo ago
“ Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intellige
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by gbjw 1y ago
Because we all sold out to the man. Culturally, we have chosen the lavish life promised under the man's umbrella, to doing the work of trying to go our own way. We now reap what we've sown.
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by gbjw 1y ago
Whoosh.
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by gbjw 1y ago
Fruit is plant flesh that is meant (designed?) to be eaten.
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by gbjw 2y ago
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” - Aeschylus
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Art and the Stubborn Reality of Subjective Value(adamantus.substack.com)
1 points by gbjw 2y ago|0 comments
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by gbjw 2y ago
Great piece, though I do wish there was some more discussion about the Book of Job, in which God Himself makes a deal with the 'accuser' (Satan). The parallels with later 'deal with the devil' stories are numerous. I thi
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by gbjw 2y ago
I like many of the poets you listed. In terms of 20th century folks, I also enjoy Khalil Gibran [0], Dylan Thomas [1], Sylvia Plath [2], ee cummings [3], and Leonard Cohen [4]. [0] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems&#x2F
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by gbjw 2y ago
> Should everyone take acid? > No, because you have to ask the right question to take it. Do you want a one-on-one with your maker?
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by gbjw 3y ago
To be very explicit, if |x| = |y| = 1, we have |x - y|^2 = |x|^2 - 2 x y + |y|^2 = 2 - 2 x y = 2 - 2* cos(th). So they are not identical but minimizing the Euclidian distance of two unit vectors is the same as maximizing the cosine simila
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by gbjw 3y ago
The reviewers' names are listed on the publisher's (Frontier) site [0, top right] [0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcell.2023.1339... .
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by gbjw 3y ago
I read it on a recommendation from readers of McCarthy's last works "The Passenger" and "Stella Maris". Loved it! I've picked up Lebatut's latest, 'The MANIAC' and I'm not enjoying it as muc
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by gbjw 3y ago
Yes, apologies -- using the term 'construct' muddied the point as sqrt(2) is a 'constructible' number as you point out. The term 'real' is what's at issue here and I am arguing for a distinction between a
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by gbjw 3y ago
> It really depends what you consider 'real'. It is actually pretty straightforward to realize a representation of 10^241 (you just did). Why does that make it any less real than the digit 2, which represents two things, but is
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by gbjw 3y ago
Well, based on a quick Google, there are approximately 10^186 Planck-length volumes in the known universe. So 10^241 is not physical in the sense that there is no way to 'realize' a set of 10^241 things. Another related notion is
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by gbjw 3y ago
Curious what you think of McGilchrist's new doorstoppers! I discovered Master and his Emissary a while ago and got through much of it but with a steadily declining enthusiasm. At first its breadth was exciting, but eventually became ex
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by gbjw 3y ago
Adding to the list of favourite passages. This is from The Road, when the father holds his son: “No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such
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by gbjw 3y ago
This is a freelance writer lampooning overpaid neural network mechanics and "maybe we're all just auto-complete models" philosophy bros and their myopic search for efficiency and "intelligence". "Punching up
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by gbjw 3y ago
Maybe you are, but I'm not :).
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by gbjw 3y ago
The downside is that widespread usage of credit cards increases prices by 2-3% and disproportionally impacts those who can't get a credit card with the same rewards. You are getting a 2-3% discount on the backs of the poor.
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The End of the English Major(newyorker.com)
77 points by gbjw 4y ago|279 comments
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by gbjw 4y ago
A reward is not a constraint. In the language of modern ml, rewards 'encourage' models to produce certain constrained outputs. The actual outputs during inference can be arbitrarily poor in spite of the added 'reward' du

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