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I have it on good authority and a lot of data that over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for recently having (i) breathed air containing oxygen, (ii) drank tap water (iii) were wearing shoes, (iv) had used those shoes to get to the car, ...
As I read the post by MrAlex94, I noticed a remark that the browser Chrome is good as a user agent. To me, that's terrific! Looks like I'll have to consider Chrome again.`
Here are what I find as reasons to scream about Mozilla:
Popups:
(a) Several times a day, my attention and concentration get interrupted by, for me, the unwelcome announcement that there is a new version I can download. A new version can have changes I don't like and genuine bugs. Sure, I could keep a copy of my favorite version from history, but that is system management mud wrestling and interruption of my work.
(b) Now I get told several times a day that my computer and cell phone can share access to a Web page. In this action Mozilla covers up what that page was showing I wanted it to show. No thanks. When I'm at my computer, AMD 8 core processor, all my files and software tools, and 1 Gbps optical fiber connection to the Internet and looking at a Web page, I want nothing to do with a cell phone's presentation of a, that, Web page.
(c) Some URLs are a dozen lines long and Mozilla finds ways to present such URLs with all their lines and pursue clearly their main objective -- cover up the desired content.
Mozilla needs to make their covering up, changing, the screen optional or just eliminated.
Want me to donate? You've mentioned as little as $10. Deal: Raise the $10 by a factor of 5 AND quit covering up my content and interrupting my work, and we've got a deal.
Not enough time for evolution to respond
And we have to guess that evolution didn't "respond".
Sooooo, we have some lack of fit, evolved over 10s of thousands of years for life as it was then and for the last ~5000 years in selected cultures faced with something quite different, powerful governments and armies, metals, weapons, tools, sailing ships, agriculture, domestic animals, ....
Supposedly for those 10s of thousands of years in parts of Europe people formed tribes and had some communal living, that is, in a long house, maybe 50-100 yards long 10-20 yards wide, with walls and roof forming a semi-circle. So, women and children got their socialization, security, lessons, skills, not merely from a couple, a bonded husband and wife living just as a couple, but from the tribe as a whole. I.e., now, for a lot for a person to learn and have, including shelter, we are depending heavily just on the mother and father.
In a Markov stochastic process, the past and the future are conditionally independent given the present.
Glanced at the exercises. It appears that two of them have numbers arranged in a triangle and ask for a longest path.
Hmm. Given such a triangle, let m be the largest number in the triangle. For each x in the triangle, replace it with m - x. For the resulting triangle, solve it to give the shortest path using one of the well known network shortest path algorithms.
A one word explanation from the T.J. Watson Research lab in Yorktown Heights: "Luster".
One reason for appearing smart is to be terrified of something and work every waking moment to defend against the "something". So such a person can be desperately unhappy, and at some random setback give up everything.
As I was being interviewed by an IBM branch manager in Chicago (my wife had started grad school at the University of Chicago), it was explained to me:
"Some people think that IBM is a technology company or a computer company. It's not. IBM is marketing company. IBM would be in the grocery business if they thought there was any money in it."
Such a cube, i.e., a set, is closed, right? Sooo, there exists a function on the space that is 0 on the cube, strictly positive otherwise, and infinitely differentiable.
For garbage collection and the idea of assigning storage requests to different categories of (dynamic) storage ....
Apparently part of the algorithm is based on the size of the storage being requested.
Hmm. So, we have historical data of storage requests and for each (i) the size of the request, (ii) how long until the storage is freed, (iii) etc. ....
Guessing about a bizarre case: It might be that on Monday many storage requests of certain small sizes have lifetime just a little longer than the decision to move the request to another category, i.e., the moving effort was inefficient, wasted.
So, in simple terms, for an optimization, for each of the variables have both in the history and real time, make the variable values discrete, altogether may have for some positive integer n a few thousand different n-tuples of variable values; then for each n-tuple pick the best decisions (policies, etc.). Uh, unless this idea has already been tried.
ridiculously tiny and fragile my little life
Naw!!! We are rare, so rare that we might be unique in our solar system, galaxy! We don't look little and instead the reason for the whole show! "Where is everybody?" -- easy, we're it. Soooo, what's the reason??
The whole event is likely to be an exponential, and the last, ah, after Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Schrödinger, biochemistry, ..., computers, we look like we're at -- a standard for exponential growth, e.g., the question P v NP -- the unique big turn up out of the atmosphere ... blowing past Andromeda at 0.5 c and accelerating.
Good research is just a vehicle for producing knowledge and talent.
Yup, it was surprise seeing that once have a good STEM field Ph.D., written a lot of STEM and (early) AI software, and have published some peer-reviewed papers, are then condemned as in a felony conviction from ever having money enough to buy a house or to participate in the real world. A surprise.
But so far have missed the law that actually forbids doing some good math research, writing corresponding software, starting an LLC business as a sole proprietor, self-hosting a related Web site, getting users, running ads, and making (oops, forgive the transgression of mentioning) MONEY. Horrors! Uh, that's actually the same kind of "money" that people selling food, clothing, cars, and houses and providing medical care, private K-college education talk about.
Gee, cut out a lot of middle stuff, i.e., save on management, lawyers, office space, recruiting, HR legal issues, insurance, utilities, software developers, cloud fees, server farm staff, servers (an AMD FX 8350 can send a lot of the Web pages with still image banner ads), ....
Just now evaluating Macrium Reflect. Anyone have any experience? Uh, will it copy a disk partition that has a bootable instance of Windows so that the target disk partition will also be bootable or will it copy only whole hard disks with all the partitions, ....???? Similarly for Acronis and Windows Image. E.g., if make an Image of a bootable partition, will the partition written to boot? Right, just use the TIFO method!
It can appear that some famous companies pursue pure research as a source of public luster.
random delay
A Poison process. Just specify the expected value. E.g., if the expected value is 5 seconds and have gone some hours without an event, then the expected time is still 5 seconds.
E.g., like the time to some radio active delay and whatever its expected value to decay is.
Likely are also making a probabilistic independence assumption.
I don't understand how you could have trouble finding the volume down button.
Read again: It was Apple Online Help that didn't know where the Volume Down button was.
I wasn't asking them; in a 'chat' session as part of an effort to get the phone working, they were asking me, asking me to press that button, and not for sound volume; to be sure, I asked them just where the button was, and they didn't know.
In simple terms, I unpacked the phone, read the documentation, plugged it in to charge its battery, tried to use it to make and receive calls, and it didn't work. "Just work"? No, didn't work.
Whatever, this was one HORRIBLE end-user experience, and I'm way past putting up with it, returning the iPhone, and going to look at something from Samsung. Before spending any money, I will want to see their DOCUMENTATION.
Got an iPhone 16 Plus:
Apparently somehow needed to have an "Apple account." Don't want one -- don't want to be subservient, subordinate to, dependent on Apple or hurt my privacy -- but relented and applied -- refused!!!!!
The phone rang, apparently with someone from Apple Help who somehow noticed that my frustration (wasting time) was about to explode with some gigatons of TNT, enough to level everything from me to CA on to Hawaii. Soooo, apparently Apple HQ is somehow always online -- outrageous privacy threat. Since I was trying to make the phone work for even the simplest things, I could not receive the call.
Heck, could not even get an Apple account.
Super, semi-quasi, pseudo bright: The phone isn't working so to help call the phone that isn't working.
Apple, to communicate with a new user, use some REAL computing, including email. Understand???
New user? That iPhone is my first cell phone, first Apple product, and hope my last.
Using some computing that has a real keyboard, 30" screen, an 8 core AMD processor, and Windows and actually works, eventually got to Apple online help. Was advised to press the "Down Volume" button. I asked which one of the five was that button, and the help staff didn't know. Soooo, not even the Apple help operation knows what the buttons do. Disney with Donald Duck could make total riot out of this disaster!
I declared the iPhone 16 Plus a disaster, expensive, useless, worthless, at best a puzzle box, and will return it to Xfinity.
Actually, of course, the iPhone is a grand triumph of electronic engineering, optics, software, etc. -- still for new users is useless and worthless as a phone, i.e., won't make or receive calls, just won't; several hours a day of absurd mud wrestling in the dark for several days yielded no utility at all.
Useless? First big problem: Apple, apparently with rock solid, ironclad determination, deliberately, totally refuses to DOCUMENT, say, with an easy to find, COMPETENTLY, BEAUTIFULLY, EFFECTIVELY written PDF of D.O.C.U.M.E.N.T.A.T.I.O.N. Go bankrupt, maybe. Write documentation for new users, NEVER. Won't do it.
Me? Can I read tricky material from good documentation? Hold a Ph.D. in applied math with plenty of pure math where learned lots of tricky stuff, but from well-written books.
Apple, shut up, sit down, and listen up -- until you DOCUMENT, for new users your expensive phones are worse than worthless junk. Sure, maybe high school girls form little groups and share some of the basics they discovered somehow, but I'm out of high school.
One word Apple -- DOCUMENT.
Bell Labs was part of AT&T which had in effect a government approved monopoly -- nearly all of the US telephone system, so was awash in earnings for transistors, lasers, information theory, the Fast Fourier Transform, etc. Xerox PARC was part of Xerox that was also "awash in earnings" from photocopying machines and for more whatever else, e.g., more in personal computing.
So, for a high school student, the lesson there was not just to do great science but to join or start a business that is or soon can be "awash in money" and then do whatever you want, e.g., Jim and Marilyn Simons, including "great science".
In more detail, now in practice, one of the main motivations of a company "awash in money" is to pursue research for luster, e.g., AI, quantum computing.
Ah, Lesson 101 in US life and money!
A guess: Smart VCs know that they are not smart enough to evaluate a business from a plan or a founder' background and instead wait for the revenue growing explosively.
Some good Bach:
Rostropovich
Prelude from Bach Cello Suite No.1 BWV 1007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml14kGHCBg0
Also Maurice Gendron as at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDPdCJ7nVss&list=PLuc6tv6pjL...
This piece can also do well on violin -- just transpose up an octave and a fifth. I did that on violin, and it was easy, but making really good music out of it, as Rostropovich, is different.
For a violin performance:
Some Rostropovich, second movement of the Dvorak Cello Concerto, as at
That's not "everything"! Just wasted ~3 hours trying to set up an account, supervised by me, for my 8 year old daughter.
(1) There are some old rules for a user interface.
(2) Billions of people know these rules, implicitly, and right away and easily use sites that follow the rules.
(3) Google, and others, want a new, different, original, snappy, creative, user interface but in this effort set aside the old rules so that at most only the programmer understands the user interface and in a month he (she) won't be able to use it either.
Analogy: They are really good at making pancakes but now are trying to make Bouillabaisse and are getting only rotten sea food.
Uh, the user interface has a lot of cartoons in a popular, new style but one of their cartoons shows little girl and some of the underside of her skirt -- dumb de dumb-dumb. If they make a mistake like that, then they are sloppy or worse workers and, thus, no wonder the rest is awful. Time to short the stock?
Basic rule in technical writing: For obscure terminology, always define and explain that (e.g., maybe with a reference) before using it.
For the author, some definitions:
GC? -- Maybe "Garbage Collection", i.e., have some memory (mainly computer main memory) allocated, don't need it (just now or forever), and want to release it, i.e., no longer have it allocated for its original purpose. By releasing can make it available for other purposes, software threads, programs, virtual machines, etc.
DATAS? -- Not a spelling error or about any usual meaning for data and instead is as in
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/garbage-co...
for "Dynamic adaptation to application sizes"
So, we're trying to take actions over time in response to some inputs that are in some respects unpredictable.
Okay, what is the objective, i.e., the reason, what we hope to gain, or why bother?
And for the part that is somewhat unpredictable over time, that's one or more stochastic processes (or one multidimensional stochastic process?).
So, in broad terms, we are interested in stochastic optimal control. "Dynamic adaptation", is close and also close to one method, dynamic programming -- in an earlier thread at Hacker News, gave a list of references. Confession, wrote my applied math Ph.D. dissertation in that subject.
Hmm, how to proceed??? Maybe, (A) Know more about the context, e.g., what the computer is doing, what's to be minimized or maximized. (B) Collect some data on the way to knowing more about the stochastic processes involved.
For me, how to get paid? If tried to make a living from applied stochastic optimal control, would have died from starvation. Got the Ph.D. JUST to be better prepared as an employee for such problems and had to learn that NO one, not even one in the galaxy, cares as much as one photon of ~1 Hz light.
So, am starting a business heavily in computing and applied math. The code from Microsoft tools is all in .NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, etc. Code runs fine. The .NET software, via the VB.NET syntactic sugar, is GREAT for writing the code.
So, MUST keep up on Microsoft tools, and here just did that. Since .NET 10 is changing some versions of Windows, my reaction is (i) add a lot of main memory until GC is nearly irrelevant, (ii) in general, wait a few years to give Microsoft time to fix problems, i.e., usually be a few years behind the latest versions, i.e., to "Prepare for .NET 10", first wait a few years.
Experience: At one time, saw some server farms big on reliability. One site had two of everything, one for the real work and another to test the latest for bugs before being used for real work. Another had their own electrical power, Diesel generators ~30 feet high, a second site duplicating everything, ~400 miles away, with every site with lots of redundancy. In such contexts, working hard and taking risks trying to save money on main memory seem unwise.
Supply and Demand:
(1) Big issue, barriers to entry: In the US, for plumbers, electricians, lawn maintainers, ..., they get little competition, i.e., no supply from more than, say, 100 miles away and, thus, none from Asia or Europe.
E.g., a guy down the street was injured so needed someone to mow his grass. My older brother had the job, was too busy with college, so I got the job. They kept asking me to accept a higher fee, but I was afraid I didn't deserve it and didn't want to disappoint my customer. The guy had a next door neighbor who called me to weed their garden. Another guy had an overgrown hedge and called me to cut it back. Another customer had a hedge about 3' high and for neighborhood status wanted it cut to a perfect box and asked me .... Didn't realize that customers were calling ME -- in business, a dream situation, but at 16 didn't appreciate that.
Instead, could have gotten some books on Horticulture 101. With a little marketing, e.g., business cards, a sign could display when working on a yard, a professional look, have the neighbors compete for the best looking yards and proud to be paying my high fees for status, .... Work by "Appointment Only", and maybe by the season only. In a few weeks could have made money enough for a year of college tuition, but college, already had a better career than college offered.
(2) In the US, during the Cold War and the beginning of computing, at least around DC, employers were desperate for anyone with talent, interest, and any experience at all in computing, demand was much greater than supply, and for a job just look in The Washington Post, ..., and have a job in a week.
(3) Still in the US, by the 1990s, some big companies would fire half their computing experts, then could send 1000 resumes and go for years without a job -- could wish could swap AI expertise, background in teaching computer science in college, relevant Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D. degrees for a slot as an apprentice plumber -- literally, no exaggeration.
Evidence: For a career, a Ph.D., publications in AI, etc. can be worse than a felony conviction. Literally.
If 1000 resumes and more than a year looking for a job, then conclude no fish in that lake and need to look elsewhere.
But college is MUCH better than grass mowing? In the US, not necessarily!
Lesson: Start a business, maybe even one exploiting some aspects of computing and even with some barriers to entry or plumbing, grass mowing, ....
No joke, folks.
From the comments here, now super tough to get a job. Much different when I started, and can draw a lesson:
Started my career as a "physicist" at the NIST in research on the "Lamb dip" in the wavelengths of He-Ne lasers, got into the numerical analysis of ill-conditioned matrices, and, thus, got a career in scientific computing.
For a job, just look in the 'Help Wanted' section of the Washington Post, send a few resume copies, get a few interviews, and get 1-3 offers, all in less than 2 weeks. No problem.
The DC area was awash in organizations trying to get into computing and were desperate for anyone who could type in code and have it run.
A guess is that there was a larger plan: Some Big Shots in US National Security were really big on getting the DC area really moving on computing so pumped in big bucks with the theme, "If they look like they have aptitude and interest, then make them an offer they won't refuse and have them learn on the job." I.e., the Big Shots tweaked the supply and demand curves -- considering the money they were spending on military hardware, getting young guys into computing was small potatoes with a big gain.
Soooo, from the posts here, now we are at the other extreme: Way too many people and way too few jobs.
Part of the problem is the concept "geographical barrier to entry". E.g., there around DC, the Big Shots wanted to hire people already in and around the local area of DC, Northern Virginia, and Maryland and, thus, the employees had for competition a "geographical barrier to entry" -- no one outside that local area would compete.
So, I got a good career going, Camaro with 396" engine, the best restaurants, fancy food cooking hobby, violin practice on a decently good, new violin, a sack full of Nikon camera equipment, self-study in math, furniture, clothes, wife in grad school, in computing with also, crucially, some math, Fourier theory, numerical analysis, Navier-Stokes equations, etc. With that success, to improve that career, got an applied math Ph.D. -- ruined my career, never recovered. My brother warned me, "Each year in your Ph.D. program will leave you 1 year behind in your career" -- CORRECT.
Now, with the Internet, often no barriers to entry.
Curiously, people mowing grass, removing trees, installing roofs, repairing driveways, installing HVAC, electricians, plumbers, painters, real estate agents, insurance agents, ..., do have a small geographical barrier to entry. E.g., in my neighborhood, a guy mowing grass has two, nice, new 4-door pickup trucks with some nice trailers for the equipment. They have useful tools, e.g., pickup trucks, riding mowers, leaf blowers, wrenches, saws, volt/amp meters, etc. and are good at using them.
Now there are computers, useful tools, with people who know how to use them. Sooo, find some uses with some barriers to entry.
Uh, can't not notice, that looks like it's time to move to the other side of the table, be an employer instead of an employee.
Have the black hole primal and then "naked" due to the early, rapid expansion?
Apparently a lot of money is flowing into AI.
Looking around, can find curious things current AI can't do but likely can find important things it can do. Uh, there's "a lot of money", can't be sure AI won't make big progress, and even on a national scale no one wants to fall behind. Looking around, it's scary about the growth -- Page and Brin in a garage, Bezos in a garage, Zuckerberg in school and "Hot or Not", Huang and graphics cards, .... One or two guys, ... and in a few years change the world and $trillions in company value??? Smoking funny stuff?
Yes, AI can be better than a library card catalog subject index and/or a dictionary/encyclopedia. But a step or two forward and, remembering 100s of soldiers going "over the top" in WWI, asking why some AI robots won't be able to do the same?
Within 10 years, what work can we be sure AI won't be able to do?
So people will keep trying with ASML, TSMC, AMD, Intel, etc. -- for a yacht bigger than the one Bezos got or for national security, etc.
While waiting for AI to do everything, starting now it can do SOME things and is improving.
Hmm, a SciFi movie about Junior fooling around with electronics in the basement, first doing his little sister Mary's 4th grade homework, then in the 10th grade a published Web site book on the rise and fall of the Eastern Empire, Valedictorian, new frontiers in mRNA vaccines, ...?
And what do people want? How 'bout food, clothing, shelter, transportation, health, accomplishment, belonging, security, love, home, family? So, with a capable robot (funded by a16z?), it builds two more like itself, each of those ..., and presto-bingo everyone gets what they want?
"Robby, does P = NP?"
"Is Schrödinger's equation correct?"
"How and when can we travel faster than the speed of light?"
"Where is everybody?"
Spent a lot of time in education, K through Ph.D and as a college professor. Net, it seemed that the keys to good or better quality K-12 public school education was simply the parents, their quality that also showed in careers, income, standard of living, socialization, etc. A lot of that quality gets inherited, and Darwin wins again.
But here is a surprise: In college my wife made both PBK and Summa Cum Laude, won both NSF and Woodrow Wilson graduate fellowships, and got her Ph.D.
Her high school? Her family lived in Indiana, in a house her father built from some plans in Good Housekeeping magazine, on a 33 acre farm, surrounded by farms raising mostly corn, soy beans, wheat, and chickens. The local town consisted of a church, a school, and a tavern. The school building was a good accomplishment by the community, big enough for the number of students, taught grades 1-12, but had fewer than 12 classrooms and fewer than 12 teachers! Net, the facilities were poor, but the parents made sure the schooling was good.
The school I went to was relatively large, the pride of the city with a quite good Principal for 1-6 and another for 7-12, no bad teachers, and some good ones. They taught Latin, Spanish, and French and had a good math program. The year before me three guys went to Princeton and two of them ran against each other for President of the Freshman Class. In my year, myself and two others did the best on the Math SATs, all went to college, one MIT.
In both of the schools, 100% of the students were well behaved, i.e., no disruption in classes; this was just expected and without any particular efforts.
I really liked math and physics and wanted much more than the classes offered. So, the classes were beneath me and mostly taught myself from the books. So the school put up with that independent approach and sent me to a Math Tournament and some summer enrichment programs, which was good education: The good parents wanted good education.
Later there were some race riots with that school a target. So, the city changed to teaching cosmotology, etc. and picked another school to be a good one.
Net, with good parents, a school can be plenty good with modest facilities.
I heard from somewhere that Herstein was an Emil Artin student at Princeton.
Herstein went to the extra trouble to make his linear algebra also work for finite fields.
In the back he has group representation theory is a small nutshell.
Also in the back he does linear programming, but his treatment is obscure and for no good reason. Since then nearly every treatment, beginner or advanced is not obscure at all.