tangentspace

I interviewed at Palantir last month, and the process is still very similar to what you've described. However, regarding the last point, after the product demo they did directly address the potential for misuse of the product.

They described a culture that encourages asking hard questions, and doing the right thing in ethically complex situations, even if that meant turning down a business opportunity. It came across as frank and sincere, and I didn't get any sense they were grooming for a cult, more that they were looking for people who were smart and passionate.

I started building a shed this winter: https://photos.app.goo.gl/cMVk5TpIdQ0x0WvZ2

I'd say it's an excellent way to get a feel for what it takes to build a home. There are a TON of details, especially if you don't want it to rot.

If you intend to heat it in the winter, be sure to consider the effects of condensation. I made the mistake of building my first shed without proper ventilation, and it was like indoor rain when I turned on a space heater. For my second, more permanent shed I've followed building codes for real homes to avoid making any more big mistakes like that.

Thanks for the link. The author is an editor of the Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics, which also contains very high quality writing and a book I recommend to anyone interested in mathematics and engineering.

I agree that this is a flawed article: the ads are irritating, the grammar is flawed, and calling boolean algebra an algorithm is inaccurate.

But looking past the flaws, I wouldn't describe it as vapid. I see it as more of a very high level survey of some truly important algorithms targeted at general population and students. This kind of writing can be an incredibly important source of inspiration for young people.

I agree with splitting up CF stacks this way. It reduces the the blast radius, that saved me on a number of occasions when stack updates went sideways.

The problem introduced by that approach is how to manage a large number of CF stacks. First I used a homegrown Python library to manage them, then switched to having Terraform manage CF.

At first Terraform on CF was just intended to be an expedient measure to facilitate migrating everything to Terraform, and eventually we did migrate to pure Terraform. But then we started hitting all the rough edges in Terraform. In hindsight, the hybrid approach had actually been more stable and manageable than using either tool in isolation.

That's not how I'd interpret this sentence: "We have skin and other barriers that protect the cells." It sounds to me like the author claims that humans have skin, which is true, and that skin forms a barrier that protects internal cells, which is extremely plausible.

I wonder, how many people downvoted this without following the link to the comic? It's relevant, intelligent, and funny.

I always liked how Feynman dealt with complex numbers in 'QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter'.

He focuses on the intuitive concept of a particle having a spinny arrow attached, the arrow rotates as the particle flies through space. He only casually mentions that this is in fact a complex number, whereas the bulk of the text focuses on developing intuition around arrows.

I read that book in high school, and it certainly influenced the direction I took in university. It helped to understand that the physical universe often appears to behave in extremely non-intuitive ways, but using mathematics we can develop a model that transforms the phenomenon into something that actually does make intuitive sense.

I think some of the harder concepts in math are difficult because they act like stepping stones into aspects of our world that just don't make sense based on day-to-day experiences. But modern technology depends on this! Pedagogy is improving, but it still lags advances in technology.

To follow one of the more common patterns for identifying a class of functions, it could have been named after one of the early pioneers in the field. But yeah, it would be hard to do worse than random variable, which is illogical and misleading.

I found this doc on the origins of the name (author also agrees it's terrible): http://www.glennshafer.com/assets/downloads/talks164_The-inv...

Sounds like it got mangled as work was being translated back and forth between Russian, English, French, and German.

Many people have recognized the need for improvement in mathematics education, and I think it really is evolving in positive directions. I worked at DreamBox Learning for a few years, they produce an adaptive math learning program for elementary schools (and gradually reaching higher levels) which as been very popular with children.

The kind of math that was traditionally taught in schools is still relevant and important, but I think we can leverage modern visual and interactive media to help children develop a broader class of mathematical reasoning skills, which includes much, much more than a bunch of rules, symbols, and rote procedures.

I can't think of any examples of mathematical objects being renamed, do you have any?

There may be some amount of drift over time, but you can go to the research library of any university math department and find books from pre-WWII that are still totally readable because although style has shifted somewhat, the basic nomenclature hasn't.

But you propose to simply relabel as function, which doesn't work in general because random variable corresponds to a specific type of function. You could compromise by calling it a probability function, but then you start to collide with other uses of that word.

I agree random variable is awkward, though. I always avoided stats courses because it's full of so much jargon that collides with nomenclature used by mathematicians.

Of the parallelepiped generated by the columns of the matrix. (https://textbooks.math.gatech.edu/ila/determinants-volumes.h...)

The result of the determinant might be negative, which doesn't make sense for a volume, so you need to take the absolute value to interpret it that way.

Another way to think of it is the change in volume caused by the linear transformation determined by the matrix (http://algebra.math.ust.hk/determinant/01_geometry/lecture3....)

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ComplexPlane.html

The definition of a vector space says nothing about whether it does or does not have a multiplication operation defined on it. A vector space having a multiplication operator has additional structure, but is still a vector space.

Example: The space of NxN matrices. There are 2 distinct forms of multiplication on this space: between a vector and a scalar (scalar multiplication), and between vectors (matrix multiplication).

What would happen if we started renaming mathematical objects to reflect changes in the English language? English will continue to evolve, and the vast body of mathematical literature would have to be constantly rewritten.

Wouldn't that cause much, much greater confusion due to mathematical nomenclature being a moving target rather than remaining stable?

Intuitively elements of R2 are not numbers, they're vectors, or points in a 2 dimensional vector space. You can also treat complex numbers as vectors in the 2 dimensional complex plane.

Gravitation, by Misner, Thorne, Wheeler (http://a.co/dczH4eS)

Fully understanding the math in this book requires a solid background in linear algebra, calculus, differential equations. But I find it an incredibly interesting book even without understanding all the math: the engaging writing style and numerous illustrations capture the intuitions behind differential geometry and relativity, but without sacrificing the rigorous mathematical formulations underlying it.

Absolutely. And in mathematics, advanced structures and theorems are built up layers by layer upon more elementary material. A professor who has mastered presentation of undergraduate material on a topic also likely teaches a graduate course on it, and mentors students on it, and does research on it.

They can talk about their chosen topic at many levels to many different audiences, from general audience (who may provide funding to them), high school students (outreach and recruiting), university students, and peers. This flexibility is an important part of being a very successful mathematician, and you have to burn it into your brain to reach that level of fluency.

No, I was never under that impression. I once had a discussion about the creation of the book with one of Federer's students who had also helped proofread it. The book was essentially an outgrowth of his personal and course notes, since of course he couldn't keep all this in his head.

What he likely did have in his head was an index into the contents, that's the crux of my observation. If I am very good at organizing my workshop, I can quickly grab the tools and materials needed for a particular task without breaking my flow of thought. Same basic principle applies to mathematicians and other intellectual workers, just as it does with physical trades.

I think many highly productive mathematicians are very good at organizing formulas and facts in such a way that they can be retrieved easily from memory based on context. Maybe something analogous to a hash function from computer science.

Some mathematicians seem to index facts based on geometric images, others seem to be more inclined to symbolic or algebraic statements. Whatever the representation, when confronted with a new mathematical situation they then scan quickly for matches to various aspects of the problem at hand.

Maybe to some degree my observation here is obvious. But I thought a lot about it while I was in grad school studying a book called Geometric Measure Theory by Herbert Federer. That book is enormous, and full of highly intricate technical proofs that require pulling together a large number of detailed technical facts.

The book is also very highly structured, and that led me to conclude that the text likely mirrored how Federer organized this information in his head. It reads like code for a complex but cleanly architected software system, and that's a big part of what led me from math to software development.

Is it being characterized as a major discovery somewhere in this article? I see it described as an elusive problem, and it's claimed that the solution is a major paper worthy of publication in Annals of Statistics, but mostly it just comes across as an interesting story about how this proof came to be.

I've worked through various exams and research problems leading to a math PhD, and I see the similarity. I fail to see how someone articulating an observation about that "glorifies" the interview questions.

I've heard students complain that graduate qualifying exams are a form of hazing for people hoping to become pure mathematicians, and although I don't entirely agree with that sentiment, they do play a similar role in weeding out people based on preparation rather than ability to generate deep, novel insights.

I don't get any odd vibe like that from this article. They are pretty upfront about the business motivations in this post:

with the launch of our Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform Google Compute Engine, we noticed an interesting problem: customers were paying for a lot of CPUs, but their utilization rates were extremely low because they were running VMs. We knew we had an internal solution for this.

Later,

most importantly, we were able to work with lots of great engineers, many of whom really understood the needs of businesses who would benefit from deploying containers

That does not read like a decision to pursue this for the betterment of the world. It sounds like a decision to pursue this for the betterment of their customers. That's capitalism, not benevolence, and they're pretty transparent about it.

I've worked in a number of professional environments, and attire ranged from steel-toed work boots and rugged clothes covered with mud, to full suit-and-tie, and a range of in-betweens (but never beach gear). So I never associated attire with professionalism per se, although it is important to wear something suitable to the task at hand.

What has not been so variable are things I'd consider more core aspects of professional behavior:

* caring deeply about customer needs and expectations, exercising grit, determination, and ingenuity to satisfy them

* understanding business concerns like cost management and delivering value to both investors and customers, striking a balance between competing demands

* understanding and caring about teammates, working effectively with a team to achieve above 2 objectives. maintaining a solution oriented mindset.

Here's how I might apply my interpretation of professionalism to the hypothetical situation that you were a capable coworker at Weber Thompson who felt uncomfortable due to the approximately 16 degree temperature excess on a hot day: propose partitioning off a space and installing air conditioning there for those who want it.

I don't see any inherent technical obstacles or insurmountable business concerns in that solution. It would balance the desires of some employees for connection with outside air, without causing discomfort to others who for one reason or another have a different preference. Customers might appreciate the flexibility to make the space suitable for a wider variety of preferences, and ask if we can do the same for them.

I see a guy with a shirt and tie, but no suit jacket. A few other people have long sleeve shirts. I couldn't speak for them as to whether they are uncomfortable and sweaty, but based on personal experience hiking with long sleeves to avoid sunburn, high quality shirts can be very breathable and comfortable at temperatures around 78-80.

I admit the possibility that this whole article is a puff piece meant as PR for this firm, and in reality they're all miserable inside but maintain a charade of happiness to hide from potential customers the fact that their heat chimney was in fact an engineering disaster.

The simpler explanation, which jibes with my personal experience as a longtime Seattleite, is that it's just not that big of a deal to do without AC here as long as its a relatively small building and you get the airflow right.

The specific Terry Thomas office build that's the topic of discussion is atypical, that's the point of the article. It sounds like they'd accommodate attire appropriate for the temperature... it's Seattle, wearing outdoor clothing to work is totally normal.

And we have a very mild climate, so it would only be this hot in late afternoon for a dozen days or so each year. On such days I'd just say "I'm uncomfortable so I'm going to WFH the rest of the day." I'm pretty sure that would be acceptable for this architecture firm. It's never been a problem that I leave work early due to traffic from baseball games near my downtown Seattle office, for example.

I totally understand that you have a different heat tolerance and physiological reaction to heat than I do. I'd go crazy exercising in a gym when it feels so much more stimulating overall to be outside, whereas mid-80's temperature with low humidity is just mildly unpleasant to me. But I respect that other's feel differently about it.

However, the difference between 78 and your ideal temperature is probably not so great, especially compared to many other parts of the country with much higher temps and humidity. I wouldn't entirely discount the possibility that this Terry Building might not be as uncomfortable for you as it sounds. And if it did turn out to be unbearably uncomfortable for you, I wouldn't discount the possibility of working together with your team and management to find an agreeable solution.

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience, it does help to understand and empathize with the breadth of human experiences.

I don't think the point of the building in this article was to force warmer temperatures on everybody. It sounded more like an experiment in increasing airflow. I think it would be most beneficial if they could work out a way to keep temperatures lower without sacrificing the air flow.

As an engineer, I firmly believe that innovation is driven through the process of starting with an experiment, discovering weak points, and steadily iterating to mitigate the weaknesses without sacrificing the advantages. But this process must be firmly grounded in a deep understanding of experiences of end-users who interact with the product, and the core objective should be improving quality of life, accounting for the variability in what that means to different people.

Having my car not start in Fairbanks was much, much more challenging than the outhouse. It took a lot of vigilance to make sure the battery stayed warm enough to hold a charge. I had to install heaters on my battery, engine, and transmission and remember to plug them in every single time I stopped the engine. If there was not a place to plug in, we left the car idling. If the car died, we were risking injury or even death from frostbite or hypothermia. That was a very serious challenge to have to deal with on a daily basis.

The outhouse, on the other hand, was almost zero maintenance. The only cleaning I had to do was occasional sweeping. It was nicely made from cedar wood with plenty of natural ventilation (no door), it never smelt terrible or felt disgusting. It takes a lot of work and money to make an indoor bathroom stay as nice as my outhouse was naturally.

I agree that you will find very many people in the developed world who think that going to an outhouse at 50 below would probably suck hard, but relatively few of them have first-hand experience so that's a hypothetical situation for them.

In Alaska you can certainly find plenty of people who voluntarily live this way. Not out of poverty or being a total recluse, but because the negative parts simply don't turn out to be as bad as it might seem before you've tried it, and the positive experiences associated with living closer to nature are deeply rewarding.

So do you just stay inside all day because of AC? I blast the AC all day long at the office, in the car, and at home, but on the weekend I feel like getting out! I like going for a hike, or on a bike ride, or going swimming. Yeah, I sweat, then a breeze hits and it feels awesome. This evaporative cooling business isn't total bullshit.

I lived in a cabin in Fairbanks, Alaska with no indoor plumbing and an outhouse. My wife is from Siberia and her house didn't have plumbing until the 90's. Going to the outhouse at 50 below in the middle of the night wasn't terribly uncomfortable, because I put on a jacket and gloves. A bit inconvenient, but not terrible.

Neither me or my wife feel like that lifestyle "sucked hard", although it certainly had challenges. Now we have a nice house in an affluent suburb and have plenty of luxuries, yet this lifestyle also has its challenges. Whether or not it sucks seems largely a matter of mindset and perspective.

Simple, I use the park and ride. I still drive to do all these things on the way to and from the P&R, and it's really quite convenient. I totally understand this won't work out for everyone, though.

Just like that office, it may not work out for you to work in such temperatures, but you can't necessarily extrapolate to conclude that others will be miserable. I've lived in Seattle since the 80's and having AC everywhere seems to be a pretty new thing here. Until recently most houses and schools didn't have AC since the climate is so mild, and I never thought it was particularly uncomfortable in the summer as long as a fan was running.