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skullgrid commented on Time Doesn’t Belong to Physics – When Bergson met Einstein   iai.tv/articles/time-does... · Posted by u/mellosouls
jerf · 2 years ago
I find myself becoming more and more sensitive to this basic mistake: We know relativity is wrong somehow. We know quantum mechanics is wrong somehow. They're both incredibly correct with their predictions but they don't go together, so they can't both be right and in the end they both have to be wrong somehow. Two of the places where they are both clearly somehow wrong are gravity (completely missing from QM, incompatible with quantization in relativity) and time (both theories having problems with them in the extreme cases).

Therefore, grand pronouncements about how the universe is "really" a static four-dimensional object "because that's what relativity says" are just wrong, for the exact same reasons.

Perhaps even in the "not even wrong" sense, on the grounds that it is no different than taking Newtonian physics and making ground pronouncements about the nature of the universe. Newtonian physics implies things like "there can be no absolute speed limit in the universe"; not just that there isn't one, but that there can't be one for the transforms it uses to be valid. There is such a speed limit and the transforms it uses aren't valid. Declaring the universe to have this or that characteristic based on relativity is no different than declaring it must not have a speed-of-light because that's what Newtonian physics says. The only difference is that "everybody" knows the latter is wrong; the former is just as wrong.

So in general getting too worked up over what Einstein's relativity says about the universe at this level is a waste of time, no pun intended.

Science history being what it is, it is quite likely that if we ever do penetrate down to what time "really" is it'll be even more mind-blowing than a static four-dimensional universe, but that's a problem for the future. (And the current leading contenders in that theory race I'm not sure are any more disruptive than QM already was. Total chaos space/time at scales so small that they are in some sense literally microscopically microscopically microscopically microscopic may be vaguely unsettling, but to my mind doesn't seem to add anything philosophically material that QM didn't already introduce.)

skullgrid · 2 years ago
"All models are wrong, some are useful"
skullgrid commented on Get mock interviews now, pay when you find your next job   blog.interviewing.io/anno... · Posted by u/leeny
Taylor_OD · 4 years ago
I signed up for a dedicated coaching program with interviewing.io and ended up getting a refund because I didnt think they were actually very good at coaching.

The platform seems like its mostly useful for people who are already good at technical interviews, or at least good at solving technical problems, and just need practice writing code in front of other people or in a live setting.

Has anyone used interviewing.io with good/great results?

skullgrid · 4 years ago
I did a 10 session package (got it on sale) that focused on (distributed) system design and ML system design. I felt confident in the coding piece, but I didn't have the opportunity to work on large scale systems in my previous role. I believed that I could obtain a sufficient level of knowledge by self-study and practice, but I also have a toddler that takes up a lot of time and energy, so I wanted to be more efficient. I think it was valuable to absorb knowledge from a mentor that has real experience working in my target role. It turned out that was very successful in my real interviews. I think that I would have still done OK had I not done the interviewing.io, but, by my estimate, the return on investment was high, since I received multiple offers and negotiated up.

e: I wanted to add that my mentor and I decided that we would do 4 pure teaching sessions, and then the remainder would be partial mock interviews that would transition over sessions from them doing most of the talking to me doing most of the talking. I found this format to be good for building my own confidence.

skullgrid commented on Myths about Social Media   twitter.com/M_B_Petersen/... · Posted by u/royalroad
codingdave · 4 years ago
"Research shows" needs citations. I get that they only had ten minutes to talk, but if you are going to post a long thread on twitter, adding sources would seem like a completely reasonable thing to do. Otherwise, this thread itself could be misinformation - we have no way to verify.
skullgrid · 4 years ago
The citations are listed in the pdf document linked in the Twitter thread.
skullgrid commented on The Mandelbrot Monk (1999)   users.math.yale.edu/publi... · Posted by u/rfreytag
bla3 · 4 years ago
Sounds like you learned a valuable lesson about believing things you read on the internet today :)

Taking it down means others won't be able to learn this lesson.

skullgrid · 4 years ago
Sure, it is generally wise to keep your guard up when reading things on the internet (or any source). That's fair enough. But at the same time, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect HN posts to adhere to a higher standard. IMO HN is not the appropriate forum for pseudo-intellectual gotchas.
skullgrid commented on The Mandelbrot Monk (1999)   users.math.yale.edu/publi... · Posted by u/rfreytag
michaericalribo · 4 years ago
This is a fun little piece, but worth noting:

It is absolutely a work of fiction (“hoax”, as Wikipedia puts it [1]). I was fooled the first time I read it…but the date at the bottom gives it away.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_of_Aachen

skullgrid · 4 years ago
TBH this post should probably be taken down, or at least explicitly stated as an April Fools joke in the title. I almost didn't come to the comments section, and I didn't read all the way to the bottom date. I definitely would have taken this as fact.
skullgrid commented on Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups   github.com/kuchin/awesome... · Posted by u/szimpl
koonsolo · 5 years ago
This is my personal opinion, so don't take it too hard. But your post triggers my BS alert.

First of all, how many CTO's do you know? And how many of them are good?

Second, is this "mentor-mentee" thing real, or just something business coaches and get-rich-quick gurus claim? Never seen it in the real world.

I'm an old timer. Most of my experience comes from experience. Most of my intellect comes from books an articles written by people who know what they are talking about. Claiming that the latter is a waste of time seems very wrong advice to me.

But maybe your mentor told you differently.

skullgrid · 5 years ago
I have a pretty good relationship with my boss (not a CTO, but a member of the executive leadership at my company). I definitely do consider her a mentor to me, and I am certain that she considers me a mentee. Over the last few years she has explicitly gone out of her way to help me improve my leadership skills. Not saying that this is kind of relationship is common or not, but it does exist.

I do agree with the overall content of your post, though.

skullgrid commented on Amazon, Apple and Google Cut Off Parler   nytimes.com/2021/01/09/te... · Posted by u/jimmy2020
xnx · 5 years ago
What is "FAAGT"?
skullgrid · 5 years ago
I'm guessing "Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter"
skullgrid commented on I Regret Quitting Astrophysics   marcelhaas.com/index.php/... · Posted by u/petschge
reptation · 5 years ago
> Being at the forefront of figuring things out about the workings of the Universe is amazing, and unparalleled in any business setting.

This is the key attitude to gauging whether it's worth sticking it out in academia. I tell people you really need to be 'obsessed' with science (indeed, obsession is really a key concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riaYwt0gf20). Just being interested in problem-solving isn't close to enough to put up with the low pay and rather tough working conditions. There's lots of interesting problems out there in industry.

skullgrid · 5 years ago
This is exactly the conclusion that I came to before I also left astrophysics for industry. In order to outweigh all the cons of working in academia, you really have to have a deep passion or obsession with the particular problem you are researching. In my opinion, being _just_ interested is not enough, and that's where I found myself. I drove myself down the academic career path because I thought I would find meaning and purpose there, but when I didn't find it all of the pressures and toxicity of academia just didn't seem worth it. It's only been two years since I left, and sure there are some things that I miss, but I definitely do not regret leaving.
skullgrid commented on The Ergodicity Problem in Economics   nature.com/articles/s4156... · Posted by u/mmhsieh
bluechair · 6 years ago
Does Nassim Nicholas Taleb have a HN account because I’d love to hear what he has to say about this paper.
skullgrid · 6 years ago
This is not a direct reference to the linked Nature article (which is essentially a review article, I think), but Taleb is definitely a fan of Peters' work [1].

[1] https://medium.com/incerto/the-logic-of-risk-taking-107bf410...

u/skullgrid

KarmaCake day46January 11, 2019View Original