Note
I have moved to substack to publish my newsletter since the workflow there is seamless:
https://bitsandparadoxes.substack.com/
Hi Folks,
This is the start of a mysterious journey for me and you. I know I had been procrastinating about this for a very long time. So, I have set up a few personal goals and meaning to meet the deadlines.
I hope you’re doing well in this messed-up time we are living in during this global pandemic. For some these times might be to have a long hiatus and have healthy and refreshing life. Some might take it as an opportunity to learn and explore themselves. Some might be depressed that they are caged up. But, at least it will try to stagnate the unforeseen spread of COVID-19.
I hope everyone is trying to be physically active as well. I know it’s hard to push yourself to do yoga or exercises. But hey! That’s just like starting your personal newsletter like this. And here I am…
Articles I Loved Reading and Contemplating about
Life is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
- It’s always fascinating to read about entropy from another perspective. I feel it has always been the case that the meaning of life is strongly bounded to entropy and disorder.
- Here’s my podcast on this.
- It was such a good experience reading about Dyson from the people around whom he influenced…
Roam: Why I Love It and How I Use It
- I am very thankful to my friend Mr. B for introducing me to Roam. We always have some serious DMC (Deep Meaningful Conversation) about learning, mental models, and thinking about thinking. Hell yeah! I have prepared this first newsletter using Roam itself.
- This felt like a journal entry from the author where he failed and succeeded within 2 academic years at Cornell.
“I started at Cornell and was terrified that I would not be able to find an advisor.”
Three Questions That Keep Me Up At Night
- I think one should have few questions that keep them up at night. First, it makes you aware of your own “self” and the universe. Second, it makes you go to the places that you might not otherwise. A rabbit-hole of information you will get to consume and feel more anxious!
- It’s always refreshing to read through PG’s essays.
“You can’t directly control where your thoughts drift. If you’re controlling them, they’re not drifting. But you can control them indirectly, by controlling what situations you let yourself get into.”
When to assume neural networks can solve a problem
- Being a guy whose job title is “Data Scientist” and believer of algorithms to solve narrow problems (maybe niche?), Neural Networks And Deep Learning have been a type of black-box models that most of the people (including me) fail to understand.
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Not all problems need complex models. I am always ranting how today’s CS students are forgetting the bare minimum of CS as a field for impactful algorithms, optimizations of thinking and data structures of the real world that could be embedded into bits and pieces. Most of the people tend to be biased towards the hype – you run a neural network, it seems to do fine with the “prototype” domain of MNIST dataset, cat-dog classification and such. But in real world, things are a bit different. You just can’t assume for neural networks to solve all the problems. Even if it did with almost good metric, things are possible that you might not have understood what happening underneath (say what features are being prioritized?). And that’s where explainability and interpretability in ML is an active domain.
- So, when to assume neural networks can solve a problem?
- [Almost certainty] If other ML models already solved the problem.
- [Very high probability] If a similar problem has already been solved by an ML algorithm, and the differences between that and your problem don’t seem significant.
- [High probability] If the inputs & outputs are small enough to be comparable in size to those of other working ML models AND if we know a human can solve the problem with little context besides the inputs and outputs.
- [Reasonable probability] If the inputs & outputs are small enough to be comparable in size to those of other working ML models AND we have a high certainty about the deterministic nature of the problem (that is to say, about the inputs being sufficient to infer the outputs).
“We now face a choice about which kind of knowledge matters more – as well as the question of whether one stands in the way of scientific progress.”
“Science today stands at a crossroads: will its progress be driven by human minds or by the machines that we’ve created?”
“Understanding is the means by which we overcome a world of paradox and illusion by opening up the black box of knowledge to modification. Understanding is the elucidation of justifiable mistakes. Once we appreciate that a wire-frame cube is interpreted as a solid in three dimensions, then it’s clear why we see only one cube-front at time.”
- It’s good that David has influenced so much of people around…not in a “classification” manner like “good” or “bad”…but in a more artistic way that seems to resonate with people that are in depressed state…in a more subtle way that’s not nonchalant….
- Here’s my podcast(thougtcast?) of this article.
- Reading this write-up made so much sense not only on the startup/tech stack but on life itself. Anxieties are “ways” for imaginations, most of which are pretty on the dark side I guess. Fear is a feature of anxiety that kept our ancestors safer, so all of us feel anxious sometimes.
- “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” - Nelson Mandela
“This poem was written by the great poet and philosopher Rabbi Solomon Ibn Gabirol during the 11th century. The Piyut opens with a statement of time - the dawn. This leads into a description of the light as a differentiator, creating and renewing things, giving them their form and volume. At this hour, daybreak, the poet chooses to request an audience with his God, between the uncertainty of the night and the fullness of the dawn. The poet is searching for the light that will clarify, explain, and differentiate the things as God did during the creation of the world.””
Podcasts I loved Listening To
From The Portal
- “Peter and Eric discuss the link between growth and violence and the need to rejoin the quest for a more energizing future for all levels of society.””
- It was like two intellectuals, although separated by personal philosophy and dogma, were in this dance of thought processes that synchronized with each other.
- Both, having respect for each other, were totally true intellectuals.
- Timestamp 00:00:59: Fitzcarraldo is a story about a man so possessed by an edifice that he drags a boat up the mountain to build an opera house.
- Timestamp 00:32:08
- Eric: Assume if you were to make [Fitzcarraldo] in current times in CGI…if it produced the same effect, would it be worth doing it?
- Werner: No it doesn’t. It doesn’t create the same effect. You’ll always know it. I don’t think digital effect will always create an equal experience.
From Lex Fridman AI Podcast
Eric Weinstein: Geometric Unity and the Call for New Ideas, Leaders & Institutions | AI Podcast #88
- One of the best conversations I have had pleasure to listening to in Lex’s podcast. Eric is always go to listen to.
- Timestamp: 2:43:10
- Lex: What do you hope your legacy is?
- Eric: I hope my legacy is accurate. I’d like to write on my accomplishments rather than how my community decided to “dinged” me while I was alive. That’d be great.
- Timestamp: 2:44:8 Lex: What are you most proud of?
Roger Penrose: Physics of Consciousness and the Infinite Universe | AI Podcast #85 with Lex Fridman
- This has been one of the most relaxed and insightful conversations in the series. I love how Penrose is humble, and articulated even at the age of 90 years. The conversation jumps from philosophy of time, space, consciousness, learning and much.
Stephen Wolfram: Cellular Automata, Computation, and Physics
- Timestamp 00:29:00 What is computation?
- Operationally, it is following rules. It is a process of systematically following rules. And it is the thing that happens when you do that.
- Timestamp 02:33:46 What is Wolfram Alpha?
- It’s a question-answering machine where you can question in natural language and it will try to generate reports on q-a.
- Converts natural language to computational language.
- It’s a knowledge base. A computational machine.
- Timestamp 03:02:40 : What do you think of immortality? - Biggest discontinuity in human history will come when one achieves an effective human immortality.
From Joe Rogan
- Eric Weinstein is a mathematician. But listening to this conversation made me realize how much knowledge he has in other fields. Perhaps, he is a polymath. The conversation goes from intelligence, knowledge, society, racism, biology, drugs, politics…
- Timestamp: 02:35:00
- Eric tries to explain the political spectrum of Left and Right. There is a cowardly center and very terrifying fringe. This is a good conversation because Joe was getting triggered by certain of Eric’s examples and illustrations. But then, they are real intellectuals respecting each other opinions. These fringe people are willing to accept people from bad groups. These fringe people are willing to accept people from bad groups.
- Timestamp: 02:42:55 We need to get the world excited about curing diseases, cross-pollination of ideas. Put us in the path of progress
- The conversation becomes eerily serious as Eric goes into his idea of The Portal and his theory on Geometric Unity. He mentions that his idea isn’t taken positively by the Physics community. Maybe partly he is not a physicist and partly because he is trying to unify two incompatible ideas in physics using Geometric Unity. It’s a Theory of Everything and is actually one of the unsolved ideas in physics itself. He seriously says that his idea treated snidely. It can be seen in his expression.
- Around Timestamp: 03:03:00, he speaks of his “not-so-good” relationship with academic institution. He wasn’t allowed to be in his own PhD thesis defence.
- Timestamp: 03:22:50. What is the last question
- 00:38:38 [Social Media] kinda sucks
- Elon says that he keeps Twitter for the sake of interesting memes. This kind of me, except without memes.
- 00:40:45 Happiness = Reality - Expectation
- Be nice to each other.
Elon: Love is the answer
Audio-Video I Want To Share
The Strangest Secret in the World by Earl Nightingale full 1950
- This is an inspiring speech by Nightingale. It’s one of the best wisdom that anyone can get.
- “We become what we think about.”
- Earl Nightingale was an American radio speaker and author, dealing mostly with the subjects of human character development, motivation, and meaningful existence.
- Earl Nightingale’s message is incredible here and I highly recommend listening to it and following some of the awesome traits Earl lays out in detail.
TED Talk: 100 Days of Rejection
- I feel often, we fear rejection. However, it’s the rejection that helps us re-enforce our confidence. Rejection teaches us valuable things, about doubts we have and dares us to ask the “why” question.
- I loved the video about Olympics doughnut because the lady was so humble and kind. This was the Rejection no. 3
Music: Light in Babylon - Baderech El Hayam
Fascinating Things I discovered
“Memories” - 256 byte MSDOS Intro
- This is one of the coolest things I have encountered this month. Maybe, being a programmer (CS Major?), I can relate that in today’s world, even a simple request to a webpage doesn’t hold up in 256 bytes of memories. This is beyond contemplation.
Show HN: I made a Chrome extension to stop mindless browsing
- I have been using Intention for a while now in my firefox browser (I don’t like Chrome!). It’s very minimal and weirdly works for me. Might not be the case with everyone though.
- You blacklist-blacklist website for a time span. When you run out of the allocated time, it warns you with a pop-up which has an elegant design. I’d like to think of this plugin with a metaphor something like:
- You were in childhood, just got back from school, and immediately went to the ground to play (neglecting homework). So, your parents keep on shouting at you to return and complete the homework. :)
- I am thankful to Prakash Bhatta for letting me know about this.
- It’s another minimal addon that stripes you of annoyances in your “new tab” and puts a real-time clock of your existence (from your birth date). Here’s the screenshot I took few days back.
- The motivation depends on the type of person you are. If you are always anxious like me, all thinking about life, existence and absurdity, the real-time clock keeps on knocking at your mind-cave.
Ask HN: What is your blog and why should I read it?
My Life Update
- Not sure how I should put it. But life’s kind of like it has always been – anxiety keeps on knocking down the creatures in my mind-cave. Not sure if this quarantine has been affecting me. I’ve always been like this; living a quarantine life, thinking about life, love, world, existence, space, time and all the absurdity within.
- It’s been more than a month that I have started calisthenics and it’s having a good impact. I have upped my game from 20 pushups to 35 in a month. Have changed diets. Most importantly, my sleep cycle is healthy now. I normally go to bet around 9pm and wake up around 5:30am. Then I go to the roof (of course, after going through washroom), watch the sky, and observe birds. Yup! “bird-watching” has been my new hobby. Remote working is kind of good (mabye that’s how I want to work in the long run). Every 2 days I practice guitar and learn music theory (but a slow progress).
- Life at work seems to be just what works are supposed to be. I am trying to create graph embeddings from document image. I came up with my own (naive) computer vision algorithm to detect if a document is a photocopy or scanned. Yeah. I know. I suck. But at least I am trying to focus on something at work. If two things, solitude and better focus aren’t kept in harmony, it might be more destructive than anything else.
- I have updated panim. I have added a robust transformation pipeline. For now there are only 2 transformations - zoom and rotation. Lately, I have been trying to add 3D coordinate system, but have failed miserably.
- I have been creating private knowledge-base in my private repo which I have just made public now. Here’s the repo.
- This newsletter might be something I could focus in coming times.
- Life seems to be turning on the podcast in the background, phase out of this world and be more lonely and sad. But, I know it’s kind of bummer to be sad all the times. Being a nihilist, I tend to think that nothing matters. But at the other spectrum, I want to live an impactful life. Being a polymath kind of sucks. I am fascinated almost everything around, and yet I feel so empty. Perhaps, that’s how a life is for someone like me (or perhaps like you). However, it shouldn’t stop oneself to learn.
- I keep on pushing myself to learn various things that might or might not matter. But these things are keeping up at night, namely:
- What if I treat my life as a game theory, and keep on thinking of local optimal solution?
- Is there someone out there that wishes to have a guy like me as a life partner?
- Will Theory of Everything that Eric Weinstein and Stephen Wolfram reconcile? I know it’s an overstatement to talk about TOE, but it’s tempting!
- If Richard Feynman was in front of me right now, how would he interpret my nature of “self”?
I hope you enjoyed this newsletter. This newsletter is a way to re-inforce my knowledge base and mental models. Although absurdity rules them all, but there are few things I would like to focus on and move on.
On an ending note
Let me share one of my favorite quotes from Feynman.
“Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”
Hope, you would take time to contemplate things, explore ideas and keep on re-inforcing transferable skills surmounted onto the ever-changing learning frameworks.
(If you want me to add to my personal newsletter, drop by an email at nishanpantha@gmail.com)
Cheers…
PS: This web version of newsletter is raw and might have few typo and grammatical mistakes. However, the email version is streamlined.