As a curiosity, the contrast between Grothendieck and Ramanujan is very striking. One famous story about Ramanujan from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)): "Hardy stated that the number 1729 from a…
Peter Woit (https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/) has occasionally posted about Grothendieck's life and work. E.g. Articles on his life: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7335 Two Titans…
My point is that it's really the storytelling/gregarious nature character. There is no shortage of people who were at the Manhattan project and won Nobel prizes or were prominent. A partial list: Oppenheimer, Bethe,…
It is very interesting to see completely different impressions of Feynman from comments here. As a physicist, I first got introduced to Feynman from his popular QED book as a freshman in college. Over the years, I came…
I think you are writing your comments conditioned on not just what you are responding to but also a lot of internal assumptions about their intentions. The person you are responding to said or implied nothing about…
I feel the American media and general public has gotten psyched by the recent announcements coming from China. This might be new weapons or Deepseek or conveniences in the cities. I wish the Chinese people all the best…
Even with thick desires, I sometimes find myself day-dreaming about the state when I have mastered a skill or understood a topic deeply. At the same time, I know from experience that the process never ends. Even when…
As one example, I met quite a few graduate students from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) who ranked high enough in the entrance tests to study computer science/engineering or electrical engineering but really…
I came to the US for college from Asia to study physics (and mathematics). I actually came to study astronomy because I found it fascinating but didn't really like physics or math. My first physics encounter in college…
Renting can be much better financially than buying. Edit: all % numbers are per year Consider the case of condos in cities. If you were to buy outright, you effectively get a return by not paying rent (i.e. paying…
I haven't thought about or learned a systematic way to add roman numerals. But, I would argue that the difference is not notation but a fundamental conceptual advance of representing quantities by b (base) objects where…
I am not in Seattle. I do work in AI but have shifted more towards infrastructure. I feel fatigued by AI. To be more precise, this fatigue includes several factors. The first one is that a lot of people around me get…
I find software engineers spend too much time focused on notation. Maybe they are right to do so and notation definitely can be helpful or a hindrance, but the goal of any mathematical field is understanding. It's not…
In the same vein, I always wondered if * the vast majority (including me) are not really very intelligent. We have a lot of "state" that's transferred from generation to generation. Once in a while, a very small…
>>You can’t avoid the reality that’s your life depends on something else dying. Either plant insect or animal There are more nuanced ways of thinking about this. A good example is Jainism's version of vegetarianism…
I keep seeing the argument that non-returners are creating jobs. Does that mean they also throw their trash on the streets so cleaners have to be hired? Should one randomly break into houses so every people need to hire…
I always wondered if there are people who don't have a clear distinction between their private space/home and public space. Whether it's not putting their carts back, or talking loudly on the phone/playing music in a…
It's very heartening to read this sentiment. Thank you!
100% agree. In south asia and south east asia (maybe other parts too), it's very common to have insects like spiders, lizards, local bugs, ants inside apartments and houses. No one bats an eyelid and, if we felt, a…
I find this obsession with building strange. It's a very SaaS Silicon Valley mindset. There are whole swathes of very talented engineers who spend most of their time debugging, characterizing systems, doing performance…
I am a big fan of using LLMs although in my own limited way. I don't work at Meta and don't feel strongly about him leaving or staying there. It's possible that he will turn out to be correct in the long run. From his…
A few people mentioned Meta burning through people like LeCun, Carmack and Luckey. We give a lot of credit to individuals in our society. At the same time, there's a frequent pattern of very successful people changing…
I see a lot of criticism of LeCun and his views on LLMs as well as his inability to "deliver" products. I don't think that's what he cares about at all. His prominence led to him being picked by Meta. It was a chance to…
Ah no, I meant these ones by Graham: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-3rd-Ed/dp/006335... https://www.amazon.com/Security-Analysis-Seventh-Principles-... I'll paste a couple more readable ones too :)…
I think a lot of this depends on where you started. I don't disagree that the details of the methods don't apply especially to technology stocks. On the other hand, one learns a principled way of looking at companies.…
As a curiosity, the contrast between Grothendieck and Ramanujan is very striking. One famous story about Ramanujan from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)): "Hardy stated that the number 1729 from a…
Peter Woit (https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/) has occasionally posted about Grothendieck's life and work. E.g. Articles on his life: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7335 Two Titans…
My point is that it's really the storytelling/gregarious nature character. There is no shortage of people who were at the Manhattan project and won Nobel prizes or were prominent. A partial list: Oppenheimer, Bethe,…
It is very interesting to see completely different impressions of Feynman from comments here. As a physicist, I first got introduced to Feynman from his popular QED book as a freshman in college. Over the years, I came…
I think you are writing your comments conditioned on not just what you are responding to but also a lot of internal assumptions about their intentions. The person you are responding to said or implied nothing about…
I feel the American media and general public has gotten psyched by the recent announcements coming from China. This might be new weapons or Deepseek or conveniences in the cities. I wish the Chinese people all the best…
Even with thick desires, I sometimes find myself day-dreaming about the state when I have mastered a skill or understood a topic deeply. At the same time, I know from experience that the process never ends. Even when…
As one example, I met quite a few graduate students from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) who ranked high enough in the entrance tests to study computer science/engineering or electrical engineering but really…
I came to the US for college from Asia to study physics (and mathematics). I actually came to study astronomy because I found it fascinating but didn't really like physics or math. My first physics encounter in college…
Renting can be much better financially than buying. Edit: all % numbers are per year Consider the case of condos in cities. If you were to buy outright, you effectively get a return by not paying rent (i.e. paying…
I haven't thought about or learned a systematic way to add roman numerals. But, I would argue that the difference is not notation but a fundamental conceptual advance of representing quantities by b (base) objects where…
I am not in Seattle. I do work in AI but have shifted more towards infrastructure. I feel fatigued by AI. To be more precise, this fatigue includes several factors. The first one is that a lot of people around me get…
I find software engineers spend too much time focused on notation. Maybe they are right to do so and notation definitely can be helpful or a hindrance, but the goal of any mathematical field is understanding. It's not…
In the same vein, I always wondered if * the vast majority (including me) are not really very intelligent. We have a lot of "state" that's transferred from generation to generation. Once in a while, a very small…
>>You can’t avoid the reality that’s your life depends on something else dying. Either plant insect or animal There are more nuanced ways of thinking about this. A good example is Jainism's version of vegetarianism…
I keep seeing the argument that non-returners are creating jobs. Does that mean they also throw their trash on the streets so cleaners have to be hired? Should one randomly break into houses so every people need to hire…
I always wondered if there are people who don't have a clear distinction between their private space/home and public space. Whether it's not putting their carts back, or talking loudly on the phone/playing music in a…
It's very heartening to read this sentiment. Thank you!
100% agree. In south asia and south east asia (maybe other parts too), it's very common to have insects like spiders, lizards, local bugs, ants inside apartments and houses. No one bats an eyelid and, if we felt, a…
I find this obsession with building strange. It's a very SaaS Silicon Valley mindset. There are whole swathes of very talented engineers who spend most of their time debugging, characterizing systems, doing performance…
I am a big fan of using LLMs although in my own limited way. I don't work at Meta and don't feel strongly about him leaving or staying there. It's possible that he will turn out to be correct in the long run. From his…
A few people mentioned Meta burning through people like LeCun, Carmack and Luckey. We give a lot of credit to individuals in our society. At the same time, there's a frequent pattern of very successful people changing…
I see a lot of criticism of LeCun and his views on LLMs as well as his inability to "deliver" products. I don't think that's what he cares about at all. His prominence led to him being picked by Meta. It was a chance to…
Ah no, I meant these ones by Graham: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-3rd-Ed/dp/006335... https://www.amazon.com/Security-Analysis-Seventh-Principles-... I'll paste a couple more readable ones too :)…
I think a lot of this depends on where you started. I don't disagree that the details of the methods don't apply especially to technology stocks. On the other hand, one learns a principled way of looking at companies.…