nomadpenguin's recent activity
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Comment on If you had up to US$250 to get one person into a hobby you're interested in, what would you do to get them started? in ~hobbies
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Comment on ‘There is no help’: US nurses’ suicide rate rising amid staff shortage and stress in ~health
nomadpenguin Link ParentIt's a vicious cycle because traveling nurses decrease the labor power of the non-traveling nurses, leading to even worse conditions.It's a vicious cycle because traveling nurses decrease the labor power of the non-traveling nurses, leading to even worse conditions.
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Comment on Apple is turning William Gibson’s Neuromancer into a TV series in ~tv
nomadpenguin Link ParentFor me, what makes Neuromancer stand out for me was the actual writing style. Gibson's beatnik-hardboiled-bleak-poetic lines elevates it over later cyberpunk fiction. (I hated Snow Crash even...For me, what makes Neuromancer stand out for me was the actual writing style. Gibson's beatnik-hardboiled-bleak-poetic lines elevates it over later cyberpunk fiction. (I hated Snow Crash even though it's a classic of the genre, mostly because I can't stand the way Stevenson writes.)
Not sure how that would translate over into TV; I think part of the magic of Neuromancer is how much is left undescribed.
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Comment on Fitness Weekly Discussion in ~health
nomadpenguin LinkCompeted in my first BJJ comp on Saturday after about 4.5 months of training. The format was groups of 5 based on closest weight, with everyone playing a round robin. By luck of the draw I ended...Competed in my first BJJ comp on Saturday after about 4.5 months of training. The format was groups of 5 based on closest weight, with everyone playing a round robin. By luck of the draw I ended up being the smallest in my group, but I managed to snag 1 decision win out of my 4 matches, which was more than I had hoped for.
Everyone in my group felt an order of magnitude stronger than me, so even when I knew I was doing technically better things, I sometimes just got outmuscled. Time to hit the gym!
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Comment on Is an ethical social media platform even possible? in ~tech
nomadpenguin Link ParentThe worst topic on HN is anything to do with homelessness. It seems a good 30% of the userbase would love to indiscriminately kill unhoused people.The worst topic on HN is anything to do with homelessness. It seems a good 30% of the userbase would love to indiscriminately kill unhoused people.
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Comment on Indiana Jones 5 could be Disney's biggest box office disaster since John Carter in ~movies
nomadpenguin Link Parent"Investors" is the keyword. To an investor, putting money into a movie is an opportunity cost. The returns from the movie have to be as good or better than the returns from a different project."Investors" is the keyword. To an investor, putting money into a movie is an opportunity cost. The returns from the movie have to be as good or better than the returns from a different project.
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Comment on Suggest nonfiction that can be understood/enjoyed by nonspecialists in ~books
nomadpenguin LinkMake It Stick by Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel, and Peter C Brown. It's a book written by top academics in the field of learning sciences (with help from a freelance writer), and it...Make It Stick by Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel, and Peter C Brown. It's a book written by top academics in the field of learning sciences (with help from a freelance writer), and it provides rock-solid, evidence-based principles on optimizing learning.
Some of the complaints about the book is that the key points can be summarized in one page and the book gets repetitive. This is true, but this is also by design - the authors try to implement spacing principles into the book itself, so key points are repeated throughout the book. There's a lot of "filler" anecdotes, but the purpose is to give you more ways to integrate new knowledge into existing frameworks.
I had heard of many of the principles in the book, namely spacing. I had used Anki, a spaced repetition system, to successfully study for the MCAT. (SRSs are pretty trendy right now and you see the Gwern or Michael Nielsen articles posted on HackerNews often.) However, after reading the book and conducting some n=1 self experiments, I realized that there were pretty gaping holes in my study system, namely 1. SRS flashcards are absolutely awful at connecting information to existing schemas, despite what boosters say (I was an SRS booster for a long time) and 2. the recommended workflow of quickly flipping through cards creates a sense of fluency which is actively bad for learning.
I don't start medical school for a couple more weeks, but if the recommendations in Make It Stick prove to work, this may be potentially one of the most useful books I have read.
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Comment on Let's share some obscure forgotten tunes (<20K plays/views) in ~music
nomadpenguin (edited )LinkStolen Violin - Romance at the Petrol Station This is the solo project from Jordan Ireland of The Middle East. The Middle East was an Australian indie folk band that gained a small amount of...Stolen Violin - Romance at the Petrol Station
This is the solo project from Jordan Ireland of The Middle East. The Middle East was an Australian indie folk band that gained a small amount of recognition from their song "Blood" which ended up in the movie Crazy Stupid Love. Following that, they released their first and only full length album, which, from what I can tell, flopped pretty hard due to being too weird and experimental (i.e. too good).
Jordan Ireland released a solo EP in 2017 as Jordan Ireland with Purple Orchestra which is beautiful, lush, atmospheric and ambiguous. In 2020 he put out an album with fellow Australian band The Ocean Party as Pop Filter, which actually included a reworked version of Romance at the Petrol Station.
But his 2013 release as Stolen Violin is my favorite, with Romance at the Petrol Station as my standout track. It's just full to the brim with bittersweet nostalgia ending with a quiet catharsis of roomy drums and fuzzed out cassette tape.
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Comment on Anger from voice actors as NSFW mods use AI deepfakes to replicate their voices in ~games
nomadpenguin Link ParentI have yet to see an AI creation that was genuinely creative, at least not in an artistic way. Every piece that AI boosters post from Midjourney as an example of "real art" that I have seen have...I have yet to see an AI creation that was genuinely creative, at least not in an artistic way. Every piece that AI boosters post from Midjourney as an example of "real art" that I have seen have been, while technically impressive, void of artistic content. There is no AI that can create a piece like Ai Weiwei's "Straight" or a piece like this one.
The AI will not "outcompete" artists, because artists were never really competing in a market in the same way. Sure, art is subject to market forces. But unless you're one of those terminally cynical online folks who think that all modern art is a money laundering racket, I think it's pretty easy to tell whether a piece is expressive of something real or if it's AI bullshit. Much of the value of visual art comes from its history, materials, labor, and process. The replacement of artists with mechanical reproduction was a crisis we have already been through before with the advent of photography, and artists came out squarely on top.
What AI does threaten to replace are industrial uses of artistic skill. So things like copywriting, illustration, and concept art. There is no threat to general human creativity. The threat is to the livelihoods of dedicated artists who, without employment in copywriting and illustration, will not be able to pursue genuine non-commercial artistic endeavors in those mediums.
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
nomadpenguin LinkJohn Fahey. I decided to dig in deeper to Fahey's stuff after hearing I think this artist at a bar in Boston. (The only thing Ross Kiah has on bandcamp seems to be bluegrass covers, not the...John Fahey. I decided to dig in deeper to Fahey's stuff after hearing I think this artist at a bar in Boston. (The only thing Ross Kiah has on bandcamp seems to be bluegrass covers, not the American primitive guitar stuff he was playing that night.)
Planning on learning some Fahey tunes and maybe stealing some ideas for myself.
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Comment on Photography: Next lens after nifty fifty? in ~hobbies
nomadpenguin LinkFor close distances, I would echo what other people are saying about portrait lenses. However, for groups of people or just in general, I think it's quite nice to have a a wider angle lens. I've...For close distances, I would echo what other people are saying about portrait lenses. However, for groups of people or just in general, I think it's quite nice to have a a wider angle lens. I've got a 28mm Rokkor that I really love shooting with. Wide angle lenses give more of a sense of depth to your photos, so I find that it's easier to think in more painterly terms of fore-middle-background.
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Comment on MATLAB learning resources for software engineers in ~comp
nomadpenguin Link ParentYeah, bad exploratory code is understandable to an extent. What is much, much more annoying is when these get packaged up and shipped when the paper is published, and then other groups have to...Yeah, bad exploratory code is understandable to an extent. What is much, much more annoying is when these get packaged up and shipped when the paper is published, and then other groups have to build on top of it.
For example, my lab made made heavy use of a Matlab program PALM. It's brilliant when it works, but if there's a bug or if you want to do anything that would involve modifying the source code, it quickly becomes unusable for anyone except the author. Eg the PALM core loop function is completely incomprehensible.
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Comment on MATLAB learning resources for software engineers in ~comp
nomadpenguin Link ParentThe workspace itself isn't inherently evil, and doing some sketchy stuff from a software standpoint is understandable if you're doing exploratory analysis and just trying to iterate fast. The...The workspace itself isn't inherently evil, and doing some sketchy stuff from a software standpoint is understandable if you're doing exploratory analysis and just trying to iterate fast.
The worst (and most common) way I see it abused is script A creates variable X, and then script B accesses X without a save/load step. So if I just look at script B, it looks like you're referencing a variable that was never created.
Saving and loading workspaces can be implemented in a responsible way though. You can explicitly define which variables are saved/loaded, which helps a lot. You can also wrap up the matlab scripts with a workflow manager like Snakemake, which can then maintain some version control over the saved workspaces and auto-rerun/alert you if you're using a stale version of the saved workspace.
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Comment on Runners: What keeps you going? What's your motivation for running? in ~health
nomadpenguin LinkA year ago, I set myself the goal of qualifying for Boston in 5 years. Still have a long, long way to go, but I think I can still get there. Hardest part is breaking/preventing cycles of push too...A year ago, I set myself the goal of qualifying for Boston in 5 years. Still have a long, long way to go, but I think I can still get there. Hardest part is breaking/preventing cycles of push too hard -> slight injury -> long break -> return too fast -> injury.
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MATLAB learning resources for software engineers
I'm starting grad school in neuroscience/biomedical engineering soon, and one of my most dreaded parts of it is inevitably having to develop Matlab code. I understand why people use it -- it's...
I'm starting grad school in neuroscience/biomedical engineering soon, and one of my most dreaded parts of it is inevitably having to develop Matlab code. I understand why people use it -- it's arguably best in class at a lot of engineering tasks, and the matrix-first approach of the language makes it very fast to prototype things if you think like a mathematician/engineer.
However, the language also seems to actively discourage good software practices, and many frequently used scientific projects have atrocious code. Think python dependency management is bad? How about NO DEPENDENCY MANAGEMENT? Yes, that's right, the way you share code in matlab is by importing collections of loose files from github/matlab file exchange. The Matlab neuroimaging code that I have worked has also frequently abused the workspace to share state implicitly between scripts, which makes the code virtually incomprehensible. Instead of using packages to create namespaces, common practice is give function names a prefix and import them into the global namespace.
I know there's multiple large companies that rely on Matlab for their products, so it must be doable; I just haven't seen it for myself yet.
Do you guys have any experience developing in Matlab, and if so, are there any good resources to learn how to build robust software in it? What are some open source projects that have good Matlab code?
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Comment on Shoegaze! in ~music
nomadpenguin LinkI found this quite obscure album from 1994 from the band Difference Engine, which seems to be their only release. There's a Wired article about them from 2008 when they rereleased it for the first...I found this quite obscure album from 1994 from the band Difference Engine, which seems to be their only release. There's a Wired article about them from 2008 when they rereleased it for the first time, but otherwise there's not much info about them. It got a remaster in 2020 which you can now fine on Bandcamp! Just some solid, atmospheric shoegaze. Highlights for me are "Tsunami" and "Bugpowder".
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Comment on Alzheimer’s drug gets FDA panel’s backing, setting the stage for broader US use in ~science
nomadpenguin LinkThe whole debacle with Aducanumab combined with decades of failed amyloid-targeted treatments makes me a little bit skeptical of the drug. I'm definitely biased because of personal connections I...The whole debacle with Aducanumab combined with decades of failed amyloid-targeted treatments makes me a little bit skeptical of the drug. I'm definitely biased because of personal connections I have with some prominent researchers in the anti-amyloid hypothesis camp, but it seems likely to me that amyloid plaques are a byproduct rather than a cause of the pathological process.
If Lecanemab shows real clinical efficacy, by all means, we should get it out to people, but I don't think it's going to be the last word in how dementia will be treated.
Hobby: Guitar
Spend about $200 on a used guitar, preferably an OM as that gives you a good balance between lead and rhythm playability. $50 on a few sets of strings and you're good to go for the next 5-10 years.