backpropagation didn't get solved until the '80s, weirdly. before then people were using genetic algorithms to train neural networks.
and it was only in the last decade that the vanishing gradients problem was tamed.
my impression is that ML researchers were stumbling along in the mathematical dark, until they hit a combination (deep neural nets trained via stochastic gradient descent with ReLU activation) that worked like magic and ended the AI winter.
> Some ex-military employees form an informal group to welcome and mentor new employees coming out of the military. (Is that political?)
Veteran here. Yes it is. It's identity politics, especially in hyper liberal areas. I'll express some thoughts I have around this.
Some veterans, especially campaign veterans which are a protected class, will struggle when being introduced to the workforce. When I got out, shortly after a year long stint in Afghanistan and subsequently more combat training, I was given a class called SEPS & TAPS. TAPS is an acronym here, but let me remind you foremost of what "taps" is.
Taps is the bugle song played every night at base. When taps plays you are under military order to stand at attention and salute the flag. Taps is a reminder of those who lost or sacrificed their lives that day. It is a daily reminder that your choices are often dangerous ones much less ones that don't just involve your life. For that minute, you are relegated to appreciating their sacrifices in utter silence.
In my course (SEPS & TAPS) the first power point we received covered a page filled with telemetry data about Marines you didn't want to be. The drunk, the drug user, the domestic abuser, the college drop out, the person with anger problems. I wish I had screenshot this slide because words cannot capture how uphill that battle would seem. When I finally did get out, I realized why all these shocking statistics make sense. I've heard people talk about "hero worship" and I'm from the South where veterans have a decent reputation. Where Southerners probably do give a lot of credence to the military because most of the military is generational servitude from the Midwest and the South, likely due to a perceived lack of opportunity in many areas. Hero worship is little more than lip service to veterans though. The real substantive outcome of me getting out was watching all my friends lives reset, facing a lack of opportunity (again), and more bills, pressures, and externalities like school all while trying to return to being a normal human being. It was immense and for a time my life would fall apart in one way while bounding forward in another. It felt like I was literally Flubber, and it was killing me.
If you've followed my posts on this forum life is okay now. But I can see why veterans may need a group at work where they can be veterans or talk about issues. What I don't agree with is if these groups tried to influence the work force. I wouldn't agree with them sending out lecturing messages about veterans or memorial day, even if they're right. I wouldn't be comfortable with them making statements for the veteran community. I wouldn't be okay if they set hiring parameters on top of what is required by law.
I also understand there are people who hate veterans. Some people at work I actively ensure that I don't bring up being a veteran, that I'm particularly good at marksmanship, that I've been to Afghanistan (or any sub-experiences thereafter). No amount of advocacy that a veterans group can do will change that person's mind. I cannot overcome people who equate military service with fascism, nationalism, or even the train of thought that leads people to believe all or most veterans are conservative. I can't fix a broken mind like that; only personal experiences that challenge the thinkers opinions will, which means likely, one day, some veteran will be on the other end of that. Maybe someone like me who can listen to a dissenting view that feels dehumanizing, but maybe not. That's just the way personal growth goes; thinkers don't really plan on who or how their minds will eventually be changed. I accept that reality as a fact of life. I embrace it to some degree and actively work to avoid it in another.
So, is that group political? Yes, but there are things they can choose to do that are decidedly more political and that is where you'll get disagreeance from me as a member of said group.
If you're willing to spend a little more for extra features, it's worth mentioning the S3 boards by Unexpected maker: https://esp32s3.com
They have some nice improvements over the generic boards you'll find on Amazon, etc., like extra flash, extra GPIO pins, USB Serial JTAG pins, multiple LDO regulators, and multiple Qwiic/Stemma QT connectors (4-pin JST PH-compatible connectors used by I2C devices made by Sparkfun and Adafruit).
Yes, it's possible. Give yourself time to recover, as long as it takes, and time after that to rediscover the joy. That may mean, for a little while, grinding away at some kind of unsatisfying but low-stress job while doing your own little "joy" projects in your spare time, or training in a new platform/language just to remind yourself of the fun of starting again from scratch.
Nobody says you have to be a manager, or take a permanent role. This time is a gift - an opportunity to sidestep whatever "career track" you thought you were expected to follow and instead figure out your own values and priorities - it sounds like you've already gone along way towards that, at least you know what you don't want.
We are uniquely blessed in this business with such a wide range of opportunities and modes of working. The rise of remote work has only made that better. Be kind to yourself, and remember that despite whatever kind of imposter syndrome may be lurking in the back of your head, you most likely have an extremely valuable skill set that continues to be in demand around the world.
100% agree. My life used to be all about tech / software engineering, especially when I got started in the industry and was learning a lot. One day I became burnt out and realized my life was so one dimensional, all I could talk about was different tech products and software engineering. I decided to put my work on the back burner and focus on instead trying various hobbies.
I ended up for a while just "caring less" about work while still getting my work done and putting all of my heart and soul into my hobbies (mostly Muay Thai and Running). Ironically, I think the time of putting engineering on the back burner has re-ignited my interest in it again. So it's not like you have to "care less" forever.
I've come to realize that I think life is cyclical like that and we need to be able to drive our energy towards new and interesting things, or even our families and the burn out is a signal you need to turn your energy towards something else. Your craft will always be waiting for you on the other side.
I love it that he uses the payphone to talk to his daughter's phone in her room... or rather that she uses her phone to call him ;) I also just set up a private phone network in my house, and my daughter can also call my room, from her bedroom. But it spiraled very quickly into something more evolved & more fun.
It all started when I discovered after buying our new house that most rooms were pre-wired with RJ11 outlets, with all the lines going to a central closet. So one day I bought a cheap 8-port PBX for $80 (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015MIQ12A) and bought a classic rotary phone for my daughter's room, and a regular phone for our room. The PBX needed no configuration whatsoever, it comes with the ports assigned extensions 601, 602, etc, so right away my daughter was elated she could call us from her room by just dialing "601" or whatever. It's important to note we do not have a landline; the PBX's outgoing lines were left unconnected, so it was purely a private phone network. The PBX could also be configured so it auto-dials an extension as soon as the phone is picked up. But I wanted my daughter to learn how to use a rotary dial so I didn't use that feature. As a side note, the "phone line simulator" that the OP uses is basically a minimalist 2-port PBX with no outgoing line.
But I thought, how hard is it to replace the PBX with an Asterisk VOIP system? So I replaced the PBX with a $140 Analog Telphone Adapter (also 8 ports: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B6TL7N6), I configured the ATA to route calls via SIP to my Linux gateway, on which I installed Asterisk. I wrote a simple Asterisk config defining even shorter extensions so my daughter only has to dial "1" or "2" instead of "601" or "602". Then I set up some extensions that play recorded audio files, like songs, or sweet messages we recorded to each other.
Then, later I thought it might be practical for my daughter to be able to call my cellphone (in case of emergencies or whatnot). So I searched for VOIP providers, found https://voip.ms/ and signed up for an account. I configured Asterisk to place outgoing calls through this provider. And I defined new extensions: 3 rings my cellphone, and 4 rings my wife's cellphone, while the other extensions work just as before (eg. 1 still rings our bedroom.) But I specifically did NOT configure Asterisk to be able to place outgoing calls to arbitrary numbers. So the internal phones are only able to call my predefined extensions.
And again later I thought it might be practical to be able to call her bedroom phone from my cellphone. So I added a DID number (direct inward dialing) to my voip.ms account. Then I configured Asterisk to accept incoming calls from voip.ms, then prompt for an extension, and forward the call accordingly. So when I call the number, I hear "please dial an extension", then I can type 2, and my daughter's phone rings.
In order to avoid spam calls, I made Asterisk check the caller ID and accept calls coming ONLY from my cellphone or from my wife's cellphone. (I'm well aware that caller ID can be spoofed, in fact I have spoofed it myself a few times with my setup as a demonstration to family & friends.) In the 2 months since I bought the DID number I did not see a single call intercepted by my caller id filter. So it looks like I got a pretty "clean" number. I understand that I might not have been that lucky.
And that's basically where I'm at today. We have a mostly private in-home phone network, that can also call our cellphones, and our cellphones only are allowed to call into the house phone system.
Our daughter will call us in the morning when she wakes up to say what she wants for breakfast. When her cousins visit, they chat on the phone from room to room. It's fun!
As someone who knew nothing about Asterisk, I found the official documentation utterly mediocre. The process of configuring it consisted mostly of finding real-world examples, then trying to reverse engineer them by finding what they do from the documentation. But in the end I still got everything to work exactly the way I wanted it.
Pre-WFH, there were several groups of crows near my office covering distinct territories around my building. I made a habit of feeding and interacting with a few of these groups, every day for several months. Here are my experiences:
* I did indeed see a crow "anting" one time, and was initially as bewildered as the photographer in TFA. Surprisingly I was able to get much closer to the bird than they normally allow, but stepped back as soon as I saw it wasn't actually in distress.
* The best way to get close to a crow is to back up towards it; they are extremely wary of eye contact and will immediately become alert if you look at them or move towards them with your body facing forward. Over time, I used this method to get close to them and demonstrate that I wasn't a threat. I "trained" the crows to recognize that if they let me get close, I'll drop some food for them. After a while you don't have to do the backwards shimmy, but it's a good default strategy for approaching naturally skittish creatures.
* If you feed crows in exactly the same place every day, they will recognize you and fly to the "feeding spot". Crows pay very close attention to your movements and behaviors, and like most animals will try to develop a mental model to figure out when you're going to feed them. If presented with consistent causal behaviors, the birds will essentially train themselves.
* Crows are very sensitive to changes in appearance and behavior. I switched jackets one day and was met with immediate suspicion.
* My most fruitful experiment was right before the lockdown. I would stand in a specific ___location for a little while and watch the birds (watching them from a distance piques their curiosity and alertness to you). With them watching, I would pretend to plant food somewhere nearby and then move away. The crows would fly over, and I would immediately reward them. After a few weeks of this, I began gesturing towards nearby objects with my hand, and the birds would investigate the object immediately after I move away. After consistently rewarding this behavior, I was able to advance to "pointing to a semi-nearby object with my arm". One crow eventually figured out how to fly to the object I was pointing at, and I did a few successful tests to make sure the crow would fly specifically to the object I was pointing at, and not at some other nearby object. I have yet to train them to land on distant objects, but I'm hopeful!
* Crows like pistachios (they have multiple techniques for cracking the shell), and love cashews and peanuts (unsalted are best for the birds). They'll almost always opt for the "more convenient" snack, especially when they're competing with other crows. I try to reward the "bravest" crows first, by slowly moving away from the food pile until one crow moves in. Like other animals, crows also learn by observing the reward loop from a distance, and you can use this to get a large number of them to trust you.
* Crows are very curious when they feel safe, and it is mutually entertaining to set up unusual scenarios (such as hiding food inside or under tricky objects, like empty water bottles or closed paper containers).
If you want to keep the google accounts working for things that free (photos, YouTube etc) you can switch first to the business essentials plan and then to the cloud identity plan. Then you can move the email elsewhere but the google accounts still work.
This was essential for me as I used g suite for my family and some are using it for photos.
I currently have 10 fully remote engineering jobs. The bar is so low, oversight is non-existent, and everyone is so forgiving for under performance I can coast about 4-8 weeks before a given job fires me. Currently on a $1.5M run-rate for comp
this year. And the interviewing process is so much faster today, companies are desperate, it takes me 2-3hrs of total effort to land a new job with thousands to chose from.
Lots of "plans" seem logical and this is precisely why technocracy is a vexation on society.
Unintended consequences. The presumption of knowledge and control.
All of these elite presumptions are illusory and fundamentally hubristic.
You know why "limiting the consumption" of alcohol is a dumb suggestion? We have tons of evidence that it was a massive failure: Prohibition and the War on Drugs.
No matter how well-intended you are - it'll backfire and people will ignore it.
Humans are fundamentally social creatures. Millions of years of evolution have seared into their biology the instinct to be social.
The idea that we can force humans into acting against their fundamental instincts to socialize is folly. Not only folly - but abuse.
But seriously, it's bizarre. The obdurance of so-called experts set on working against the grain of every human instinct, as though that's likely to maximize the success of their plans.
Points 2 and 3 are HN responses to my comments or adjacent ones. It's going to be a bit hard to find them now, but I'll post them at the bottom. Listen, I really don't want to Gish Gallop you, but there's no way for me to claim people were saying this without showing you people saying this: (and there are way more people saying this on Reddit and Twitter, but time is short, so I can't do any more research for you)
and it was only in the last decade that the vanishing gradients problem was tamed.
my impression is that ML researchers were stumbling along in the mathematical dark, until they hit a combination (deep neural nets trained via stochastic gradient descent with ReLU activation) that worked like magic and ended the AI winter.