The article clearly states that it’s using our colloquial meaning of “computer” as a metaphor to help convey their thought experiment. It even has a disclaimer about using metaphors.
FWIW I think it’s an interesting thought experiment. I think it’s especially interesting to draw the parallel to biology. Clearly our brains are doing computation by even the strictest definition of computer, so at which biological level does computation stop? A chunk of my brain is clearly doing computation, a neuron must be doing computation since that is the building block for our brains. Single cells must also be doing computation since a single cell had all of the computational knowledge encoded in it to build me. All of these processes are built upon physical reality, so it’s not that big a leap that similar processes might emerge elsewhere and at different scales and using different physical mechanisms.
This is awesome! As a software person who dabbles in hardware, I cannot believe that HW folks put up with such arcane, slow, and cumbersome tools. I think anyone who’s critical of this idea has no idea how good they could be having it.
Installing PyTorch with the PyTorch website instructions for AMD was pretty painless for me on Linux. I know everybodies experience is different, but install wasn't the issue for me.
For me the issue on AMD was stability in situations when VRAM was getting tight.
Yeah Carmack is no doubt a 20x engineer, but I wouldn’t put him in the same category of prolific genius as Euler. As far as prolific engineers go, I’d say Fabrice Bellard would be closer (but still not even close) to an Euler.
All of ML, including DL, are literally implemented using mathematical models. Alas, a model is just a model and doesn’t imply it works well or imply that it’s simple or easily discoverable.
The difference though is that generally there is a cap on how much is costs to live comfortably. If someone is so rich that they can live exclusively off interest, then they get to live comfortably and keep their initial investment. Another thread called this reaching escape velocity which I think is an apt term for it.
Isn’t the idea that with this cement mixture your house’s foundation acts as energy storage “for free”?
I think the application is for cases where you’re already using cement as a building material, so you might as well mix in some carbon and also get energy storage out of it.
Is it free? They don't mention home energy storage as a potential application. I would have no trouble believing that the extra electrical work and additions to the foundation beyond what's involved in a traditional cement foundation cost a whole lot less than a lithium battery.
I'd also be concerned about problems with the foundation. Foundations crack and suffer water damage. My mom just had her foundation repaired. What risk is there that the electricity can discharge?
Like if it's as simple as running some inexpensive cables through the cement mix and plugging in a little box, awesome. But I suspect this is hardly the case, and I suspect the sheer volume of cement needed to be practical/useful is quite high for residential use.
I don’t really understand how this is a paradox, but it’s definitely surprising and non intuitive.
It seems like if you have 2 games A and B, the second you start playing them together you’ve effectively created a new game C, which is a game of A and B combined.
> Is Parrondo's paradox really a "paradox"? This question is sometimes asked by mathematicians, whereas physicists usually don't worry about such things. The first thing to point out is that "Parrondo's paradox" is just a name, just like the "Braess's paradox" or "Simpson's paradox." Secondly, as is the case with most of these named paradoxes they are all really apparent paradoxes. People drop the word "apparent" in these cases as it is a mouthful, and it is obvious anyway. So no one claims these are paradoxes in the strict sense. In the wide sense, a paradox is simply something that is counterintuitive. Parrondo's games certainly are counterintuitive—at least until you have intensively studied them for a few months. The truth is we still keep finding new surprising things to delight us, as we research these games. I have had one mathematician complain that the games always were obvious to him and hence we should not use the word "paradox." He is either a genius or never really understood it in the first place. In either case, it is not worth arguing with people like that.
> I don’t really understand how this is a paradox,
You do:
> but it’s definitely surprising and non intuitive.
That's a common definition of a paradox: "a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true."
Ok I misunderstood what it means to be a paradox, this does seem to apply. The point I was intending to make is that the composition of 2 games entails a new game which creates an entirely new ruleset and therefore new potential outcomes. On the spectrum of paradoxes this one doesn’t feel particularly profound, but perhaps it’s due to the examples being especially contrived.
Exactly. Of course you can rig up a set of game rules that lead to a specified outcome under specified conditions. This paradox just boils down to a game rule that says "Alternately play these two subgames." I don't get it.
