Princeton's blog platform hosts posts by researchers on deep learning theory, optimization, math, and climate science.
HN links it for research posts; commenters cite the methane greenhouse gas article and discuss deep learning theory and academic science blogs.
I could rant about this for hours. I actually just went to a defense for a deep learning paper that had a ton of abstract algebra. I am honestly not really a fan of deep learning and algebra because all the papers to me like- seem to stop at describing some really basic feedforward network as some really specific mathematical structure but these theories a) provide very little explanation of empirical phenomena b) provide no new directions of research in terms of like useful network architectures.
I haven't really come across algebra in machine learning other than people applying it to deep learning.
i.e. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.03690.pdf
ie. https://icml.cc/Conferences/2018/Schedule?showEvent=2048
I don't personally find papers like this valuable but idk I have never really enjoyed abstract algebra.
For areas of mathematics to do theory in ML (and to do ML more generally!)
-probability/concentration/hoeffding bounds [the PAC model] [Key]
-linear algebra [key]
-optimization [key]
for books
-understanding machine learning by shai ben david
This book is nice since it really balances theory with a more practical understanding.
-An Introduction to Computational Learning Theory by kearns is a classic [low priority]. this is fun since the proofs are simple and deep but is very very far away from practical algorithms.
-convex optimization by boyd
Course Notes:
[I think a good alternative to blogs is stalking course notes for other schools-they are very…
Klainerman said that “to promote excellence in research and teaching, major American universities have to develop policies that are blind to considerations of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, socio-economic class and any other factor not relevant to intellectual achievement.”
Here is the problem with that logic. To say now in 2020 that the school should be colorblind does nothing to address the systemic racism that existed for hundreds of years. Princeton did not accept black students until after WWII[1], so several generations of blacks were denied entrance, despite being academically qualified. Their children and grandchildren are therefore denied the benefits of legacy admission (which currently runs at about 30% acceptance vs 5.8% for regular applicants[2]). In this example being colorblind still hurts some students (or helps others, if you see it that way) solely based on the color of their skin.
1. https://blogs.princeton.edu/reelmudd/2010/10/black-alumni-looking-back-1996/
2. https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/college-legacy/#:~:text=Princeton%2C%20with%20its%20minuscule%205.8,grant%20favor%20to%20legacy%20applicants.
Over at Scott Aaronson's blog his father has mentioned that, according to the coroner, he may have had undiagnosed type-I diabetes [1]. His father also mentions that Michael supported the charity givedirectly.org if anyone prefers to offer condolences that way.
It's a sad event for the theoretical CS community. I didn't know Michael, but looking at some of the other memorials some prominent researchers have written ([2], [3]), he appears to have been an extremely promising researcher and collaborator.
[1] https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3468#comment-1746556
[2] https://blogs.princeton.edu/imabandit/2017/09/28/michael-b-cohen/
[3] https://lucatrevisan.wordpress.com/2017/09/26/3915/
About 30x worse: https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2014/03/26/a-more-potent-greenhouse-gas-than-co2-methane-emissions-will-leap-as-earth-warms-nature/
As far as carbon neutrality goes, you’re drawing a conclusion about the value based only on the first derivative. If you hold livestock numbers constant (they’re increasing, alas, but let’s not worry about that yet) then there will be a rough equilibrium. However, the gas is in the atmosphere for some time until it gets fixed back into the soil, and continues to have a warming effect in the meantime.
Any carbon tax has to punish emissions. Net zero emissions isn’t enough anymore.
It is really hard to feel happy when you are poor (first hand experience), Money can buy happiness[1][2]. Conversely we do feel much joy when we see someone we envy fail, more so if we feel (rightly or not) that their success was ill deserved[3].
[1] https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WE-AA766B_HAPPY_16U_20141107152410.jpg - from page 12 of [2]
[2] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/04/subjective-well-being-income/subjective-well-being-income.pdf
[3] https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/tag/schadenfreude/
There appears to still be active research about mechanisms that explain the historical data but here's a clearly written article [1] discussing a few factors such as: variation in solar radiation due to variation in Earth's orbit, changing ocean currents which may lead to huge upwellings of carbon dioxide from previously sunken dead algae.
[1] https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2013/04/30/how-the-ice-ages-ended/