for the love of the game. if not now, when? do impressive things. 📩 btbytes@gmail
Carmel, IN
Joined April 2007
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Pradeep Gowda retweeted
This reminds me of my own post-PhD experience. It was after the 2008 crash, and research oriented industry jobs in the US were scarce.
I applied to triple-digit jobs online and didn't get a single interview call. By the standards prevalent at the time, I had an extremely good CV with all the right credentials. But I made two big mistakes. First, of graduating in a tough job market, of which I couldn't do anything about. Two, not reaching out to potential employers via my network. Part of it was pride. But a large part was also driven by my extremely high opinion of my own capabilities -- I thought that if someone wanted me, they should come to me (the former is still very true, btw).
Eventually, I realized my mistake, and reached out to my network and I ended up getting 5-6 interviews. Those translated to 3 offers, one of which I eventually ended up taking.
The whole experience taught me two very important lessons:
1. Network effects matter, irrespective of how good your CV is.
2. If you want something you need to go to people; they won't come to you, irrespective of your capabilities.
Pradeep Gowda retweeted
There are two reasons we did this in Sanskrit. One, because it can be done. 😎
Two, because it opens up some interesting shastric perspectives on the topic beyond regular points of discussion.
Pradeep Gowda retweeted
We hugely underestimate the utter fragility of modernity.
Many times in history, we've turned the clock back to a much tougher & rougher past.
For centuries after Rome fell, Europeans couldn't even dream of things like hot piped water, luxurious baths & central heating.
We think that the real is rational, that the "system" will deliver the goods. The truth is that modern systems are like spiderwebs: break one part & the edifice gets exponentially weaker. Romans who lived through the fall must have been shocked at how quickly things fell apart.
Another period when we turned back the clock was when globalization was reversed right after an assassination in Sarajevo sparked WW1.
Keynes writes about this period eloquently. Things were hunky dory & considered permanently so, and then suddenly everything went wrong.
When we blithely mock our own systems with tribal glee, when we knock down institutions, when we take political pleasure in zero-sum fights, when we take war less than seriously, just remember that the cave, starvation & the tribal club are never too far away from modern life.
Even the most cynical, jaded and corrupt Romans of Nero's era must have been horrified at what they had unleashed once it was clear they were going way back in time. And once they went back, the only way forward was centuries of deprivation & painfully slow invention.
It's hard to correlate these events with our own era but just remember that Rome saw itself & its progress as eternal, ditto pre war Europe.
Modernity is God's greatest gift to us. Cherish it, cultivate it, protect it. Don't let systems get vandalized, institutions get wrecked.
Protecting modernity means protecting systems, institutions & norms of civilization. This is not some idle musing: these things stand between you & your family & chaos. Without truth, systems & objective laws, you don't get science. Without science, you don't get antibiotics.
As Rome fell, it's interesting to note that truth & facts became subordinated to pleasure, corruption, luxury & belief in magic.
It's worth thinking about that as you look at our civilization.
Modernity, technology, civilization are all very fragile things.
Surprising* but not surprising. This will make hardware hacking available to lot more. Who has time to learn how JTAG works.
If people are repurposing their ten year old hardware over serial ports, why not do the same with new hardware.
We're living in the future. I just got access to a beta hardware product that's fairly complicated. The instructions were "plug this into your usb c port and give claude code this skill file - it'll do the rest". Then Claude Code just did magical flashing of the device with auto set up. VERY cool experience.
Pradeep Gowda retweeted
ಇದೊಂದು ಕಾರಣ ಆಂಗ್ಲ ಭಾರತೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲ. ನಮ್ಮ ಪದಸಂಪದೆ ಕಡಿಮೆ. ನನಗೆ ಕೆಲವು ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆ ಚಂಡೀಗಢದಲ್ಲಿ ನನ್ನ ಕಂಪನಿಯಲ್ಲಿ Vocabulary Test ಮೂಲಕ ಸಹಕರ್ಮಿಯಗಳ ಆಂಗ್ಲ ಪದಸಂಪದೆ ಗೊತ್ತಾಯ್ತು. ಸುಮಾರು ೬೦೦೦ ಪದಗಳು ಇತ್ತು. ಮೂರು ಜನ ಸಹಕರ್ಮಿಗಳಿಗೆ ೧೦೦೦೦ ರಿಂತ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಪದಗಳು ಗೊತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಒಬ್ಬನಿಗೆ ೨೩೦೦೦ ಪದಗಳು ಗೊತ್ತಿತ್ತು.
Pradeep Gowda retweeted
Introducing TrellisWM:
The Fractal Window Manager for MacOS
Its how the desktop should have always been.
Download at
TrellisWM.app
Pradeep Gowda retweeted
Excited to announce that Moondream is joining Prime Intellect to accelerate inference and continue building the next generation of efficient multimodal models!
The Code is No-Code
thewayofcode.com/
Pradeep Gowda retweeted
Growing in BLR spoils you for weather almost everywhere else in the world. Especially if you did so in that 200+ era. (This chart doesn't cover humidity, which it should, which would put some of these cities close to zero. <-;)
> undergraduate class on "financial planning"
> none can calculate 80% of 400k
what are they gonna plan? two martini lunches?
I made an unsettling discovery in my undergraduate class on financial planning last week. While explaining mortgages, I asked my 38 students this question: if you buy a $400,000 house and pay 20% in cash towards the purchase, what will be the amount that you finance?
Not a single student could tell me the answer. Despite the fact that they are all juniors and seniors majoring in business.
I added more questions: what is 30 percent of 80? 60 percent of 90? They didn’t know. The closest they got was when one student said, in response to my query of “40% of 70”, that “I know it’s 4 times 7 but I don’t remember what that is.” Another student helpfully added, “28.”
They explained to me why they couldn’t answer these math questions: they were never taught multiplication tables, percentages or fractions during their K-12 schooling. Instead, they were taught how to use a calculator. Without one, they are not able to do basic arithmetic.
I later asked the dean about this, and he lamented that this isn’t a thing just for our university’s students; it’s a thing for their entire generation, nationwide.
When I was in K-12, the fierce debate among parents and educators was whether to allow calculators in class. The calculators won.
Today, the debate is about AI. And like before, the tech will win. But will that truly be a victory?
Rowan University #college #math #loans #CFP #financialplanning
