BC TECH

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Ankur Handa
@ankurhandos 5 years, 5 months ago 640 views

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Some simulation platforms that caught my eye this year 🧵

RoboThor from @allen_ai

https://t.co/Ch6GvWHHgP

ThreeDWorld: A Platform for Interactive Multi-Modal Physical Simulation

https://t.co/vEXqGx1ddA

https://t.co/I6UQKTDf41

SAPIEN: A SimulAted Part-based Interactive ENvironment

https://t.co/khJN7xZifp

https://t.co/pc7BeELFsF

TartanAir: A Dataset to Push the Limits of Visual SLAM

https://t.co/18kPS3xSeX

https://t.co/o6YQVWlTji

Interactive Gibson: A Benchmark for Interactive Navigation in Cluttered Environments

https://t.co/iUMCZK1o8c

virtual home (v2)

https://t.co/cvv4G2MN04

AllenAct: A Framework for Embodied AI Research

https://t.co/7d2C2pJR0W

https://t.co/Ch2blo8VC1

robosuite: A Modular Simulation Framework and Benchmark for Robot Learning

https://t.co/pmp5Au2s5A

NeuralSim: Augmenting Differentiable Simulators with Neural Networks

https://t.co/dQhkE9Kx59

SoftGym: Benchmarking Deep Reinforcement Learning for Deformable Object Manipulation

https://t.co/Y0fsAOVUzr

Flightmare: A Flexible Quadrotor Simulator

https://t.co/p1NfyJrPHm

TriFinger: An Open-Source Robot for Learning Dexterity

https://t.co/yw4wmY5zII

Eldersim: A Synthetic Data Generation Platform For Human Action Recognition In Eldercare Applications

https://t.co/TD43xqMZZu

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Patrick McKenzie
@patio11

Most software founders, particularly in B2B, need to get radically better at sales. @Steli , who is the best person for explaining the scrappy stages in the beginning and then building out a team with scripts and processes, wrote a guide to:

For technical founders it is irrationally, obscenely hard to reverse years of programming (ba dum bum) that sales is a value-destroying activity. Sales is CLEARLY a value-creating activity, contingent on you have a value-creating product.

The world will not drop what they are doing to adopt your work. This is particularly true in B2B, where simply building a better mousetrap won't overcome the activation energy required to get people with additional non-mice problems to prioritize changing mousetraps today.

This is very non-obvious for founders because founders are not often people who *want* to be sold to. We often come from a background where trying out tools is a bit of a fun hobby. We like looking at all the options, making charts, and ripping out partially complete tests.

"This week I unsuccessfully trialed four software options for automating that thing that has been killing us. Our actual production process remains the same as last week. Don't worry; this was a great use of time." is not a thing you want to write in a progress report to manager.

Josh Butler
@JoshButler

Users: hey can you get rid of the Nazis please

Twitter: ok sure, we've changed the stars to hearts for likes

Users: no no, zero Nazis please

Twitter: yep we're getting rid of Vine

Users: nah hey, what about the Nazis

Twitter: ok ok fine, no more likes

Really though, if you had to ask any average user what were the main things leading to a bad "quality of debate" on this bad website, the tiny little heart symbols would not exactly be at the top of most people's lists

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Novid Houellebecq (Tha...
@GarouGothic

I want to explain what happened to tumblr overnight. And why Twitter as reached it's dream (or have come ever so close to it)

Yahoo, who bought Tumblr years ago, used to have a huge adult presence on the early net. They allowed adult groups and what not.

However, people and bots (just like now) misused the service, and Yahoo were forced to make a choice. They made private the groups (and later closed them down and sold some of it to other companies) and then ended their chatrooms on yahoo messenger...

after a incident with one of the chatrooms vid cams. The damage was done, Yahoo Messenger lost a lot of people - and with the closing of the groups - backpage and Craigslist came more important.

Now backpage is no more and Craigslist is slowly passing away. Tumblr had a semi strong community, but once 2014 came around and both porn, and political bots exploded the quality started to go down,

El Sandifer, Rationali...
@ElSandifer

I’m quoted in this, which does about as good a job overviewing the topic as a New York Times profile can be expected to.

Major oversights in it as I see.

First, It does not acknowledge the fact that Yudkowsky is, at heart, a complete crank. This remains, to my mind, crucial to understanding the rationalist community’s influence on the world: they’re sci-fi writers being mistaken for scientists.

You can’t really understand the harmful effects of SSC until you realize that it’s part of a larger movement of bullshit artists serving as cult leaders to the techbros.

Second, and more importantly, it never really explains the harm that’s being done by Scott Siskind and his followers. It comes close, noting that “SJWs” were the only group not welcome in SSC, but it doesn’t capture the harm of that because it doesn’t unpack the term.

What is meant in practice when “SJWs” aren’t welcome in a space is that marginalized people speaking of the harm they experience are silenced.

That’s it. That’s the meaning.

(((E. Glen Weyl)))
@glenweyl

I am grateful to @slatestarcodex for taking the time to respond to my critique of technocracy. There is a lot there to respond to and in general I think the exchange speaks for itself. However, I think there are few points where clarification is important for the exchange to be

productive, which I'll briefly address here. I suspect many fellow travelers (e.g. @audreyt @dsallentess @JohnnieM @MichelleRempel @VitalikButerin @mds49) will find the exchange fairly ironic/revealing. I'll post this as a response on this blog as well.

1. Let me start with concessions. There are many points where @slatestarcodex correctly highlights various areas where my grasp of beliefs and facts are limited or wrong, especially in the depth of my grasp of the views of the rationalist community.

I freely admit that there are serious limits to how much I've been able to research the views of people in this community and I certainly hope they are not as I characterized them, though as I will point out below many elements of @slatestarcodex's response confirm my concerns.

2. Given the last point, I fully acknowledge the danger of throwing stones lest I shatter my own glass house. However, leaving aside any blame, I think to make sense of my piece and @slatestarcodex's response requires a bit of context that clearly he lacked. First, outside

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Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet

प्राचीन काल में गाधि नामक एक राजा थे।उनकी सत्यवती नाम की एक पुत्री थी।राजा गाधि ने अपनी पुत्री का विवाह महर्षि भृगु के पुत्र से करवा दिया।महर्षि भृगु इस विवाह से बहुत प्रसन्न हुए और उन्होने अपनी पुत्रवधु को आशीर्वाद देकर उसे कोई भी वर मांगने को कहा।

सत्यवती ने महर्षि भृगु से अपने तथा अपनी माता के लिए पुत्र का वरदान मांगा।ये जानकर महर्षि भृगु ने यज्ञ किया और तत्पश्चात सत्यवती और उसकी माता को अलग-अलग प्रकार के दो चरू (यज्ञ के लिए पकाया हुआ अन्न) दिए और कहा कि ऋतु स्नान के बाद तुम्हारी माता पुत्र की इच्छा लेकर पीपल का आलिंगन...

...करें और तुम भी पुत्र की इच्छा लेकर गूलर वृक्ष का आलिंगन करना। आलिंगन करने के बाद चरू का सेवन करना, इससे तुम दोनो को पुत्र प्राप्ति होगी।परंतु मां बेटी के चरू आपस में बदल जाते हैं और ये महर्षि भृगु अपनी दिव्य दृष्टि से देख लेते हैं।

भृगु ऋषि सत्यवती से कहते हैं,"पुत्री तुम्हारा और तुम्हारी माता ने एक दुसरे के चरू खा लिए हैं।इस कारण तुम्हारा पुत्र ब्राह्मण होते हुए भी क्षत्रिय सा आचरण करेगा और तुम्हारी माता का पुत्र क्षत्रिय होकर भी ब्राह्मण सा आचरण करेगा।"
इस पर सत्यवती ने भृगु ऋषि से बड़ी विनती की।

सत्यवती ने कहा,"मुझे आशीर्वाद दें कि मेरा पुत्र ब्राह्मण सा ही आचरण करे।"तब महर्षि ने उसे ये आशीर्वाद दे दिया कि उसका पुत्र ब्राह्मण सा ही आचरण करेगा किन्तु उसका पौत्र क्षत्रियों सा व्यवहार करेगा। सत्यवती का एक पुत्र हुआ जिसका नाम जम्दाग्नि था जो सप्त ऋषियों में से एक हैं।

Eric
@ericbahn

1/ Recently, I learned about the concept of ‘struggle porn’. This refers to the fetish of sacrificing nearly everything (health, relationships, time) for your startup. I fear that this label is creating more harm than good.

2/ @nateliason wrote a fabulous article about this topic, which first introduced me to this concept. Everyone should read it:

3/ @alexisohanian also recently spoke about struggle porn, though referring to it as ‘hustle porn.’ (as the co-founder of @hustlefundvc, obviously I take issue with this pejorative definition of ‘hustle’, but that’s another topic)

4/ Struggling in itself isn’t necessarily bad. Let’s be real here--if you’re going to start a startup, you will struggle. Founders should expect to work harder generally than employees. You will be challenged in many ways and also be super rewarded in others. This is normal.

5/ However, if you are over-indexing on hard work without clear purpose and degrading your mental health/relationships in the process--then this is very bad and we obviously should not celebrate this behavior.

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Tom Hirst
@tom_hirst

How to create a freelancing website that makes money.

Everything I've learned.

A thread.

As a freelancer,

Your website is everything.

First, prioritise its existence.

Second, prioritise its improvement.

The technology you use is irrelevant.

- WordPress
- Notion
- Carrd
- Wix

It doesn't matter which you choose,

What matters is you have a website.

Pick a platform that you're comfortable with.

If you can:

- Capture leads
- Add content easily
- Have a clear design

You're good.

If your website doesn't get leads,

It's not working.

Don't rest on a website that doesn't work for you.

Improve it until it does.

Devdutta
@Devdutta96

Please please please take your cyber security seriously even if you don’t consider yourself a high risk person. Here are a few easy things to start with. 1/n

Switch from WhatsApp to Signal and enable disappearing messages. Most of us cannot stop using WhatsApp entirely but at least turn off back ups to Google Drive or iCloud. 2/n

Do not have private conversations using the messaging service on any social media platform like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. 3/n

Switch from Gmail to ProtonMail or any other secure email service provider. 4/n

Switch from Google Docs to CryptPad or RiseUp Pad.

Simon DeDeo
@SimonDeDeo

"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."

As a dean of a major academic institution, I could not have said this. But I will now. Requiring such statements in applications for appointments and promotions is an affront to academic freedom, and diminishes the true value of diversity, equity of inclusion by trivializing it. https://t.co/NfcI5VLODi
— Jeffrey Flier (@jflier) November 10, 2018

We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".