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Smerity

@smerity.bsky.social

Always pondering startups, ML, Rust, Python, and 3D printing. Independent ML researcher consulting on LMs + data. Previously: Salesforce Research, MetaMind, CommonCrawl, Harvard. 🇦🇺 in SF. He/him. Personal blog: https://state.smerity.com

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Microplastics Sommelier@leastactionhero.bsky.social · 2y ago

einstein sent this to curie in 1911 when she was being harassed by tabloids. it contains everything you’d want in such a letter: (1) your haters are trash (2) you’re a baller, a true queen (3) i have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in planck’s radiation field 🧪⚛️

Prague, 23 November 1911 Highly esteemed Mrs. Curie, Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you!? that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. However, I am convinced that you consistently despise this rabble, whether it obsequiously lavishes respect on you or whether it attempts to satiate its lust for sensationalism! I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone who does not number among these reptiles is certainly happy, now as before, that we have such personages among us as you, and Langevin(3) too, real people with whom one feels privileged to be in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don't read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom i
Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

My contribution to a discussion at hiddenstates.org on explorables/user interfaces for controlling ML tools > We're trying to rig soundboards to control LLMs thinking there's a well defined interface underneath when it's actually a button that drops fertilizer into the river of a complex ecosystem.

Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

The fact that most wouldn't pay money for passive consumption "there" (reels, feed, ...) but do actively pay with the tick tock of our mind (hours spent, enriching the content locally, ...) is fascinating. If this is psychological obliteration we're very much an active participant in it.

Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

Who is playing around with Bluesky at an API / data level? I've used the API to {read a bot's DMs, collect your likes, analyze your following / followers} (with heavy `time.sleep` for latter as I've not found bulk queries). Leaping into "Bluesky as a dataset" by exploring Jetstream. Hints?

Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

Writing more Rust recently led me to a revelation about Python. Rust was vital to my original task, but only a few simplifications away, the shorter Python version leapt to almost as fast. I'd stumbled from a cold path to a hot path, part of a vast network of optimized trails in Python's ecosystem.

Smerity.com: Python isn't just glue, it's an implicit JIT ecosystem

The ecosystem wears in the desire paths, and when slow Python becomes a problem, the ecosystem doesn't optimize the Python, it paves new roads beneath

state.smerity.com

Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

PSA: Are your Bluesky notifications a tad too loud? You can set Bluesky to only replies and quotes. Go to the Notifications tab (web or mobile) and click on the ⚙️ in the top right. Note: This option is not found under Settings

Notification Settings Notification filters Enable priority notifications [Toggle box] Experimental: When this preference is enabled, you'll only receive reply and quote notifications from users you follow. We'll continue to add more controls here over time.
Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

I still had muscle memory of typing "tw + Enter" to go to X, even a year and a half after the rename. Browser extensions exist redirecting Twitter / X to Bluesky but those were too extreme - I wrote one that _just_ redirects twitter.com to bsky.com so I could take advantage of that muscle memory 🤣

Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

I'm wondering what the world would look like if there was a 🔴Big Red Button🔴 on each page of the documentation for {libraries, APIs, books, ...}. It doesn't even need to be complex. A heat map of pain is by itself such a strong signal given we lack insight even as simple as churn rate for non-use.

Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

I love that Bluesky has App Passwords. Even better that Sky Follower Bridge, likely one of the first apps a new user will log in to, explicitly nudges you towards using an app password. There are still full blown APIs (and platforms / banks -_-) that don't allow per-app keys/passwords 😱

github.com

Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

PSA: By default, only people you follow can send you DMs. If you want your profile to be open to serendipitous DMs from new possible friends it's an explicit option you need to select :)

Chat Settings > Allow New Messages from > Everyone / Users I Follow / No one
Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

My joke paper that uses the non-linear non-sensical pricing of chicken nuggets in fast food to power a novel activation function for ML models had: (a) A citation (b) For a definition I'm proud of and want better known (c) In a paper + thesis about using ML for typhoon satellite imagery Happy days!

Dropout Another powerful regularisation technique is dropout [52], which consists of randomly setting some activations to zero. It aims to prevent specific units (neurons) to co-adapt too much. A very concise yet simple definition of dropout has been recently given by [53]: [...]. Dropout, simply described, is the concept that if you can learn how to do a task repeatedly whilst drunk, you should be able to do the task even better when sober. [...]
Smerity@smerity.bsky.social · 2y ago

At least Gemini Advanced and I are in agreement that losing unrelated features when you set "Gemini Apps Activity" to off in order to prevent Google training on your conversations (even as a paying customer) is a dark pattern 🤔

Smerity asks Gemini Advanced: "Is there any option to use Gemini without having my data used by Google for training? Losing all history in the Gemini interface seems like a purposeful design decision to take away features from users who don't want their data used." Gemini Advanced answers: "You're right to be concerned about this. It does seem like a design decision to encourage data sharing. Unfortunately, there's no way to completely prevent Google from using your data when using Gemini, even with Gemini Advanced."