March 2011
50 posts
3 tags
February 2011
32 posts
3 tags
6 tags
1 tag
6 tags
2 tags
“At any given moment, our most complicated machine will be taken as a model of...”
– Adam Gopnik, “How the Internet Gets Inside Us” (via marathonpacks)
1 tag
Wisconsin Protest Rundown (2.5) -
diokollias:
lefan-o-rama:
Beck, Malkin, Byrnes, et al. losing their minds.
New York Times expands coverage.
Russ Feingold on Rachel Maddow’s show last night discussing his new PAC and the current state of politics in WI.
Coverage at boingboing (h/t nebraska-admiral)
Video from inside the capital (~10am, 02/17/2011)
This tumblr is amazing. Great inside coverage!
1 tag
The revolutionary spirit
Last night I went to a folk music concert in North Oakland. The walls were hung with woven tapestries and we all sat on futons. The room was packed was aging hippies: white ponytails and leather fringe. Aging hippies are a dime a dozen in the Berkeley environs. Heck, I was there with my aunt and uncle, real-live aging hippie leftists, who’ve been in Berkeley for decades. And so it...
Wisconsin Protest Rundown (2.0) -
lefan-o-rama:
Many protesters remained at the capital overnight again. When I left at 10:30 there were still 1500-2000 people watching the amendment hearing in the rotunda and protesting outside of the chamber doors.
The Amendment to Special Session Senate Bill 11 was passed at midnight last night along party lines (as expected), even after hours of scrutiny by democratic legislators.
Noam...
1 tag
Wisconsin Protest Rundown
I’m confused: there is a significant workers’ rights protest taking place in Madison, Wisconsin, where Governor Walker is trying to take away collective bargaining rights from teachers, EMTs, and other public servants. It appears that the New York Times doesn’t think this is a big deal; I can’t find a mention of it on their site. I kind of think it is a big deal, and...
1 tag
This concludes this week's edition of Neuroscience...
I am all out of philosophical and scientific thoughts for the week. Perhaps I’ll devote tomorrow to other issues of great import and interest. Like, where does my DIY haircut fall on the spectrum of bad hairdos from Blagojevich to Bieber to Bardem? Stay tuned for gratuitous pictures.
Gnite folks.
8 tags
In which Reaganing teaches us about statistical...
reaganing:
… Nerding commencing.
I agree that language learning will someday be computationally tractable by machines…but for now, all we’ve got is Watson. You could even say that reading emotional cues that co-occur with language is a solvable computational problem (but not yet, of course). The study Lo talks about is Saffran, Aslin & Newport (1996) paper - it’s gone viral, by...
bmichael asked: Are you familiar with Wittgenstein's, I guess, "later" works?
7 tags
Babies and computational language learning
Previously about computer learning and then about what computer learning has to do with language.
My dad once asked me whether I thought that the ability to learn language was special or uniquely human. I told him no. Obviously, I have a deep passion for language. I think it’s the coolest thing on Earth, giving our species unending delight and whimsy. But I don’t think the ability to...
6 tags
Computational learning and language
Previously, about computer learning.
Like Watson the Jeopardy-playing computer, humans learn by experiencing hundreds of exemplars and formulate rules that describe a likely prototype. If you see enough dogs, you learn that dogs tend to have four legs and fur and tails. What’s interesting is that we still see canines that have had a limb amputated, hairless chihuahuas or docked Dobermans as...
6 tags
Watch“Smartest Machine on Earth”, NOVA documentary about Watson, the Jeopardy-playing computer.
This documentary explains how Watson is able to parse and answer Jeopardy questions. Watson’s knowledge comes from a variety of sources. The first is a vast store of data and documents (e.g., IMDb, wikipedia, the canon of Shakespeare, etc). Those documents enable Watson to answer the...
Eating chocolates in bed, alone on Valentine's Day
My laptop, keeping me warm while I watched a NOVA special about materials science, was also enough to melt some stray chocolate peanut butter cups onto my sheets.
And while the aroma is enticing, it reminds me, as I nod off, that I am probably not fit for a mate, anyway.
2 tags
Anonymous asked: is lo a vegetarian??????!!!!!!1
2 tags
1 tag
Romance and magic: Friday afternoon, Berkeley,...
I had noticed the guy talking to himself, over by the full-bloom geranium planter. He was gesticulating liberally and seemed to be enjoying both sides of the animated conversation he was having with himself. He certainly wasn’t threatening: not on a busy sunny sidewalk on a Friday in downtown Berkeley. This man was obviously crazy, but refreshingly so. Not angry-crazy like the guy that road...
2 tags
Other things I didn't know about whorehouses: You...
My enquiries started several years ago when I spotted a New York Times article about a police sting on a Queens brothel. The headline caught my eye and I kept reading long enough to see that this brothel was run by an infamous Latina midget. I was appalled. How could I be living so close to such wacky-ass shit and have no idea? How could I be so naive? There were Mexican midget madams running...
3 tags
Whorehouse words wholly unrelated: brothel and...
My mother was born and raised in France but didn’t speak much French to me growing up. Apparently my sister and I did our best to enforce assimilation into English-speaking culture by responding in French with put-on terrible American accents until she just gave up trying to speak to us. I do recall isolated French snippets, most of which I later discovered were vividly salty expressions or...
2 tags
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
4 tags
4 tags
4 tags
