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Is it something like this? http://www.cipr.rpi.edu/research/SPIHT/EW_Code/FastAC_Readme.pdf
Thanks for posting this link, it contains a good illustration of the problem of using separate encoder/decoder implementations.
See how they have separate encoder/decoder implementations on page 8/9 of the document? That strategy is very very error prone. It is very hard for the programmer to ensure that the encoder and decoder are performing exactly the same updates, and even the slightest off-by-one error will cause the process to fail completely (I spent many hours trying to debug sync problems like this). This problem becomes more painful as you attempt to build more and more sophisticated compressors.
With my library, there is no separation of encoder and decoder logic; it is effectively the same code. That basically guarantees there will be no sync problems. Since I developed this technique I haven't had any sync problems.
So it's more of a library and less of an application?
Two basic questions:
(1) What are the immediate practical applications?
(2) How qualified must the user be? (The "all you have to do is supply a probability model" part is worrying :-/)
Basically, if you have your own dataset that you wanted to compress with a special purpose model, you could try doing that. You could try out compression-based tricks for computer vision, like in this paper. You could use it as part of an information theory course if you wanted to show students a real example of compression in practice.
In my view it is quite easy to use, but you still need to be a programmer with some knowledge of stats and information theory.
In response to
Open thread, Jul. 11 - Jul. 17, 2016
I have some software I am thinking about packaging up and releasing as open-source, but I'd like to gauge how interesting it is to people other than me.
The software is a highly useable implementation of arithmetic encoding. AE completely handles the problem of encoding, so in order to build a custom compressor for some data set, all you have to do is supply a probability model for the data type(s) you are compressing (I call this "BYOM" - Bring Your Own Model).
One of the key technical difficulties of data compression is that you need to keep the encoder and decoder in exact sync, or the whole procedure goes entirely off the rails. This problem is especially acute for the use case of AE, where you are potentially changing the model in response to every event. My software makes it very easy to guarantee that the sender/receiver are in sync, and at the same time it reduces the amount of code you have to write (basically you don't write a separate encoder and decoder, you just write one class that is used for both, depending on the configuration).
In response to
Open thread, June 27 - July 3, 2016
Say you are a strong believer and advocate for the Silicon Valley startup tech culture, but you want to be able to pass an Ideological Turing Test to show that you are not irrational or biased. In other words, you need to write some essays along the lines of "Startups are Dumb" or "Why You Should Stay at Your Big Company Job". What kind of arguments would you use?
This comment got 6+ responses, but none that actually attempted to answer the question. My goal of Socratically prompting contrarian thinking, without being explicitly contrarian myself, apparently failed. So here is my version:
- Most startups are gimmicky and derivative, even or especially the ones that get funded.
- Working for a startup is like buying a lottery ticket: a small chance of a big payoff. But since humans are by nature risk-averse, this is a bad strategy from a utility standpoint.
- Startups typically do not create new technology; instead they create new technology-dependent business models.
- Even if startups are a good idea in theory, currently they are massively overhyped, so on the margin people should be encouraged to avoid them.
- Early startup employees (not founders) don't make more than large company employees.
- The vast majority of value from startups comes from the top 1% of firms, like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. All of those firms were founded by young white males in their early 20s. VCs are driven by the goal of funding the next Facebook, and they know about the demographic skew, even if they don't talk about it. So if you don't fit the profile of a megahit founder, you probably won't get much attention from the VC world.
- There is a group of people (called VCs) whose livelihood depends on having a supply of bright young people who want to jump into the startup world. These people act as professional activists in favor of startup culture. This would be fine, except there is no countervailing force of professional critics. This creates a bias in our collective evaluation of the culture.
In response to
Open thread, June 27 - July 3, 2016
Say you are a strong believer and advocate for the Silicon Valley startup tech culture, but you want to be able to pass an Ideological Turing Test to show that you are not irrational or biased. In other words, you need to write some essays along the lines of "Startups are Dumb" or "Why You Should Stay at Your Big Company Job". What kind of arguments would you use?
In response to
Open thread, June 27 - July 3, 2016
Quantified hedonism - Personal Key Performance Indicators
The phrase burn the boats comes from the VIking practice of burning boats on the shore before invading so they have to win and settle. No retreat, it's an inspiring analogy, but I heard it in the context of another Real Social Dynamics video, so the implication is to approach sets as if there is no retreat? Bizaare, those guys.....anyway that RSDPapa video suggested that personal KPI's were useful. What's measured gets improved, or so the saying goes. So which KPI's should you choose? After some though, I reckon psychological distress, a construct referring to anxiety and depression which conceptualise enduring hedonic losses, and PERMA, a construct referring to the key determinants of subject well-being, seem like appropriate KPI's.
So how do you measure them? There are validated psychological scales for each.
PERMA:
- Positive emotion
- Engagement
- Relationships
- Meaning - no known scale?
- Achievement?
Unfortunately, things get a bit tricky here with achievement. Many psychological scales are paywalled such that you need to buy them specifically (academic institution access is insufficient). If anyone can post a workaround.. :)
If you administer these scales on yourself monthly, you can start to build a picture of your hedonic progress in life, quantitatively, albeit abstractly. Too difficult for you? Try this unvalidated scale for PERMA.
Tourism isn't this esoteric, life changing right of passage experience people will tell you that it is
Or: Why I would want to move to the Cayman Islands (but I don't have retirement savings of substance or hospital or finance career capital)
I think the urge to travel just to see different countries is a kind of OCD. Unhealthy! The way tourism tends to work commodifies it. It doesn’t accrue that benefit that experience hunting usually does, hedonically. Plus, it’s super expensive and moving tends to accrue hedonic costs anyway. Even though climate does accrue hedonic benefits, it would be unsustainable and lead to negative self past comparison since you are returning to your home country. Not to mention when you travel you tend to compromise on your lifestyle - fitness, exercise, relationships, nutrition, sleep...unacceptable!
Virtual tourism. It’s my new hobby. Sure, it might be interesting to check out the Northern Lights or mecca (both literally desserts, that you are paying for!) but really any place can, by a business or government, be turned into a tourist spot with a bit of work. In real time, moment to moment, I find travellng super boring except when it’s ongoing constant novelty of like, sitting on the roof of a van in a rural area, or I’m on my computer!
I keep hearing about how great travel is. My conclusion is that no, it's not worth the cost. Or at least, the component I thought they were referring to - sight seeing, isn't. Other parts of travel are okay, but certainly not lifechanging after the first or second time of eye-openingness.
Case study: Machu Pichu. If that rock in Guatape was difficult enough, consider the downsides of Machu Pichu to get your mind off it. Then put the nail in the coffin with the danger statistics. Consolation prize? Machu pichu on Google street view.
So what is worthwhile when travelling. One, of course, is doing so with the intend of moving - when a place has better opportunities than your past residence. Let's consider a case that will be relevant to already very high standard of living Westerners - moving to the Carribean. Because really, I can find no better place one might like to move than the Cayman Islands. English is spoken, close to the US and UK, Strategic advantages in the financial industry, without a unsophisticated undiversified economy, as with the rest of the Carribean competitors honestly that tend to dependent on fish or petrol. And, you're in the Carribean, with enviable climate (a known determinant of subjective wellbeing!). It's a country that knows the importance of having a strategic advantage that doesn't mean it's just a mine, like say Australia, where pushes to develop a more sophisticated economy have failed and derived, which I think is a good sign of a country that won't thrive in the 21st century....anywho, Google Images the place, it looks way better than the rest of Central and South America and the Carribean as a whole! I'm very suprised I don't see it topping lists of expat wellbeing or quality of life indexes but I guess it gets it might get missed cause of its size. With the greater income inequality, you can probably hire a personal chef even as a minimum wage worker from the Western world to cook you Chinese food or whatever it is you want, healthy and convenient (not to mention they can belp with maintenance and such).
Alas, maybe I am just in a bad mood. I am travelling right now and have a return flight that is way too far away and I have nothing I left I want to do on this continent. It sucks when the street smells like shit, it's dusty and smoggy enough to irritate your eyes, cars are loud and dangerous, people are suspicious and don't move out of the way, and the hotel locks up early for the night, but you don't know exactly when, and after a certain time you can't buy water outside so if you don't have enough you go thirsty and non-brushed cause the water from the tap is unsafe. At least I came across this which will aid my quest to become a better blogger: This is effective copywriting and feedback giving.
Open questions
Thoughts on the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover archetypes? Useful?
Cause prioritisation - community vs institutions*
I'm interested in crowdsourcing identifying disparities between community and institutional cause prioritisation attitudes.
If you could spare a minute could you please rate from 1-10, with a _ _% rating of your estimates of the:
- (1) potential impact
- (2) prospective neglectedness
- (3) political tractability
...of individual media campaigns that would advocate for public debate, discussion and law reform without a specific agenda around each of the following areas:
- (a) labour mobility
- (b) tobacco control (incl. smoking in developing countries)
- (c) risks from artificial intelligence
- (d) research re-prioritisation and infrastructure
- (e) factory farming
- (f) biosecurity
- (g) land use reform
- (h) developing world health
- (i) nuclear security
- (j) trade reform
- (k) migration
- (l) humanitarian aid
- (m) lizardmen
Thank you.
In place of a media thread
Extraordinary series - check out 'how women judge men'
experience often doesn’t matter as much as GMA (g factor) for job performance. - parenthesis mine - GMA is an unconventional term, 'g' is more common.
precommitment smart contracts for happiness and health
I feel horrible saying this but I think I would be really upset if I had a kid (adopted or genetic) and they were born or become mentally handicapped or miserable like my biggest fear. It can happen whether you adopt (e.g. car crash) or your give birth, so I will not get myself a dependent. You can't give them away without suffering lots of hedonic and altruistic losses, anyhow! But, once you get 'clucky and partnered, things change!
Maybe I should do one of those things where I give a trusted reliable person (perhaps even a independent (commercial? automated?) service that does this so they won't pity me) information I don't want revealed (like linking all my personal and contact details of this account!) to if I have children to pre-empt doing so! I could put in a waiver for if the weight of objective evidence for having children increasing my happiness according to a tribunal of them and a selected few other intelligent, educated, good-willed people shifts.
I can find no better place one might like to move than the Cayman Islands
I have travelled there twice, partially to scope it out for a possible move. Here are the downsides:
- It is very small, both in terms of geographical size and population. There's just not a lot of places to go or things to do.
- At the same time it is not dense, so you probably need a car.
- It is very touristy. Of the things to do, most are tourism-related.
- The tech sector is not well-developed, so a tech person like me would probably end up working as a random IT consultant for a bank or law firm or something.
As far as the upsides, you got them mostly right: strong economy, low taxes, good climate, a generally tranquil feeling of life. Overall I think there would be something enormously psychologically beneficial to live in a place where the main political debate is what to do with the budget surplus.
My takeaway is: CI is a great place if you 1) are in the finance sector 2) like "sun and fun" activities like swimming, sailing, and diving 3) don't have big life ambitions (e.g. start a tech company).
Australia is astoundingly rich, +$100k higher than the US average (which includes the megawealthy)
You're reading the data wrong. Australian median = $225K, US average = $244K.
Overall, I have doubts about their methodology. The source publication is here and there are some... non-intuitive numbers in there. For example, page 92 shows changes in household wealth between 2012 and 2013. According to their estimates, the Swedes became richer by 15.5% and the Japanese poorer by over 20% in a single year. That looks fishy to me.
But yeah. Australians made out like bandits (ahem) selling ore to China.
Fixed. I was using the mean wealth instead of net mean wealth. It's still amazing to me that the Aussie average exceeds the US average, given that the averages include megawealthy tech and finance billionaires. And amazing that Greece and Italy have higher median wealth than the US.
In response to
Open thread, June 20 - June 26, 2016
File under "we're not as rich as we think we are", this Wiki page shows that economic-basket-case Greece has higher median net worth than the US. Australia is astoundingly rich, +$60k higher than the US average (which includes the megawealthy) and $175k higher than the US median. Even econo-sluggard Italy has $100k higher median than the US.
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Which language?
Java.