zackmdavis

Should I Finish My Bachelor's Degree?

To some, it might seem like a strange question. If you think of being college-educated as a marker of class (or personhood), the fact that I don't have a degree at age of thirty-six (!!) probably looks like a scandalous anomaly, which it would be only natural for me to want to remediate at the earliest opportunity.

I deeply resent that entire worldview—not because I've rejected education, properly understood. On the contrary. The study of literature, history, mathematics, science—these things are among the noblest persuits in life, sources of highest pleasure and deepest meaning. It's precisely because I value education so much that I can't stand to see it conflated with school and its culture of bureaucratic servitude where no one cares what you know and no one cares what you can do; they just want you to sit in a room and obey the commands of the designated teacher. Whereas in reality, knowledge doesn't come from "taking courses."

How could it? Knowledge c

zackmdavis

(Whisper) zmd@CaptiveFacility Whisper % whisper ep22_final.mp3 --model tiny             
100%|█████████████████████████████████████| 72.1M/72.1M [00:03<00:00, 23.9MiB/s]
/Users/zmd/.local/share/virtualenvs/Whisper-JcksVwm9/lib/python3.9/site-packages/whisper/transcribe.py:78: UserWarning: FP16 is not supported on CPU; using FP32 instead
  warnings.warn("FP16 is not supported on CPU; using FP32 instead")
Detecting language using up to the first 30 seconds. Use `--language` to specify the language
Detected language: English
[00:00.000 --> 00:05.000]  Welcome to Robot Friends, the podcast that actively harms its audience.
[00:05.000 --> 00:08.000]  Episode 22, I can robot vs. Extra-B.
[00:16.000 --> 00:19.000]  JD Pressman, what's your deal?
[00:20.000 --> 00:23.000]  What is my deal? Okay, well, um,

zackmdavis

from string import ascii_lowercase

def load_dictionary():
    dictionary = set()
    with open("/usr/share/dict/words") as dictionary_file:
        for word in dictionary_file:
            dictionary.add(word.strip())
    return dictionary

VOWELS = ['a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u']

zackmdavis

from fractions import Fraction
from math import sqrt


def expected_squared_error(distribution, metric):
    """
    If we know the distribution, and we "guess" the value of a sample from that
    distribution, how much will we be wrong on average (with respect to a given
    metric on the space, squared)?
    """

zackmdavis

#!/usr/bin/env run-cargo-script
// cargo-deps: rand="0.7"

// Use cargo-script (https://github.com/DanielKeep/cargo-script) to run as a
// standalone script.

extern crate rand;

use std::collections::HashMap;

zackmdavis

import os
import re
import requests
import sys


slate_sturl_regex = re.compile(r"https?://slatestarcodex.com/\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2}/[-a-z0-9]+/")


def slate_starchive_post_content(content):

zackmdavis

#!/usr/bin/env run-cargo-script
// cargo-deps: rand="0.7"

// Use cargo-script (https://github.com/DanielKeep/cargo-script) to run as a
// standalone script.

use std::collections::HashMap;

extern crate rand;
use rand::distributions::{Distribution, Uniform};

zackmdavis

# Graphing requirements: scipy and matplotlib

import random

from math import factorial, sqrt

ε = 0.01  # size of edge for B


def binomial(p, n, k):

zackmdavis

# https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/7/21051910/predictions-trump-brexit-recession-2019-2020

from math import log2 as lg

predictions = [
    # summary, probability, outcome
    ("Trump in office", 0.9, True),
    ("No Dem frontrunner", 0.6, False),
    ("No US recession", 0.8, True),
    ("No border wall", 0.95, True),

zackmdavis

(Thinking-out-loud comments on a not-yet-published draft.)

three choices: eat candy, eat chocolate, or hug a friend

(Some authors would consider chocolate a kind of candy?)

by generating triples in [0,1] here

"Here" links are terrible!