EI&WSP

Without cost, the best purchase works out to be linear. There’s no cool backstepping or ommissions worth chasing.

I’m hunting around for typos, but it seems to match up with the game results pretty carefully. Perhaps including a cost function, there will be a way to beat the autobuyer.

WordPress

I think it’s time to find an alternative to WordPress.

The techbros who write software have a hard problem recognizing anything that isn’t right in front of them. They update software in an annoying and less userfriendly way, but it solves some backend problems of theirs so they like the update. The users don’t, but the devs just say ‘you’ll get over it.’

And we do. We get over the software.

Facebook did this. Their user growth finally stagnated.

A few games I used to play did this. They’re all in the glide path now.

WordPress is making it more and more difficult for me to just do what I want to do. They shove me toward features I don’t want and take away features I do. ‘You’ll get over it,’ they say.

They’re right. I’m over WordPress.

Sauron

Of old there was Sauron the Maia, whom the Sindar in Beleriand named Gorthaur. In the beginning of Arda Melkor seduced him to his allegiance, and he became the greatest and most trusted of the servants of the Enemy, and the most perilous, for he could assume many forms, and for long if he willed he could still appear noble and beautiful, so as to deceive all but the most wary.

When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance to Eönwë the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds. And some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented, if only out of fear, being dismayed by the fall of Morgoth and the great wrath of the Lords of the West. But it was not within the power of Eönwë to pardon those of his own order, and he commanded Sauron to return to Aman and there receive the judgement of Manwë. Then Sauron was ashamed, and he was unwilling to return in humiliation and to receive from the Valar a sentence, it might be, of long servitude in proof of his good faith; for under Morgoth his power had been great. Therefore when Eönwë departed he hid himself in Middle-earth; and he fell back into evil, for the bonds that Morgoth had laid upon him were very strong.
-JRR Tolkien

Engineering

I’ve been having some frustrations. Nothing terrible, but many are aggravations. In the interests of maintaining some balance, because I really am in a good place for all my aggravation, I want to mention something really important to me, a positive thing, about engineering.

I can just test it.

I don’t have to take anyone’s word for biscuits. I can just test it. Some theory floats around that sounds like pure nonsense? Boom. Test it.

In deep learning, there’s a point that borders on aphorism: validation data must be distinct from training data. Most references state this as a natural law on par with ‘gravity points down,’ and the shear blind willfulness of it drives me wild.

So I tested it. It’s running now. Took about ten minutes to fork my data appropriately, or not fork it rather, and set the thing to run.

Don’t misunderstand. They’re probably right, and the forked data will probably work better than the other. But I don’t have to believe that at all. I can just test it. There are matters to be taken on faith, including literal faith, but also matters by time and priority I simply can’t duplicate. Virology is the current-events one, but there are plenty of big issues I can’t test. Maybe I could have had I spent the last twenty years learning something different, but I didn’t.

But in engineering, I can to a large extent. So when I’m reading something and start arguing, loudly, with a book, I can throw the idiot to the wind and run my own simulations. And that is not everything, but it is something.

Extensions

The students, they come to me and beg for extensions. They say, “OTS, please! The homework is due tomorrow and I need more time!”

And I reply, “I stop giving extensions the day before it’s due. That way only people who got a reasonable start on it get extensions, and everyone else who failed time management doesn’t.”

And the students reply, “But sir! I’m begging. I had a tragedy!”

Gently swirling my coffee, I ask, “Was it Covid?”

“It was worse.” They’re weeping now. “It was my mother’s roommate’s cousin’s nephew. I held him in my arms after the life left him, Mr OTS. I can’t stop seeing it.”

“Ouch. How did he die?”

“Eaten by bears.”

I sip my coffee. “You held him in your arms after he was eaten by bears?”

The student nods emphatically. “Yes. It was gross. That’s why I need an extension. I’m traumatized.”

In spite of my better judgement, I am moved. I hold up the first of three fingers. “Okay, yes, that’s pretty traumatic.”

The student nods even harder.

I lift another. “Second, ew.”

The student is forlorn. “You have no idea.”

“The smell?”

“The smell.”

We bond.

I hold up my third finger. “Finally, go wash your hands.”

“Mr OTS, about the extension-”

“No, no. Wash hands first. Use soap.”

“Mr OTS-” The student looks worried now. I think the conversation has gotten away from them.

“Safety first!” I declare. “Hands. Go wash. At least thirty seconds.” And I put my coffee down long enough to snap twice.

They run off, but when they return, another tragedy has struck. I’m gone. My office is dark. They get no extension, and they are doomed.

But at least they’re cleaner.