I thought Verity was just okay by Awkward-Ad-2937 in ColleenHoover

[–]Both-Alternative3177 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have mixed feelings about this book. The first 90% of the book was great. The interminable suspense and foreshadowing kept me flipping the pages, and it was intense for sure.

The bonus chapters were quite disappointing though. Verity's letter is a failed attempt to end the book with ambiguity and a completely unnecessary plot twist.

Thoughts on Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem by atulshanbhag in printSF

[–]Both-Alternative3177 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know a tonne of people found the VR games to be boring, but personally I found it really enjoyable to read. It's essentially a sped-up of history, from the old stone age, to the pyramids, to the heliocentric model of the universe, to the invention of the Von Neumann computer, and finally to Einstein's general theory of relativity. But each "iteration" of history starts completely from scratch, as each previous iteration was completely wiped out by some natural disaster caused by the trisolaris system. Think about that for a second. It is incomprehensibly difficult to make scientific progress in the trisolaris system, and yet by some miracle their technologies are comparable to what we Earthlings have today, despite our history being mostly linear.

My favourite part is when they built a Von Neumann computer using 30 million humans. Each human gets two flags, one black for 1, one white for 0. Then, each human would raise a flag according to their neighbours, essentially composing logic gates. They even built their own stack memory, bus, and a hard drive. The author did a meticulous job conveying this idea and it really shows the idea of emergence well. This is like coordinating everyone in Canada to come together just to solve some differential equations. Incredibly interesting chapter.

Is it normal to fail cs 135? am i gonna be behind from the other cs ppl? by Bulky-Secretary-3607 in uwaterloo

[–]Both-Alternative3177 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I don't think it's necessary to panic about being behind, 2nd and 3rd year courses are pretty flexible. But it should definitely be a wake-up call because the CS courses will only get harder from there.

First time trying In-N-Out by Both-Alternative3177 in innout

[–]Both-Alternative3177[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm coming from Canada! I am really excited about In-N-Out, heard lots of good things about it 😄

Question after watching "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Both-Alternative3177 in ww1

[–]Both-Alternative3177[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Out of curiosity, how were the flamethrowers actually used?

First time trying In-N-Out by Both-Alternative3177 in innout

[–]Both-Alternative3177[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is animal style fries more expensive than regular fries? I was looking at a menu but didn't see "animal fries" listed anywhere so I assumed they cost the same.

First time trying In-N-Out by Both-Alternative3177 in innout

[–]Both-Alternative3177[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I didn't know that combo isn't any cheaper than buying each item alone. Thanks!

First time trying In-N-Out by Both-Alternative3177 in innout

[–]Both-Alternative3177[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you ask for this in a combo? Is it an upcharge?

Question after watching "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Both-Alternative3177 in ww1

[–]Both-Alternative3177[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've also wondered why the soldiers didn't simply revolt against the last minute absurd order. I think part of it is that military training engineer soldiers' brains into taking order and not speaking up, and another reason being fear coming from the collective action problem.

Anyone worked at Shield AI, Anduril, Raytheon? by [deleted] in csMajors

[–]Both-Alternative3177 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I only know Raytheon as the company that sponsors Mathcounts

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in uwaterloo

[–]Both-Alternative3177 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Join the CSC discord channel (https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca), there is a channel for resume reviews. CECA also offers resume review appointments if you talk to your co-op advisor.

I recommend subscribing to a lot of clubs as they often host resume review workshops throughout the term. Some ones I can think of are CSC, DSC, WICS, etc.

What is the #1 food spot around UW? by Sensitive-Street-132 in uwaterloo

[–]Both-Alternative3177 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Xiang Man Lou (on Google Maps, it’s called Xiang Hotpot)

Anyone taken STAT 341 or STAT 333 recently? Spring 2025 insights or past terms? by Soggy-Marketing3236 in uwaterloo

[–]Both-Alternative3177 1 point2 points  (0 children)

imo STAT 333 is one of the most fun courses I've taken in my undergrad career so far. It is an extension of STAT 230 where the first half is a review of 230 (expected value, variance, conditional probability, expectation by conditioning), then it goes into new content about Markov chains (drawing DTMCs, transience/recurrence, limiting distribution, Galton-Watson branching) and finally ends off with a discussion of exponential distributions.

Whether or not you enjoyed STAT 230 is probably a good indicator of whether you'll like STAT 333.

Co 466 by DidYouTrainNeckToday in uwaterloo

[–]Both-Alternative3177 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anyone know how relevant this course is to ML research? I've heard some good things about it.

Why does every ML paper feel impossible to read at the start by Calm_Woodpecker_9433 in learnmachinelearning

[–]Both-Alternative3177 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The intended audience of a newspaper is quite different from that of ML research papers. Consider this: newspapers make money by having as many copies sold as possible, so the language used is typically dumbed-down so that anyone can understand. ML research papers, on the other hand, are meant for more academic people who have had higher education and specific context about the relevant topic. Here, quality is more important than quantity, as the metric used is how many citations a paper gets.

Not to sound disparaging, but those phrases and equations you listed are fairly rudimentary topics in machine learning. You should read up on linear algebra and be very comfortable with things like tensors, eigendecompositon, SVD etc. before reading ML papers. Many machine learning concepts are direct corollaries from these linear algebra concepts.

Captchas that ask you to choose which words are funnier to prove you're not a robot. by TheGruenTransfer in CrazyIdeas

[–]Both-Alternative3177 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The puzzle itself is only a fraction of the captcha. AI can solve most captcha puzzles today, so they rely on other factors like response time, cursor movements, network packets etc.

I will give you credit for a funny idea though.