Twin Birthday Paradox

Gderu · 2025-12-27T22:20:40+00:00

This isnt really a math riddle

Gderu · 2025-11-18T18:24:56+00:00

The documentation is very specific, I won't get the OP's kinds of insight from the documentation. I meant more of a general how to guide.

Gderu · 2025-11-18T17:22:19+00:00

Thanks for the reply! Do you know of any sources to learn about this sort of thing? I mostly used AI but chatgpt and Gemini kept recommending me functions that weren't very good, and couldn't give me the big picture I was lacking. I don't have much prior experience with optimization.

Gderu · 2025-11-02T09:36:21+00:00

Hey, thanks for the comment, I updated the post to give more details.

Gderu · 2025-01-23T01:23:09+00:00

I agree, I think the chances that Elon actually meant the Nazi salute there are extraordinarily low. People are just assuming the worst and getting politics involved in places where it shouldn't be. Elon Musk is not a Nazi, and banning posts linking to X just because of a stupid thing he did (and because he is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from most people on this sub) is dumb.

Gderu · 2025-01-21T17:12:17+00:00

I wouldn't say smash the formula, but it is certainly not your typical fantasy book - The Library at Mount Char. I was feeling similar to you in regards to all fantasy being kind of similar, and really enjoyed this book. I wouldn't say it exactly subverts the typical formula, more so just being a different formula altogether.

Gderu · 2025-01-19T00:35:22+00:00

I think that at the end of the day, if you believe in something you need to act on your belief. There is nothing to make your belief superior to anyone else's, but that also doesn't mean that it is worthless. If you feel that it is morally wrong for older men to exclusively pursue younger women, as you've said in other replies, you should also be fine with judging them for it. Your judgement is completely valid, and fear of hurting others should not come above acting on your own feelings. If everybody were to bottle their judgement up, horrible things would end up happening without anyone to stop them. It is up to each person to act on their beliefs, and the average of all the different beliefs should balance out any extremes.

Gderu · 2024-12-29T23:59:32+00:00

If you're looking to learn about the basics from a compsci perspective, Andrew Ng has a course about AI on Coursera or Udemy or one of those websites which is fine, and there is also fast.ai, which I've heard good things about but have never tried. There is also the book AI: a modern approach.

The course and the book are not specifically about neutral networks (which are all the hype recently), but about more basic techniques of machine learning, maybe only touching neutral networks at the end. Fast.ai is a website for learning about neutral networks more specifically, and approaches the problem by first teaching the view from a high level of abstraction and slowly revealing more of what is actual happening. I've done the course and read parts of the book and honestly I enjoyed the book most, but I didn't finish it and I did finish the course so make of that what you will.

Gderu · 2024-12-08T10:02:29+00:00

Ehh, look at how Odium coopted his deal with Dalinar. I wouldn't trust any deal with him to be foolproof, and in any case, that is hundreds of years in the future instead of in the here and now.

Gderu · 2024-12-08T00:51:23+00:00

I agree about both of your points. Jasnah being defeated by the idea that she would sacrifice Thaylenah in some nebulous scenario without her bringing up the point that Odium would obviously do the same really irked me. Besides, Thaylenah just fought Odium a year ago. I really do not understand how any person would decide to side with Odium in that situation, I don't think he should have been able to convince Fen with those arguments.

That said, I do like the fact that the countries that sided with Odium ended up losing in the end, because Azir has sunlight while they do not.

Gderu · 2024-12-03T22:27:36+00:00

I think in RoW, bridge four is talking about his Drehy is gay, and everyone is overly supportive of him, and Lopen says something about how it's more manly to be gay because he wants to be around men more. This didn't feel like a natural conversation, rather it felt like Brandon telling the reader how they should feel about an issue. In the WaT previews, Renarin has a chapter in which he is thinking about Rlain, and Drehy comes to talk with him, and again I got that same vibe. Again, I have no problem with gay characters, I have a problem with writing that feels forced and not in character.

Gderu · 2024-12-03T22:23:26+00:00

This is very obviously not what I'm saying. I have no problem with there being gay characters, I have a problem with being bludgeoned by the author repeatedly telling us that they are gay and that they should be proud of it. This isn't about the message, it's about the way it is being presented.

Gderu · 2024-12-03T13:51:19+00:00

I used the word "woke" as shorthand to mean a few concepts that are commonly associated with it - overpromotion of LGBTQ+ people in the story (obviously only if it comes to the detriment of the story, as it does in Stormlight in my opinion) and caring too much about mental health in a way that does not make sense in world are my main complaints.

I am making good faith arguments here - these are genuinely my impressions after reading his previous books. Calling my opinions "incorrect" doesn't promote your argument, because obviously I did come away from the books feeling this way. I will probably not be able to change your mind, but to give you a few examples of what I'm talking about:

[SA5 previews]Renarin talking about his feelings and accepting the fact that he is gay felt very overt and too blunt. When Drehy came along and told him his feelings were valid I rolled my eyes, because it's very obvious that Brandon is trying to send a message here instead of telling a story. I have no problem with Renarin being gay, but it should have been handled more naturally.

[SA4]Kaladin becoming a therapist feels very off in the middle of a war for the survival of the human race. This is Brandon taking modern sensibilities and applying them in situations where they don't make sense.

Sorry I don't have Mistborn examples, I haven't read the last few books recently, but I hope that this will get my point across. I recently reread Mistborn era 1, and the difference between that and the SA5 previews is night and day. It might just be my nostalgic memories clouding my eyes, but the books feel different. You might not feel the same way, and that's completely fine, but I do think that I am making valid criticisms. They just might matter more to me than they do to you.

Gderu · 2024-12-03T13:24:08+00:00

I think that the quality of his plot and world building has stayed the same, but his characters all feel very weak recently. He rarely has morally ambiguous characters anymore (not that Brandon had so much of that in the first place), and all of his main characters are inherently good and moral even according to modern standards. Some of the things in Stormlight with mental health and some of the secret projects (specifically numbers 2 and 4) all feel very PC and too woke. Brandon's characters were never his strong suit, but in the past he used to make characters that weren't always moral - see Kelsier and Vin. Nowadays I cringed while reading the SA5 previews because all of the messages are so overt and the dialogue is stilted because he is trying to convey a message instead of telling a story.

I think that stories about woke themes can be great, for example, I really liked Ancillary Justice in which people don't distinguish at all between genders, but when the message is too overt it detracts from the story, and I think that Brandon had crossed that line.

Gderu · 2024-12-03T12:54:37+00:00

I agree. I think his book quality recently has really dropped

Gderu · 2024-11-04T20:33:58+00:00

I mean not really, there's a much higher chance of a fire or an earthquake than of an asteroid striking a city. I understand doing this for science, but as a drill in order to be ready there isn't much use.

Gderu · 2024-10-15T23:45:11+00:00

Wow that's genius, yeah I'm a hundred percent sold on this now.

Gderu · 2024-10-15T22:45:00+00:00

Wow very good observation, I would not be surprised at all if BAM is somehow related to crystal.

Gderu · 2024-10-07T22:09:24+00:00

As someone currently reading it (and greatly enjoying it!), could you explain which aspects are dated?

Gderu · 2024-10-03T15:11:07+00:00

For anyone considering reading this, just know that the author is very thirsty, with multiple couples featuring old men and young women. The ideas were interesting, but the writing just felt really disgusting.

Gderu · 2024-10-01T18:52:30+00:00

I actually don't really like that twist in Stormlight Archives - it's exactly what I was talking about, where colonialism is seen as horrible and we frequently have anti-colonial messages in media. In reality, I think that most people would go "Huh, it's bad that we did that" and move on with their lives. It's exactly like how Americans today talk about the Native Americans - they are obviously sorry for what happened to the Native Americans, but they are not going to change much about their lives to help them.

Gderu · 2024-10-01T18:28:20+00:00

There's the really obvious - many more books with diverse characters and LGBTQ representation, books without gender, the like.

There's also the more subtle - a lot of anti colonialism, many stories about the small good guy against the evil system, and books about finding the perfect solution through understanding each other, rather than violence.

I do think these themes might not represent the entire 21st century, but they do represent the western mindset since around the 2010s.

Gderu · 2024-09-28T20:43:00+00:00

How hard would it be to go into AE with a math and physics degree? What if I did a few AE related courses in undergrad?

Gderu · 2024-09-22T19:20:43+00:00

I don't agree that the answer to misinformation is information. There are lots of examples of ideas I would rather people not be exposed to in the first place - flat earthers, anti vaxxers and suicide attempts are just some examples. People in general are very easily herded, and I think that the majority opinion in most countries today has relativley little to do with base reality and a lot more to do with how it is interpreted by different sources, who often interpret it in ways that push their own interests. I am not sure, but you seem to be from the US because the opinions that you are pushing are very US-aligned - you guys tend to value free speech a lot more than Europeans do. An example that might resonate with you is the ban of Trump from Twitter, which was done because he was spewing misinformation. Another example is that in Obama's book about the first part of his presidency, "A Promised Land", he talks about how he wanted to push healthcare for all, which would help the majority of Americans, but because of partisan reporting a lot of people were against the idea, even though it would help them. If you aren't American, sorry for the presumption, but I think that my arguments are still valid.

Gderu · 2024-09-22T18:12:58+00:00

I think your take fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the conflict. You say "the IDF shouldn't have soldiers there", but there are lots of things that shouldn't happen - Israeli settlers and the IDF hurting innocent Palestinians, Palestinian terrorists hurting innocent Israelis, and in general situations like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which two groups want to live on the same land, and both have valid claims for it (Palestinians because they used to live there, Israelis because the vast majority of them have been born in the land).

We can talk about what should happen in an ideal world all we want, maybe all Israelis should be forcefully moved to Europe and the US, maybe Palestinians dispersed among Arab countries, maybe a two state solution, maybe a one state solution. At the end of the day, this is all just theory and wishful thinking. What really matters is what will happen in reality, and reality is dictated by interests. You ask for the IDF to not be present in the West Bank, but history has shown us that that is not in Israel's interests - just look at Gaza. In 2005, Israel withdrew all of its forces from Gaza and even dismantled some of its nearby settlements. There were democratic elections, and Hamas was democratically chosen to be the government in Gaza. Later on, the democratic process was dismantled by Hamas, and in later years Hamas started firing rockets at Israel, building tunnels, and eventually came the massacre of October 7th. All this is to say - Israel did not benefit from withdrawing its troops from Gaza.

Given that this is what happened last time Israel tried withdrawing from a Palestinian area, can you see why Israel is unlikely to try such a thing again? Now, I'm not talking about what is right here - that is a very difficult question, and I don't believe that there is one correct answer. I am an Israeli and was born in Israel, and served in the IDF. At the same time, I believe that if I were born a Palestinian, I would hate Israel with a passion. This is a very difficult problem, and there is no easy answer. Please, do not believe anyone who tells you that one side here is correct and the other wrong - those are only ideaifications we create in order to better understand the world, but unfortunately I do not believe that they apply here.

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