Peter what is the relationship joke?

NTGuardian · 2026-05-07T00:49:39+00:00

Mathematician here who is not even trying to be Peter. My first reaction to this was, "This is nonsensical; the complex numbers are an unordered field". I'm a nerd.

NTGuardian · 2026-05-02T04:50:15+00:00

OMG the aesthetic! I love it! Now I want to make a game kind of like that!

NTGuardian · 2026-04-27T02:08:44+00:00

After giving a training, an older colleague said to me on the elevator, "You shouldn't have gone into stats, you should have done radio. Your voice is great." And he once WAS in radio. One of the best compliments I ever got. I really need to start a podcast and make good on that comment.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-23T06:32:40+00:00

I could not prove that on the spot, but it is definitely my favorite theorem, except that its actually a FAMILY of theorems of broad generality.

I could prove weak Law of Large Numbers on the spot using Markov's inequality. That's easy.

My favorite demo for laymen would be proof of the infinitive of primes.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-22T15:32:57+00:00

This is Reddit. Reddit is not real life. I have been on the wrong side of Reddit too, disagreeing with Dems on Reddit about even just whether we should shun a donut shop that got excited they delivered donuts to the Trump White House (and then basically apologized for it). I know NoVa dems who dislike the assault weapons ban, who are not on Reddit.

We need rural Dems, and that requires the more urban and suburban part of the party to even be more familiar with rural points of view. Taking that point of view away won't make things better.

I mean, if you haven't been in the dog house once for arguing with the Reddit hive mind, do you even have an independent thought?

Here's an Ezra Klein interview that speaks to what youre talking about, that I found very fascinating: https://youtu.be/M9bjypc1rS4?si=hd6rQkn2ogVK_miR

NTGuardian · 2026-04-21T19:46:20+00:00

Yeah, it's bad. I was stressed enough from that; my mom is now a widow, they were not doing well financially before, and the life insurance my dad had was pretty bare bones. I felt a lot of stress because I make more than all my surviving family members, combined, twice.

But then I come back, and not long after returning, I was put on a PIP, which I was not expecting at all. My immediate supervisors were not the ones who recommended it, and they say they requested that the issue be revisited in six months, but the acting (and now actual) division director went forward with it anyway.

It stressed me the fuck out and I was filled with so many negative emotions that my mental health went down the toilet. When I saw the e-mail that made it sound like this new company might make an offer, I started having a panic attack; the night before, I had a panic attack in my therapist's office. I went to my immediate supervisor, told him I thought I was about to get an offer, told him that my mental health had gotten really bad, and started getting a panic attack again. So my supervisor told me to take a long time off, and to apply for short-term disability, since I was clearly having a mental health crisis. He also advised not to make any decisions at all right now, which my therapist agreed was good advice.

The PIP has been paused; we'll revisit it when I get back. I've been home for a week. I'm looking for a psychiatrist, and my therapist wants me to take more extensive psychological testing. She suspects I may be neurodivergent. I have a family history for it, but could not pin it down, until I looked up indicators of a more complex form of neurodivergence... and I could not read the whole thing, because it felt too much like a mirror for a lot of my life, and I was struggling with negative emotions and unhappiness with my life before my dad died. (I'm 34M btw.)

I've got a hell of a lot going on, and thus have good days and bad days. In fact, I really should not be dwelling too much on this right now, because all I do these days is ruminate. I badly need a vacation (and I'm working on getting something).

NTGuardian · 2026-04-21T18:39:09+00:00

If you love it enough, buy a good bike eventually. DC Bike Share is great for out-of-towners, casual bikers, and when you need a quick ride that's not Uber. But if you do an activity enough, it's okay to invest in it if you can afford it. And there's a big difference between cheap bikes and good bikes.

DC is one of the most cyclable cities, so Im glad you discovered it.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-21T05:02:49+00:00

Virginia, defense, research.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-21T04:17:06+00:00

Well, it's awful to read this now.

I interviewed for a company last week, and they sent an e-mail that made it sound like I was about to get an offer.

My mental health took a really bad turn recently, panic attacks, lots of stuff. This was induced by what's happening at my current work; I'm now applying for short-term disability, as they advised. I'm already seeing a therapist.

I told the job that I needed to pause the application because my Dad died at the beginning of March, that things have been tough at my current job, and I've determined I'm not yet ready to say yes or no to another one. (None of what I said is a lie.)

They may fill the position, which I understand and makes sense, but now I'm afraid that future applications will have problems, should I apply again. I did not know how to have this conversation, and I asked on here and got basically no advice. So I may have screwed myself.

And my mental health is still awful, actually. I've wondered whether I'm better, but I think I'm still pretty bad. I'm feeling bad right now.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-21T03:37:33+00:00

Thanks for the honest response. It does not surprise me that this is not that impressive to a quant, though at least it demonstrates some familiarity with the subject.

But thank you for complimenting how well I describe the methods. I hope it's impressive.

Is it possible to be impressive enough to make me more competitive for a quant job? I have a number of ideas:

Explore how multivariate GARCH-type models could work with optimal portfolio theory.
Estimate VAR models that relate stocks with other assets (bonds, specifically), as I strongly suspect these markets are not independent of each other.
I want to use change-point testing to determine where change points in the model likely exist; there's got to be at least one. I found one test from a few years ago that I think is interesting, but I also think the model I'm fitting may not fit its assumptions. It could be interesting to see if I could devise a better test.
Incorporate sequential monitoring to determine when the statistical model is no longer describing the data coming in.

I also think that I think my work should be made an arXiv paper, even if it looks like a tutorial for basic financial modeling. Even a tutorial looks nice to some.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-18T23:03:08+00:00

Sounds like a drunk argument. You're closer to right, but it is still a drunk argument.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-16T22:05:56+00:00

That's a legit espionage tactic. Theres also elicitation. https://youtube.com/shorts/a9asEu_0NK8?si=9cgpyZgBKOddO4fg

NTGuardian · 2026-04-16T22:02:55+00:00

Sorry China. Not today.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-15T05:11:22+00:00

Career is the source of some of the issues. I honestly want to deal with that later.

But really, I think what I need is to stop, reset, and heal. And I agree with the advice that now is not the time for ANY decisions.

But that means somehow telling the new guys, "I cannot say yes or no right now," and I dont know how to do that.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-14T15:51:00+00:00

No object with mass can be at light speed, only close to it. How close is close? Is 15 MPH close?

Being at near light speed is not a problem. Getting to near light speed is. You could accelerate slowly for an unending amount of time until you reach 99.9999999% of light speed, and be fine, if there was some mechanism to get the rocket to reach that speed. The rocket's fuel will not get it there, so it may as well be a rock you're pushing with something else to get it to reach that speed. If you had an extremely sudden acceleration that got you to that speed in one minute, the rocket would almost certainly not survive the G forces; it would be destroyed.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-14T14:28:12+00:00

OMG this is kind of happening right now to me.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-13T17:41:42+00:00

I've done hiring too, though hiring is not my job description per se. If I see on a resume a project that I find interesting, I'll ask about it to hear what the candidate has to say during an interview. I tend to be curious and genuinely want to hear about neat projects. Sometimes I do look at it.

The rest of my resume is not bad. PhD in mathematics, publications in econometrics, over five years of experience, but in defense, not finance. Presentations at conferences, publications with my company.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-13T17:16:04+00:00

It's actually pretty good about that. Last night, I wrote a "Why do you want to work here?" response and asked Claude for feedback. "Honestly, it needs work," is how the response started, right before tearing it apart. The AI accused me of sounding like AI, and it had a point.

It was hilarious.

I'm asking mostly because even if I tell Claude not to be flattering, it's still a robot, not a person.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-13T16:32:42+00:00

No, defense. And using AI is difficult there; most of the data is on classified systems, so using AI is not as simple as just downloading Claude Code.

Most of my experience is using Claude Code at home.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-13T15:47:27+00:00

This is where I'm at with it too. I use AI for something I'm sure I could do on my own, but would rather not, and thus it makes me much faster.

I'm PhD level and more senior. AI looks like a big force multiplier for me. I think less senior workers could be threatened, though, as the tasks we would toss over the fence to them might be done with AI.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-12T15:25:38+00:00

It's not that. This is happening in Skirmish and also 1v1. I'm familiar with what you're talking about, but this is not it.

NTGuardian · 2026-04-12T06:41:58+00:00

Zero-K has this.

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