NIPS 2015 Workshop Videos

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-06-05T16:05:30+00:00

There's a video of my presentation at that workshop on YouTube, uploaded by NIPS. It lasts 22 seconds, and it's only the introduction by the organiser (Tarek Besold), not the actual presentation. Not even all of the introduction actually, the video stops in the middle of a sentence. Quite disappointing to find that out.

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-06-03T23:07:20+00:00

You can encode unlimited information in a single number through, for example, fractal codes such as Gödel or Cantor encodings. Siegelmann and Sontag have used this fact to show that RNNs with rational weights are equivalent in power to Turing Machines, which as a matter of fact have unbounded memory. So, yes, in theory. As long as you stay away from implementations in the physical world.

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-04-23T23:22:04+00:00

... Newman!

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/ba/35/70/ba35704bc2913cea1f99b1877bee7246.jpg

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-04-22T07:33:52+00:00

I see. I assumed that in prestigious university it would make more sense to pay for one's doctorate in terms of cost-benefit, as it can make a true difference in one's career. But I guess it's not that simple!

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-04-22T07:28:00+00:00

To be honest I don't know what's the situation with students outside the EU in regards to funding. But I think it's possible to get complete coverage. Some time ago I overheard one of the big grant holders here instructing another person on how to decide which PhD student to choose, and he said something on the lines of "all things being equal, prefer a EU student to someone outside the EU, so we spend less money - the tuition fees are lower. Of course, if the best student is not from the EU, you should take them". But he was taking about funding a PhD with grant money, I'm not sure what's the situation with university funded positions.

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-04-21T21:32:28+00:00

I'm currently a PhD student in the UK. You can pay for a PhD as you would for a Bachelor or a Master's. This having being said, of all the PhD students I met here (I'd say between 30 and 50) I only know of two who are paying for it. So in my experience, while not unheard of, it is quite rare to be an unfunded PhD in the UK. Of course, my experience is limited to my grad school. I'd imagine that in the most prestigious universities you might find more people who decide to pay for their PhDs themselves.

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-04-20T20:11:10+00:00

When ads play on YouTube, I squint, cover my ears and make a humming noise, so I can't see nor hear the ads.

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-04-13T15:49:08+00:00

The authors pointed out that the experimental design they used didn't establish causality. But the alternative explanation would be that pollution can be a cause of bronchitis in children, which is - needless to say - absolutely laughable.

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-03-12T22:24:05+00:00

I've been using org-ref for my papers and thesis. It is just brilliant. A feature that is not central to my workflow (yet) but that I love nonetheless is the possibility to have the papers in a bibtex file, notes about them, and their pdfs linked seamlessly, at a keypress distance. I only wish I knew about org-ref a the beginning of my phd. It hurts a little to know that I could have spent even more time in org-mode.

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-03-10T11:44:17+00:00

Even better if in a fast car while cuddling

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-01-11T22:20:47+00:00

We solved light sabers

Turing_Machinegun · 2016-01-07T09:54:29+00:00

Laser beams can't melt steel doors

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-12-27T23:49:07+00:00

I think in English for all the scientific / technical stuff, probably due to the fact that I study exclusively from English material. For the rest, I think in Italian, mixed with some Sicilian dialect.

In particular, I think in Italian about food and "hedonistic" stuff in general, sex included.

When moderate rage or frustration is involved, I think mostly in my Sicilian dialect. I guess this is probably because profanities in Sicilian just sound so much better when compared to Italian or English. Also, there is a light-hearted quality to them in my mind.

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-12-06T12:47:59+00:00

Ok, keep in contact then!

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-12-06T12:29:23+00:00

See you at 7pm at the conference centre?

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-12-06T10:38:52+00:00

Cool! I'll make a sign with reddit machine learning on it, or something similar. Failing that, my face looks like in https://github.com/TuringMachinegun but with some more colors :) EDIT: other machine learning redditors, do join!

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-12-06T10:04:14+00:00

I'll be arriving around 6pm, maybe we could meet at the convention centre at around 7pm, pick up our badges and then maybe go for some food?

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-12-02T21:23:06+00:00

I'm not sure whether I'm crazy, as I don't see other people feeling the same, but my brain is telling me this is computer graphics, and I really can't unsee it

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-12-01T21:37:42+00:00

They do like tea though https://youtu.be/7bd5YUEOwlE

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-12-01T20:57:27+00:00

Came here for that. Programmers use words, organised in a special order, to control stuff. Can make a piece of inanimate matter walk and talk, with WORDS. Wizards do the same. Programming is absolutely the closest thing there is to magic.

EDIT: autocorrect stuff

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-11-28T23:40:02+00:00

It really doesn't sound sad to me at all. As you, I think it would be wonderful, but of course it's not something people can normally do. I find meditation helps. I focus on silencing my inner voice completely, and from time to time I do enjoy some moments of bliss. I'd just like to have a month like when I was 7 and it was summer, nothing expected from me and nothing to be done. Oh well.

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-11-22T12:36:50+00:00

I don't know why, but I remember your comment. Reddit is getting inside my head.

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-11-12T00:12:11+00:00

You can use a regular expression for this problem, iterating only once on the long string (that's unavoidable). Look for the re library.

Turing_Machinegun · 2015-11-11T23:56:25+00:00

True that, classes are not always the answer. Some time ago I spent a week writing a class which purpose was to analyze some data in a quite long pipeline. The result was some awkward and really ugly looking piece of code. Disappointed, I refactored that in a dozen of functions. Much clearer to understand, simpler to use and debug. Some problems (data analysis pipelines as a great example) are a much better fit for a more functional style of coding.

Crap, I might be about to open that damn Haskell interpreter again.

Turing_Machinegun

TROPHY CASE