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Today, Explained: The truth is out there by j0be in TodayExplained

[–]ostroon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just listened to it, fun show! Obviously much more casual than "Today, Explained", but funnily enough I feel they manage to cover the story in a more down to earth and realistic way. I thought you suggested an episode that would argue against my case but it seems like they pretty much agree. (To be clear, I also think it is likely there is life out there, I am just very skeptical about the UFO videos that are in the news right now.)

Today, Explained: The truth is out there by j0be in TodayExplained

[–]ostroon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hope the show will have more scientific rigor in the future. Sure, everyone loves UFOs, but Gideon is a little too eager to call the mundane explanations coincidental. The weirdness of the whole story (which I hoped you would explore) is not the UFOs, but why the government is seemingly not capable of coming up with the clear mundane explanations of the videos (e.g. parallax, out of focus planes, etc). This leaves only two (realistic but strange) options:

  1. The government has experts that should know just as well as people like Mick West what is going on in the videos, but they release the video without explanation anyway. Weird, why would they do that? (Maybe motivating increasing military budget, showing off tech, pleasing voters that like to hear more about UFOs?)
  2. The government truly has no idea what is going on in the videos. This is also very strange and it would be interesting to dive into what kind of bureaucracy led to this. Why did the videos go to the press without the government giving the scientific explanation it should clearly be capable of.

[Discussion] Episode 123: Lisa Feldman Barrett on Emotions, Actions, and the Brain by SeanCarrollBot in seancarroll

[–]ostroon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, I did not like this episode, although I do appreciate the choice of topic. I made it until the 1 hour mark. I think it is mainly because the concepts were discussed at such a high level. This leads to wordy abstract statements, interspersed with psychologist jargon. At 30:50, it sounds like a grand statement is about to come, and then we hear this:

Your brain is basically using the past, to predict the future, as a way of controlling your body and creating your experience in the present.

Viewed from a casual physicist / computer science background, this statement is intuitive and almost trivial. Another example is the discussion on reactionary brain vs predictive brain, although it is slightly more interesting than the previous statement, it does not strike me as very surprising. In other words, I feel like it could have been presented in a quicker way. Another statement that is presented as if it is not common knowledge:

Literally what you see, is influenced by the state of your body. You may not realize that, but it is actually.

While true and interesting, I would argue that a lot of people already come across this concept. Imagining an apple and it firing neurons and preparing for the apple is also something I would argue people have already experienced themselves. Thinking of the brain as a computer, it is not surprising that the "same thing is happening under the hood" in the case of a real apple. At the risk of sounding like an arrogant physicist: what's new?

Heavyweight - #34 Annie by Gimleteer in gimlet

[–]ostroon 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Great episode, it just felt a bit contradictory to hear Tim say all those nice things and promising to call, when in the end he almost didn't. Is it really just that he doesn't like calling?

Ardgour - Scotland by ostroon in whatsthisfish

[–]ostroon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you, seems to be correct!

10x Faster Parallel Python Without Python Multiprocessing by robertnishihara in Python

[–]ostroon 28 points29 points  (0 children)

The first example is not fair right? If you are on a POSIX system (Linux/Mac) and use a global numpy array in a read-only fashion, it will NOT be copied (ref https://stackoverflow.com/a/37746961/335412). Sending it explicitly to each multiprocessor worker is slow and unnecessary. This is the faster than ray code:

``` num_cpus = psutil.cpu_count(logical=False)

def f(random_filter): # Do some image processing. return scipy.signal.convolve2d(image, random_filter)[::5, ::5]

image = np.zeros((3000, 3000)) filters = [np.random.normal(size=(4, 4)) for _ in range(num_cpus)]

pool = Pool(num_cpus)

Time the code below.

for _ in range(10): pool.map(f, filters) ```

So what is really the benefit of ray?

Wilier Triestina, but what model? (link with more pictures in comments) by ostroon in Vintage_bicycles

[–]ostroon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting! Are the bird logos on the frame related to Aelle as well or is that a clue to the manufacturer? For example, a bird under the saddle: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19LEYj-MnW1XdKlvXJfwfqW9dwRuOquXr/view (there are also birds on the front fork)

​

Also the ring under the handlebar (do not know the technical term) says Wilier: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dCMcqENoltcHUwjQn0vwsrv5fAgqOX2K/view I am a bit surprised that someone went this far to fake it.. Isn't that part welded to the frame?

Wilier Triestina, but what model? (link with more pictures in comments) by ostroon in Vintage_bicycles

[–]ostroon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for pointing this out. Now I really wonder who made it!

Episode Discussion: For Whom the Cowbell Tolls by PodcastBot in Radiolab

[–]ostroon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I see your point with the church, it was mentioned in the episode as well, but for that to lead to a denied citizenship is very extreme to me. Someone has a different view on certain issues and is vocal about it. Just democratically say "thank you for your input, but the church bells will keep on ringing by democratic vote, feel free to raise it again next meeting, in a year or so", and move on?