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January 2024 updates

Have paper books with no digital version? Get them scanned into a PDF

Read the web in simplified English spelling: this Chrome extension translates pages to “Cut Spelling”

The ultimate guide to the Canadian accent

Find the optimal credit card based on your spending

Trivial Paleo recipes for meal replacement powder and dry cereal

Alternative to BackgroundTasks in FastAPI

March 2023 updates

New note: Tricky grammar

New note: Interviewing programmers

New note: Problem solving strategy in math and beyond

Convert images to the solarized color scheme

UNESCO World Heritage Site map

Optimal alcohol

Search for apartments within walking distance of a location

January 2023 updates

A great idea: let people use your yard as a vegetable garden and receive a percentage of the produce

Lifting CrossHair (automatic bug finder) from Python to SQL via SQLGlot

Photo gallery: Toronto

New note: Survey on computer assisted natural language problem solving in the formal sciences

New note: Global keyboard shortcuts for editing like in emacs, screenshots, and media controls

November 2022 updates

“10 years ago, the Peking University genius Liu Zhiyu, who gave up MIT and chose to be a monk, how is it now?”

Algorithm for showing overlapping hints in keyboard-driven browser extensions

FastAPI add-on that integrates the dry-python “returns” library

Xonsh users can use any-nix-shell to stay in xonsh when running nix shell

Kaomoji search engine

"A Man's A Man for A' That" in Modern English

On the occasion of Nima Hoda’s wedding.

Original:

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an’ a’ that;
The coward slave - we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that.
Our toils obscure an’ a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden grey, an’ a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man’s a Man for a’ that:
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that;
The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that;
Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that:
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
His ribband, star, an’ a’ that:
The man o’ independent mind
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that;
But an honest man’s abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa’ that!
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
Their dignities an’ a’ that;
The pith o’ sense, an’ pride o’ worth,
Are higher rank than a’ that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a’ that,)
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.

Modern English:

Should honest poor hang their heads?
We pass by the coward ashamed of his poverty
We dare be poor despite all that!
Despite all that, and all that,
Our humble work, and all that,
Aristocratic rank is but the form that gold is cast into,
The man himself is the gold, despite all that.

So what if we dine on homely fare,
Wear rough grey tweed, and all that?
Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine -
A man is a man despite all that.
Despite all that, and all that,
Their ostentation, and all that,
The honest man, though ever so poor,
Is king of men despite all that.

You see that person called a “lord”,
Who struts, and postures, and all that?
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He is but a fool for all that.
Despite all that, and all that,
His regalia, and all that,
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at all that.

A prince can bestow the title of knight,
Or marquis, duke, and all that!
But an honest man is above all of these -
Good faith, he must not fault that
Despite all that, and all that,
Their titles, and all that,
Strength of sense and pride of merit
Are higher rank than all that.

Then let us pray that it may come
(And it will come despite all that)
That sense and merit over all the earth
Will prevail and all that!
Despite all that, and all that,
It is coming yet despite all that,
That man to man the world over
Will be brothers despite all that.

Short musings

When I was 17 my lowest grade was in math and I thought I wasn’t good at it. One year later I was obsessed with it. Things can change.

Robin Hanson says that academia views impractical research as more prestigious. Yes, pure mathematics and theoretical physics are impractical and prestigious but ceteris paribus a research finding plus an application is more prestigious than just a research finding.

There’s a meta-contrarian idea that the mechanisms of academia exclude some really good science that’s just too unconventional. This is not true to the extent claimed.

Computer algebra is useful but discovering new algorithms to automate mathematical work is hard.

As Robin Hanson and Steve Levitt say, life is long. There’s lots of time to do lots of different things.

Re: Where are All the Successful Rationalists?, rationality is an important scientific concept in AI, finance, and statistics; its value as a self-help technique is not so clear.

Juergen Schmidhuber is right and Tyler Cowen is wrong: China will surpass the US in dominance this century.

Geoffrey Miller and Robin Hanson have different views on what people are signaling when they engage in politics: Miller says personal traits and Hanson says tribal loyalty. Presumably it’s some of each but I find Miller more convincing.

Robin Hanson says meditation is about signaling who’s a better meditator. This is an example of meta-contrarianism at one too many levels of meta.

Here Robin Hanson proposes a much more efficient method of small claims resolution. The Enlightenment was about such ideas: approaching economic problems rationally where previously no one realized there was a problem.

The rapid decision-making abilities of basketball and soccer players impress me as much as the physical.

“Up to 40%” of travelers from developed to developing countries get travelers’ diarrhea; “in the normal population 1% to 2% of persons per year will develop irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and 5% to 6% of travelers after traveler’s diarrhea will develop IBS”; and “the prevalence of depression and anxiety in IBS patients is 37.1 and 31.4% respectively”.

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics says “algebraists like to work with exact formulas and analysts use estimates. Or, to put it even more succinctly, algebraists like equalities and analysts like inequalities”. In computer science, algebraists like programming languages and analysts like algorithms and complexity. Or, to put it even more succinctly, algebraists like lambda calculus and analysts like Turing machines.