Ravit's Blog

05/23 In the past couple of days, I listened to two podcasts by Lex Fridman: one with Richard Dawkins concerning evolution and the other with Roger Penrose concerning artificial intelligence. I also listened to some comedy clips by Ricky Gervais. Today, I was recommended this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFupAV1_xWU, which combines all three topics: artificial intelligence, evolution, and Ricky Gervais. How good has YouTube's recommender system gotten? 05/25 I have been thinking a lot lately about what I would like my summer to look like. Above all, I would really like two things: 1) to contribute and learn as much as I can about TinyML and 2) to set myself up for a solid grad school application. I have been contemplating graduating a year early for a while now and I think I should do it. One thing that intimidates me about applying to grad school is the sheer competence of the application pool: among the contenders for the limited number of positions are people who are m...

It has been several days since my last post. As the quarter draws to a close, I have been thinking a lot about what I ought to do during the upcoming summer. I have two main goals, both of which I would like to fulfill. The first is to publish a paper in the lab I'm in. If I am able to do so, the publication will mark the culmination of the work I began about a year ago. I am frankly somewhat tired of working as part of this application-oriented project because I continually run into errors that are not directly related to the research. For example, I often have trouble replicating theoretical results that have been confirmed long ago; this is not a very useful problem to solve because it has already been solved before by someone else. By solving a problem relating to replicating a previously demonstrated result or debugging an error in a binarized model training script, I am not making useful progress. If, on the other hand, I were given a more theoretical problem, such as to prop...

 

I attended a Jeopardy game for computer science for an honor society that I am inducting into. I was able to answer several questions successfully, including some that I learned recently. I knew some answers after reading about ENIAC, the Halting problem, and Ada Lovelace in The Imitation Game . Being able to answer those questions felt rewarding because I was able to apply my knowledge practically, if only through recall on a game associated with testing obscure knowledge. I accepted my ML internship offer last Saturday. I am most excited to learn what having an office job is like and to visit the office campus if the job is in person. I am most worried about my lab. I wish I had some more conclusive data to report and that I could speed up my turnaround rate for experiments given to me. I also wish I had a clearer high-level perspective about my tasks and experiments so that I could more effectively decide what to spend time on. Lastly, I wish that I would articulate my thoughts bett...

I visited Dumbarton bridge today with my dad, a bridge over the Bay. From there, I could see San Francisco and Oakland and the Bay Bridge connecting these two. I enjoyed the trip. I have a lot of work on my plate and feel guilty that I only worked for an hour and a half today. But, I had many enjoyable experiences, including an evening walk and teaching some younger friends how to kick and punch. Tomorrow, I plan to wake up around 5am and work for an hour and a half, then exercise at 7am with my neighborhood friend. I have several tasks lined up for myself, including automata homework, statistics homework, a history essay, and a lab for my os class. Ideally, I will spend 8-9 hours of worktime tomorrow and also visit the library to return some books and get some more. However, I expect it to be difficult to achieve this goal. Today, I watched the daily routine of Lex Fridman and found it inspiring. I am reminded of how privileged I am to enjoy most of the classes I take and to be able t...

There are many things that I would write on this blog if it weren't visible to the public. I don't know why I do what I do. I don't know what to do or what I should be doing. I wish that I were bigger and taller so I could be more intimidating and a better negotiator. I wish I understood what I want to do. I wish I understood who my competitors are. I wish I knew how much others know and how much more I need to know to outperform others. My heart is filled with bitterness and anger at this rough world.

Yesterday, on the bus ride back home, I felt a strong sense of loneliness and inferiority. I felt that I am not a very likable person and that when people meet me, they feel pity rather than warmness or admiration as I would hope they feel. I also worried that people aren't very inclined to like certain personality traits of mine as they are: I talk too much about myself, I don't speak very precisely, and sometimes I say underdeveloped ideas. I am not implying that these shortcomings are anyone's fault but my own. In such a large world, the burden of fitting in and making oneself useful can only rest upon the individual undertaking it, not the millions of others who judge an individual. This only means that I have to work harder to make new friends, speak clearly and present myself well, and work harder to accomplish more and earn the respect of others. I at least have the privilege of a few close friends around whom I feel respected, relaxed, and comfortable.

There is a certain spark of insanity that characterizes the minds of those who make great strides in their fields. Einstein and Turing became obsessed with their ideas in physics and computing, respectively, which led them through a creative process culminating in the creation of revolutionary theories that form the foundation of these fields today. The passion of the chemist August Kekule invaded his dreams. I myself have had dreams of things I become obsessed with, usually games like chess and badminton*. I think that the development of interest that enables this kind of passion is beneficial to potential undertakers of work in scientific fields. Those who study physics should be passionate about physics and those who study computer science should be passionate about computer science. To this end, I believe that engaging in creative thought, feeding one's appetite for fascination, and stimulating the imagination are useful activities for every scientist and aspiring scientist to ...

Humans are rational creatures. And because we are rational creatures, we use logic and mutually agreed-upon facts to build complex arguments in order to debate each other. To prove the other person wrong and demonstrate that one's own opinion is correct, people pose hypotheticals, cite facts, introduce personal experience, make inferences, and try to trap each other into making contradictory statements. Through this logical flow of reasoning, we build complex and robust arguments that withstand the test of reason in the eyes of critics. Humans have a natural inclination to not be wrong; being proven wrong is a sign of defeat. Being right gives one the power to take certain actions without impediment. The government is justified in collecting taxes from the people because it provides social services in exchange. Law enforcement is justified in sending criminals to jail because criminals have violated the accepted social contract between government and subject. Revolutions and revolt...