Hacker News: bsdpufferfish

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "It's Dante's hell – we're just living in it"

bsdpufferfish — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 04:35:50 +0000

I don't blame you if you aren't entertained. But this analysis is like thinking Moby dick is about hunting whales.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Free shipping isn’t really free (2020)"

bsdpufferfish — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 03:07:13 +0000

you know what else sucks? living in a low trust society where people game these return systems (which we also pay for).

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "How to graduate your PhD when you have no hope"

bsdpufferfish — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 15:59:00 +0000

No disagreement.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "How to graduate your PhD when you have no hope"

bsdpufferfish — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 14:14:47 +0000

People don't typically start a Phd at 34. You're at a different level of maturity now.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "How to graduate your PhD when you have no hope"

bsdpufferfish — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 14:13:52 +0000

"have no hope" actually means someone at the department refuses to sign your papers. I have never been treated with so little respect in industry.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "How to graduate your PhD when you have no hope"

bsdpufferfish — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 14:12:11 +0000

Research in a Phd program is 90% long term habit, 10% creative musing. Marriage structure helps with that 90% part.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Garbage collection for systems programmers (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 18:24:31 +0000

Why are they always trying to sell these things to audiences who are not interested?

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Google's First Tensor Processing Unit: Architecture"

bsdpufferfish — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 02:14:22 +0000

higher dimensional vectors or matrices are still not tensors.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 23:38:47 +0000

> property rights

No you are conflating two topics. Property rights is not propping up stocks and bonds. It's protecting ownership so you can invest in building things over the long term without them being taken.

Similar reasons encourage the government to protect the value of their currency.

> the point of fiat is to be an easy medium of exchange

The stated goal of the federal reserve is price stability, not exchange.

> Hoarding paper or shiny objects is still speculation with risk

Yep but it's a difference of how much risk.

> having strong social safety nets

Those carry their own kinds of risk.

> I shouldn't be incentivized to hold dollars.

0% is hardly a massive incentive to hold cash. If we can't agree on that then ill be incentivized to hold a currency that does care about its value.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 15:42:34 +0000

Of course there is always risk. But one of the supposed goals of fiat money and property rights is to reduce that risk, ensuring the ability to save into the future.

There are countless examples of countries where that trust was broken.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "The Elements of Differentiable Programming"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 02:26:33 +0000

> not prerequisites

Almost the entire document is undergrad numerical topics (finite difference methods, maximum likelihood, Jacobins, hessians, newtons method, etc). This is all well covered material that is soundly not research.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 02:16:03 +0000

> what's stopping them from keeping the money in an index fund

Risk of principal loss.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 02:14:48 +0000

The comment is referring to playing loose with the currency, not a drop in supply or an increase in demand.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 02:12:38 +0000

It's not good for society that ordinary people have to speculate their hard earned money just to keep it for retirement.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 02:11:17 +0000

Even if it's good for GDP to have everyone spending every penny, it's not good for you.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 02:03:53 +0000

Relatively constant demand, and difficult to increase supply.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 02:03:00 +0000

Yep, societies just don't function until you establish a central bank with fiat currency and fractional reserve banking. It's a law of human nature.

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 01:56:56 +0000

fiscal hawks, like who? and with what power?

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "Why the 2% inflation target? (2023)"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 01:52:50 +0000

its really not. the math is a distant abstraction of a social subject

New comment by bsdpufferfish in "The Elements of Differentiable Programming"

bsdpufferfish — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 01:39:43 +0000

Differentiable programming is hardly a "subfield" it can be explained in a paragraph if you know calculus well. If there is any subfield, it's in researching specific compiler optimizations.