On topic: Quanta magazine and today's links

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Edward K. Ream

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Jan 9, 2020, 2:24:02 PM1/9/20
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If I had to recommend one web site on the web, it would be Quanta Magazine.  It's free, its articles are superb and filled with endless links to explore.

Today, starting from...

Along the way I learned that the biggest challenges facing Deep Reinforcement learning is the scarcity of reward signals. One solution is curiosity, an intrinsic reward that is independent of the particulars of the to-be-learned environment.

Imo, this has a direct connection to human accomplishment and happiness.

Edward

Matt Wilkie

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Jan 9, 2020, 4:24:28 PM1/9/20
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If I had to recommend one web site on the web, it would be Quanta Magazine.  It's free, its articles are superb and filled with endless links to explore.

thank you

Matt Wilkie

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Jan 9, 2020, 5:25:41 PM1/9/20
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On Thursday, 9 January 2020 13:24:28 UTC-8, Matt Wilkie wrote:
If I had to recommend one web site on the web, it would be Quanta Magazine.  It's free, its articles are superb and filled with endless links to explore.

thank you

Me 25 minutes later: "A friend pointed me to the outstanding Quanta Magazine today. I decided my 1st read would be on snowflakes, because 'Hey baby, it's cold outside' and getting colder. ... Regretting it now. Lunch is over, I need to get back to work, there's at least 6 specific ideas in the article I need to follow up on, 7 other Quanta headlines that demand similar attention, and I promised myself 2020 would be the year I changed my bad (no)sleep patterns. "

Edward K. Ream

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Jan 9, 2020, 5:48:01 PM1/9/20
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Hehe.

Edward

Edward K. Ream

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Jan 9, 2020, 5:49:01 PM1/9/20
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On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 4:24 PM Matt Wilkie <map...@gmail.com> wrote:
If I had to recommend one web site on the web, it would be Quanta Magazine.  It's free, its articles are superb and filled with endless links to explore.

thank you

You're welcome. Too bad about sleep...

Edward

Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas

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Jan 10, 2020, 12:04:35 PM1/10/20
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I also had bad sleep habits some of them regarding with my "difficulty to disconnect", particularly from themes and people which/who produce joy, well-being and/or curiosity.

Now I'm trying to care more about attention as one of the most precious resource in the times of attention/panoptic economy. I still fight against some bad habits, but some practices are working:

  • Phone is _always_ on non- interrupt mode, except when I'm explicitly waiting for an important call or message.
  • I have times for checking email, instant messages and times with those closed.
  • I use light filter apps on mobile devices late at night.
  • I switch from seeing videos to listening podcast at bed.
  • I use apps to read it later.
  • I try to have moments/days of procrastination and others of focused deep work.
  • I organize tabs (clean my virtual desktop) before starting with deep/focused work and activities.
  • I'm aware that I'm training an algorithm that models myself to panoptic corporations (Google, YouTube, Twitter, etc). I use different devices for different usages and I try to reinforce a divergent model of myself in some of them. I even plan to make a light talk about "How to train your algorithm", in the local data people group, which will be using images from "How to train your dragon" and, in this AI panoptic economy the company behind would be "Dreamworse" instead of "Dreamworks". It has been pretty fun to see what the divergent model of myself teach me about the decisions/searches I would never do myself, (but Youtube think I would).

I put already Quanta Mag in the future readings apps, to keep my focus for today :-)

Cheers,

Offray

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Edward K. Ream

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Jan 10, 2020, 2:27:34 PM1/10/20
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On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 12:04 PM Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <off...@riseup.net> wrote:

> I'm trying to care more about attention as one of the most precious resource.

Excellent advice, imo.  It's important to take complete, lengthy, daily breaks from electronics and social media. I have disconnected permanently from facebook and twitter. They are not my friends.

> I put already Quanta Mag in the future readings apps, to keep my focus for today :-)

Glad to hear it.

Edward

Edward K. Ream

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Jan 11, 2020, 1:00:15 PM1/11/20
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On Thursday, January 9, 2020 at 2:24:02 PM UTC-5, Edward K. Ream wrote:
If I had to recommend one web site on the web, it would be Quanta Magazine.  It's free, its articles are superb and filled with endless links to explore.

Don't miss the superb "year in review" articles.  I've bookmarked the following:


Imo, these give more of a flavor of the excitement and energy in science than do the year-end reviews in Science and Nature magazines.  And they're free.

Edward
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