Personal Blog
This is my personal blog. I share some random thoughts on everyday-life stuff. Please don’t take it too seriously.
Posts
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Can coffee taste like melon?
Yes.
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A Stupid Analysis of Intelligence
Consider this machine learning-inspired definition of intelligence. Intelligence is a relative property such that one is more intelligent, with respect to an expectation over a distribution of tasks, if: 1) one has a better model of some task with respect to some metric (i.e., that measures performance), and 2) one converges towards a “good” model of some task more quickly with respect to some performance constraint using the metric, i.e. performs the task well enough with a lesser amount of work or action. Note that we need: 1) a distribution of tasks, 2) a metric to measure the performance of the model, and 3) a performance constraint for a good enough model (I guess this is optional if an optimal model exists and is tractable).
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Deep Success
Some “successful” people seem to be optimizing their lives for “success” as if it was a quality of inherent goodness. Success is, in fact, a quality that is measured by standards other people set. You can’t simply claim that you are successful because you see yourself so. It can happen, but it’s gonna be pathetic. You have to make people decide whether you are successful or not. Being successful does not make sense without relying on people’s opinions. Whose opinion you rely on is something that only you can decide.
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Free Doom of Speech
Freedom of speech is the right to speak your opinion. You feel empowered when you voice your opinion (and if you have Twitter, you are invincible and can win any argument). It doesn’t feel fair to have your voice censored. You want to be heard because the other person is heard, so why not you? It is only fair to be equal to that other person, right? We want to believe that we are all the same, have the same rights, and deserve the same treatments. If people want to have the maximum amount of privileges but no less than the other person, then equality is the only way to do that.
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The Truman Syndrome
Some people act as if they are being constantly filmed by an invisible camera through their whole lives. But unlike Truman, they know and feel like they’re being filmed, and, again, unlike Truman, the hidden cameras don’t exist. When people are overly concerned over these invisible cameras, they are experiencing what I would call The Truman Syndrome. (Argh! The Institute of Psychiatry in London beat me to it.)
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The Value of Life
Life is invaluable, right? So, one could say that, by killing someone, killers are stealing something invaluable (i.e., priceless). What is the right justice to serve in this case? To be just and completely fair, do we have to take something invaluable from them in return?
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Memes Are Things
Memes are just easily reproducible signals that communicate relatable ideas. Memes come in many forms, including words, pictures, videos, gestures, or expressions. They’re ubiquitous and encompass anything we can “get” (i.e., comprehend).
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You Don’t Understand "I Don’t Understand"
Teachers often ask students things like this: “Did you understand?”, “Do you have any questions?”, or “Who can answer this question?”, and so on. The problem with this kind of questions is that the teacher is giving the student control over the direction of the lecture, and, quite often, the students are very bad at making the lecture interesting or useful (unless the audience is a small number of extremely interested and cooperative researchers).
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Concisenessityhood
To be concise is to say almost the same thing with less words (almost, because it is impossible otherwise). There are so many reasons why being concise is so great. People don’t want to hear you talking all day, for starters. But conciseness has some beauty to it; we relate more to what is conveyed through shorter sentences.
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What’s the difference between Snapchat and people-watching?
[Disclaimer: my Shakespearean English is bad, so I used this translator.]
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خوارزمية البوبكورن
غيليز: يا اخي يقولون البوبكورن مفيد.
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Never Ask a Mathematician to Prove it
[Warning: bad jokes ahead!]