Jonathan Cheng

Unrelatedly, I had to double take at the profile picture change 😂 it’s majestic

I’ve actually met more reactionary mathematicians than not—

But! I think LLMs have highlighted two ongoing things.

1) The deep ideological heterogeneity of many disciplines.

2) Lots of people think they are bad at math and programming due to pedagogical trauma/ the magic of self-characterization.

Also, if you’re a mathematician who’s open to learning some code? Mamma Mia!

“A man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know?”

One thing about growing up in Kuwait, is that history classes make sure you’re aware of how much global effort it takes to put out oil fires.

I think *with coordinated effort* it took a year to put out the fires from the gulf war?

Anyway, get involved — I sometimes make phone calls to Georgia.

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Kicking a dead parrot

The reactions I’ve heard are a varying cacophony of “oh god” — which is totally the chorus you want to hear upon taking a job. 😂

😅

War With Iran YouTube video by Big A

A decent primer on the longer history of the UK, Iran, and the U.S.— how we continue to not learn and the wild origins of BP that I wasn’t aware of.

youtu.be/SJddbloTJ70?...

Zenyatta cosplayers about to be put out of business

This is the exact vibe I’m in, just different packages, in a different year. 😂

Also, I don’t even consume energy drinks! What’s the alternate tech?! 😂

My 4 am thought “well, at least, after tonight, this will be figured out and I can move on with life.”

5 am thought *insidious tone* “but what if you *don’t* figure it out today?“ 😂

So, anyway, foundation models are a herculean effort. And idk who let me work on them. F tier decision making.

3:30 am me - reflecting on how I’ve chosen a career where I’m genuinely intrigued why one very large matrix and another matrix are slightly different — when they should be the same.

Me, grumbling at these very similar matrices, “please! Let me slumber!”

Oh right, the uff is just the general situation.

Uff

MediaFM: The Multimodal AI Foundation for Media Understanding at Netflix Avneesh Saluja, Santiago Castro, Bowei Yan, Ashish Rastogi

Media/ humanities ml folks might find this useful to track — I can think of a project or two ;)

netflixtechblog.com/mediafm-the-...

From time to time I mutter about a secret project that involves benchmarks and historical language models. Here's a formal announcement of the Schmidt Sciences grant. Other PIs include @dmimno.bsky.social , @lauraknelson.bsky.social, @andrewpiper.bsky.social, and @mattwilkens.bsky.social. And +

The first one fills me with such joy, I wish I had sunglasses with this color filter.

“No no, I’m not a weeb, I just *love* Japanese woodblock prints!”

(From the current rotation of prints at the chicago art institute)

I think this is sane behavior

“Penguins Sliding Snow Dunes Must Softly Waddle, Carrying Pebbles”

For folks who need to have multi-head self attn ops jumbling around in their head. 😂

* working *
* Suddenly remembering an intern who learned I’m over 30, teasing me for having worked with svms before *

It’s vicious out here.

Currently at the art institute of chicago: not the vase we need but the vase we deserve.

Ooooo, would love to! Ty!

Ooooo! Will do!

My partner and I are looking at Carroll Gardens! Though we’re still learning about the various neighborhoods.

The only Brooklyn neighborhood I’m familiar with is Bed Stuy circa 2010 😂

I think I’ve had three New Yorkers try to explain to me their various nyc bagel-water theories, and I’m cautiously optimistic 😂

I’m pretty open. Korean, Chinese, and Arabic food are my core cuisines! But really, I will take any recs!

Since it’s officially approved, I’ll be moving to NYC (same job)! Likely around March!

Idk who I know in NYC, but please say hello! You’ll find me parallelizing tensors across every cafe in Brooklyn.

I’m in the market for any and all food/drink recs!