{"id":278,"date":"2013-04-26T07:52:22","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T12:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/?p=278"},"modified":"2013-10-02T13:07:55","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T17:07:55","slug":"reading-list-for-26-april-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/reading-list-for-26-april-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading List for 26 April 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rli\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cs.cmu.edu\/~tom7\/mario\/\">Tom Murphy :: <code>learnfun<\/code> &amp; <code>playfun<\/code>: A general technique for automating NES games<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Wow.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xOCurBYI_gY\" height=\"360\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cs.cmu.edu\/~tom7\/mario\/mario.pdf\">Here's the conference paper<\/a> [pdf].<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This suggested to me that it may be time to automate the playing of NES games, in order to save time. (Rather, to replace it with time spent programming.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ha! I've done that with some (far, far simpler) Android games (e.g. <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=org.bashni.sixtowers&amp;hl=en\">Six Towers<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.bigduckgames.flow&amp;hl=en\">Flow<\/a>). Beating them is satisfying. Figuring out the rules which best beat them is more satisfying. Teaching those rules to an idiot-savant computer is more satisfying yet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rli\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/05\/06\/books\/review\/turings-cathedral-by-george-dyson.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=2&amp;\">NYTimes :: William Poundstone :: Unleashing the Power \u2014 \u2018Turing\u2019s Cathedral,\u2019 by George Dyson<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At his 1926 doctoral exam, the mathematician David Hilbert is said to have asked but one question: \u201cPray, who is the candidate\u2019s tailor?\u201d He had never seen such beautiful evening clothes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Amazing. I hope my defense is 1% this awesome. I'm seriously considering paying one of my friends to ask this during my talk, just to see how the committee reacts. (<a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/u\/0\/107357401349156916755\/posts\/AnkfnC5VEHh\">Via John Cook<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p class=\"rli\"><a href=\"http:\/\/meta.stackoverflow.com\/questions\/9134\/jon-skeet-facts\/\">Stack Overflow :: John Skeet Facts<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When Jon Skeet points to <code>null<\/code>, <code>null<\/code> quakes in fear.<\/li>\n<li>The Dining Philosophers wait while Jon Skeet eats.<\/li>\n<li>Q: Can Jon Skeet ask a question that even Jon Skeet can't answer?<br \/>\nA: Yes. And he can answer it, too.<\/li>\n<li>Jon Skeet does not use exceptions when programming. He has not been able to identify any of his code that is <em>not<\/em> exceptional.<\/li>\n<li>Jon Skeet can throw an exception further than anyone else, and in less time.<\/li>\n<li>Jon Skeet only solves NP-awesome problems.<\/li>\n<li>There simply is no Halting Problem within a 10-meter radius of Jon Skeet, because computers are rightfully afraid to halt in his presence.<\/li>\n<li>Jon Skeet is beyond Turing-complete; he is Turing-invincible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>True to form, John Skeet's answers are the best ones on the page.<\/p>\n<p><p class=\"rli\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jpkoning.blogspot.com\/2013\/04\/why-fed-is-more-likely-to-adopt-bitcoin.html\">Moneyness :: JP Koning :: Why the Fed is more likely to adopt bitcoin technology than kill it off<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"rli\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mfeldstein.com\/si-ways-the-edx-announcement-gets-automated-essay-grading-wrong\/\">e-Literate :: Elijah Mayfield :: Six Ways the edX Announcement Gets Automated Essay Grading Wrong<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This could be usefully referenced after pretty much any media discussion of Machine Learning systems.<\/p>\n<p><p class=\"rli\"><a href=\"http:\/\/agtb.wordpress.com\/2013\/04\/14\/should-technical-errors-disqualify-conference-papers\/\">Turing's Invisible Hand :: Reshef Meir :: Should technical errors disqualify conference papers?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><p class=\"rli\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kennethnorton.com\/essays\/how-to-work-with-software-engineers.html\">Ken Norton :: How to Work with Software Engineers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"rli\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sharelatex.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/02\/Using-LaTeX-as-a-Historian.html#.UW2NQStxuDM\">Huub de Beer :: Using LaTeX as a Historian<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Of all the things I'm worried about w.r.t. transitioning out of academia and into the private sector, potentially being forced to write things in Word again is very, very high on the list. Please, future employer, do not condemn me to the swamps and mires of <a href=\"http:\/\/catb.org\/jargon\/html\/W\/WYSIAYG.html\">WYSIAYG<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Murphy :: learnfun &amp; playfun: A general technique for automating NES games Wow. Here's the conference paper [pdf]. This suggested to me that it may be time to automate the playing of NES games, in order to save time. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/reading-list-for-26-april-2013\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-lists","wpautop"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sddF-4u","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":406,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/reading-list-for-28-may-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":278,"position":0},"title":"Reading List for 28 May 2013","author":"jsylvest","date":"28 May 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"For Science! Patrick Morrison & Emerson Murphy-Hill :: Is Programming Knowledge Related To Age? An Exploration of Stack Overflow [pdf] As a CS guy who's tip-toed into psychology here and there I would offer Morrison & Murphy-Hill this advice: tread very, very lightly when making claims regarding the words \"knowledge\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Reading Lists&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Reading Lists","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/reading-lists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"busy_sciencing","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/busy_sciencing.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1188,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/aies-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":278,"position":1},"title":"AIES 2018","author":"jsylvest","date":"9 February 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week I attended the first annual conference on AI, Ethics & Society where I presented some work on a Decision Tree\/Random Forest algorithm that makes decisions that are less biased or discriminatory. ((In the colloquial rather than technical sense)) You can read all the juicy details in our paper.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding&quot;","block_context":{"text":"CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/cs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":542,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/reading-list-for-16-july-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":278,"position":2},"title":"Reading List for 16 July 2013","author":"jsylvest","date":"16 July 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Evan Miller :: Winkel Tripel Warping Trouble or \"How I Found a Bug in the Journal of Surveying Engineering\" All programming blogs need at least one post unofficially titled \u201cIndisputable Proof That I Am Awesome.\u201d These are usually my favorite kind of read, as the protagonist starts out with a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Reading Lists&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Reading Lists","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/reading-lists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Irene Global Tweets WInkel Tripel","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Irene-Global-Tweets-WInkel-Tripel-1024x604.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Irene-Global-Tweets-WInkel-Tripel-1024x604.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Irene-Global-Tweets-WInkel-Tripel-1024x604.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Irene-Global-Tweets-WInkel-Tripel-1024x604.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1002,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/self-diagnosis-and-government-contracting\/","url_meta":{"origin":278,"position":3},"title":"Self-Diagnosis and Government Contracting","author":"jsylvest","date":"18 September 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this week Hadley Wickham, Chief Scientist at RStudio, gave a little talk at Booz Allen. He started out in med school, and one of the things that stuck out from his talk was a comparison between being a consulting statistician and taking a medical history. He tells a similar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business \/ Economics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Business \/ Economics","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/business-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":998,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/brunel-on-legislation-technical-progress\/","url_meta":{"origin":278,"position":4},"title":"Brunel on Legislation &#038; Technical Progress","author":"jsylvest","date":"30 April 2015","format":"aside","excerpt":"I am opposed to the laying down of rules or conditions to be observed in the construction of bridges lest the progress of improvement tomorrow might be embarrassed or shackled by recording or registering as law the prejudices or errors of today. \u2014 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Cf. regulations against adaptive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Quotes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Quotes","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/quotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1046,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/what-ive-been-reading\/","url_meta":{"origin":278,"position":5},"title":"What I've Been Reading","author":"jsylvest","date":"25 July 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, Dan Koeppel Not bad. I'm a sucker for this type of history of a single commodity or common household object. It did make we want to try to get my hands on one of the few non-Cavendish cultivars of bananas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Book List&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Book List","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/book-list\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Banana, Dan Koeppel","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/71K3llKhVL-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}