HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Something I have taken to doing these days is playing some mindless but fun game while listening to long-form interviews or talks.

As a random example, these days I'm playing Slipways[1], but Diablo-style games or factory/builder games are also suitable.

Meanwhile I like to listen to fantastically insightful interviews with people like Julia Ioffe. You can watch a thousand 1-minute news clips and not gain as much understanding about Putin and the war in Ukraine as from a one-hour interview with her. Similarly, the Telegraph's "Ukraine the latest" is a roughly one-hour podcast I listen to every morning while taking the kid out for a walk. Perun's analysis of the logistics situation also tends to be spot on, and very insightful.

I used to listen to interesting characters on Joe Rogan, but Joe turned a bit... right wing nutjob. Lex Fridman is less crazy but also a less skilled interviewer. Still, he's got some stellar interviews like the one with Jim Killer[1]. Do you want to watch a soundbite from a politician in another country talking about something that will never affect you, or do you want to hear from the horse's mouth how your everyday life will change because of new technology?

I used to feel I didn't have time for this kind of thing, but overlapping it with gameplay makes it seem like zero time "spent" on it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4hL5Om4IJ4

I'm not qualified to truly understand this, but when Lex first interviewed Jim Keller, Jim basically said regarding processor design -- 'yeah, if you just guess the same result as last time, you get a 50% speed increase.'

First Interview (where that poorly paraphrased quote resides): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=13s

Second Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4hL5Om4IJ4

⬐ sitkack

The Weather Prediction Algorithm, weather will be the same as yesterday. Only wrong on transitions, very useful when you have runs of the same state. After that you implement a Markov Chain [1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain

I heard Jim Keller (the chip-designer) say this (or something similar) recently in a podcast with Lex Fridman.

It is at the 24.40 mark in "Jim Keller: The Future of Computing, AI, Life, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast"

https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=1480

"So there is a graph. Y-axis is productivity. X-axis at 0 is chaos and infinity is complete order. As you improve order, you increase productivity. And at some point productivity peaks, and it goes down again. Too much order -- Nothing can happen... Once you start moving towards order, the force vector that drives you towards order is unstoppable."

⬐ biomcgary

I would extend your point to say that any system with infinite chaos or infinite order necessarily lacks information about the world. Any system encoding information about reality necessarily looks like a mix of chaos and order. Unfortunately, any system that perfectly encodes / decodes information about reality has to be more complicated than reality itself.

⬐ Xunjin

Holy Molly, loved this point of view, really makes sense.

Ty for the reference :)

⬐ josephg

Yes. At complete chaos you can't see the world, because of information overload. And with complete order, you're no longer acting in response to the world. You're only acting in response to the order you've created. (In practice, models, metrics and beliefs). And at some point that can become self reinforcing if you don't ground your choices out by talking to real humans in the real world.

This happens all the time with ideology. If you get too steeped in any particular ideology, you no longer react to the world. You're only reacting to the ideology. (Or the world framed through the ideology). You see this all the time in the blockchain world. So much effort is going into making software and tools that nobody outside of the blockchain world wants or cares about; because it only makes sense from the perspective of other blockchain stuff. And of course, it happens all the time with twitter style politics.

"We have a problem! How do I solve it?" "Make the metrics go up! Use a blockchain! Acknowledge your privilege!" "Wait! I haven't told you what my problem is yet!"

There's a great quote from Bill Clinton: "The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."

⬐ Karrot_Kream

> There's a great quote from Bill Clinton: "The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."

Great quote, thanks!

Per Jim Keller, current source of speed in CPU is better branch prediction and data fetching prediction. It is possible C++ (or some other lang) may have more met information to drive these better, in which case it will be faster than C/assembler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4hL5Om4IJ4

⬐ andy_ppp

The possibilities presented in the podcast and the wisdom is just jaw dropping. Infinite fun and a highly recommended listen.

⬐ sjdhasjhd

https://youtu.be/WHcMfi4P4YY

⬐ AlchemistCamp

A part about "bad" designs regularly winning both in software and in hardware: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=556

Jim Keller's thoughts of the relationship between productivity and chaos: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=1468

His father's later years: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=1726

The fast and slow versions of Moore's Law: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4hL5Om4IJ4&t=2572s

On Chris Lattner and Swift: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=3961

⬐ AlchemistCamp

A part about "bad" designs regularly winning both in software and in hardware: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=556

Jim Keller's thoughts of the relationship between productivity and chaos: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=1468

His father's later years: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=1726

⬐ AlchemistCamp

A part about "bad" designs regularly winning both in software and in hardware: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=556

Jim Keller's thoughts of the relationship between productivity and chaos: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=1468

His father's later years: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=1726

The fast and slow versions of Moore's Law: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4hL5Om4IJ4&t=2572s

On Chris Lattner and Swift: https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=3961

Do you dream? https://youtu.be/G4hL5Om4IJ4?t=6114

Advice to young people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4hL5Om4IJ4&t=8155s

⬐ ncmncm

Money quote: "I dug ditches. I was good at it."

Any sort of craftsmanship, even ditch-digging, is a source of deep satisfaction. So, carefully choose crafts that yield significant results, in your life or in the world.

⬐ gabrielsroka

> audio

And video.

⬐ davidivadavid

Yeah, HN automatically edited [Video Podcast] to [audio].