@karlhigley@recsys.social
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

karlhigley

@karlhigley@recsys.social

I build recommender systems that work for actual people. Aspirational cyclist. Actual dog person. Not even remotely neurotypical.

I run RecSys.social. I don’t accept follow requests from accounts without a bio or profile picture.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

Google translate between Icelandic and English has gone from 75% useful, 25% laughable nonsense to mostly unusable in the space of a year. You used to be able to use it effectively as a dictionary. Enter a single word and you'd get the most common dictionary translation

Now, half the time you'll just get nonsense.

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@baldur It “helpfully” [and silently] auto-corrects English words toward the things it has translations for too

“trader” (merchant) -> [“traitor”] -> “svikari”

recursive, (edited ) to random
@recursive@hachyderm.io avatar

I was thinking of making a list of types of software that most people think is "too difficult" and they leave to "the experts", e.g.:

  • geometric modeling kernel
  • integrated circuit floorplanning
  • cryptography
  • compiler backends
  • database query planners
  • electromagnetic simulation (antennas, transmission lines, microstrip design, etc)
    ...

Oh, it's all applied math.

(As an aside, I just want to note that there's some really difficult work to be done in accessibility and UX too.)
[1/?]

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@recursive i had all of these but the one my peers hated the most was discrete math as a prerequisite weed out course

(i took number theory as a teenager, loved that class, and eat over 10000 spiders a day)

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@recursive i hated all the the things my peers were fine with and vice versa. almost failed several semesters of calculus in a row, never attended modern algebra and set the curve. i literally got carded to turn in my exams but also desperately needed a tutor 🤷‍♀️

recursive, to random
@recursive@hachyderm.io avatar

An unexpectedly pleasant result of teaching myself some abstract algebra and number theory is that I get to properly indulge my inner child, who is deeply resentful that anyone ever demanded that she believe something based on appeal to authority.

Despite being moved into "two years ahead of most kids" math starting around age 13, until I hit some theoretical computer science stuff in college, it was mostly practical technique and very little proof and hard for me to fake interest in.

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@recursive I was very lucky to take these in the opposite order…which surprised the hell out of my college abstract algebra teacher when he had a student who was deeply bored, didn’t attend class, and finished the exams in half the allotted time because they’d been doing it for a decade already

(I also nearly failed pre-calc, so…I get it. I lucked out and my inner child got dessert early.)

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

I can’t let you remove that, it’s a load bearing organizational delusion

elizabethtasker, to random
@elizabethtasker@mastodon.online avatar

In my 20s, I was very excited about travel. In my 40s, I’m tempted to cancel the entire trip at the last minute and claim to have contracted want-a-regular-week-with-the-cat fever.

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@elizabethtasker I bailed on an international conference trip (that I’d paid for myself!) while I was on the way to the airport because I had legitimately contracted want-a-regular-week-with-the-dog fever, so…I believe in you. You can do it!

andrewfeeney, to random
@andrewfeeney@phpc.social avatar

Every hot-take programming article ever:

"[pattern] worked well in my context, therefore [pattern] alone is correct in any context."

Every counter hot-take on hot-take programming article ever:

"[pattern] did not work well in my context, therefore everyone who does [pattern] is wrong and should feel bad."

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@andrewfeeney it’s almost like tech people aren’t good at contextual thinking 🧐

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

“AI” enthusiast: i have made a chatbot that answers your questions

Software developers: you fucked up a perfectly good search engine is what you did. look at it. it's got hallucinations

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

I recently referred to something as a “home improvement project” and C said something like “I’m thinking of them as a subset of life improvement projects. I don’t want to have a nice house just to have it. I only want it if it makes my life better.”

I hereby reject the framing of house work as “chores.” From now on, I only do “life improvement projects.”

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

My plan (very ill-advised in hindsight) to binge graphic novel series so heavy that the creators had to take a break from making them has come to a screeching halt after about twenty pages

MLE_online, to random
@MLE_online@social.afront.org avatar

I slept poorly last night, in no small part because of large animal running across the roof multiple times.

I never got up to see what it was, but it was larger than the usual cats. I haven't seen possums or raccoons around here in a few years, but maybe they are back.

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@MLE_online this is such a weird thing to have in common! our roof seems to be some kind of animal highway between places unknown. the snow here has rendered it blissfully quiet for the past few days, but the traffic noise keeps me up all the time

Cassandra, to random
@Cassandra@autistics.life avatar

Thinking about the guy I dated briefly who suggested there should be a user manual for me.

I didn't find it insulting. I think it could have been full of very useful information, for those who bothered to read it.

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@Cassandra reminds me of someone i dated who actually wrote a manual about me for the next person. kinda wish i still had that actually

recursive, to random
@recursive@hachyderm.io avatar

You can use a BlenderBottle as a cocktail shaker

karlhigley,
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

@recursive i bet that works great for sours and fizzes

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

tfw enchiladas seem too complicated so you make enchilasagna instead

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

watching two time travel shows, and for maybe the first time in my life, i’m rolling my eyes at the one with the elaborate time loopy puzzle box plot and really enjoying the one that’s just about the characters connecting with their younger selves, reflecting on their lives now, and trying to fix a few things without messing the present up too badly for each other

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

When people deride stand-ups as useless status report sessions, all I hear is “I have no idea how to identify or communicate useful information to my colleagues, and I also don’t collaborate well.”

It’s apparently a very sneaky way of telling on oneself, because not realizing that’s what they’re doing seems quite common.

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

In my experience as an autistic person humans are very bad at actually answering questions, so I wouldn’t say that “human-level performance” is a very meaningful benchmark for ML-based question answering systems

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

Big plans this evening, we’re going to watch that classic movie about an autistic person whose special interests are relevant to their career: Legally Blonde

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

how does adding an island make the kitchen bigger? what kind of bizarre high-dimensional witchcraft is this?

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

On some level, I’m just a turntable for the plates our dog wants to clean

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

C: “What?! What is an offset bread crumb? How can a crumb have a zig-zag?”

Me: “Noooo, offset bread knives”

C: “Ohhhhh, then your knuckles don’t hit the cutting board”

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

“Why did Google spend billions recommending gasoline pasta?” is a real and legitimate question people have to ask these days ⛽️ 🍝 🫠

https://mastodon.social/@JoeUchill/112493422972172496

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

This is your annual reminder that many autistic people consider groups seeking to prevent or cure autism to be eugenicist hate groups and would strongly prefer that any donations you make go to groups that seek to improve the lives of autistic people instead

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

Food processors: what are your favorites?

karlhigley, to random
@karlhigley@recsys.social avatar

this town will not accommdate the numerical totality of our combined mass

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