Prem

Follow @pgkr on Micro.blog.

Watched The Vast of Night, a nice little indie sci-fi filmed like a stage play. A lot of great stylistic flair with a ton of impressive single-takes. I’d recommend it for a weeknight in lockdown. 🎥

→ 9:17 PM, Jul 14

IB will use a statistical model, rather than exams, to predict the grades of over 160k students.

Communicating the concerns a lot of us have about using ML ethically is becoming more and more important.

160k+ high school students will only graduate if a statistical model allows them to - positively-semi-definite

I would like to call attention to the speed with which governments and universities declared that they were ‘on board’ with this bad idea. It is concerning to see how this was treated as a stereotypical business decision with no regard for the potential ramifications and a total lack of consideration from an interdisciplinary perspective. Conversations on fairness in machine learning clearly failed to reach the many many stakeholders involved in this operation.

→ 3:33 PM, Jul 13

Today, I picked up some books from my neighborhood book shop. It’s nice to read physical books sometimes. 📚

→ 2:29 PM, Jul 13

Got my m.b stickers! Thanks, @macgenie!

→ 2:09 PM, Jul 13

It’s difficult to find intermediate and expert level learning resources for TensorFlow. Deep learning is such a young field that that only way to learn is by experience and by example.

→ 10:46 PM, Jul 12

Doing laundry and cleaning my apartment to take my kind off the heat and humidity. It’s… not helping.

→ 4:54 PM, Jul 11

The iOS 14 public beta is fun to play with, but some of my shortcuts aren’t working in the widget. Shortcuts are not easy to debug.

→ 10:05 AM, Jul 10

Humidity level: intense.

→ 9:41 AM, Jul 10

It’s nice to take the case off my phone occasionally to remind myself how pleasing these devices actually are.

→ 12:08 PM, Jul 8

A great little essay about Halt and Catch Fire, a show I finally watched during the pandemic after putting it off for years. (Spoiler warning!)

Infovore » The Thing That Gets You To The Thing

→ 1:17 PM, Jul 7

I gave in and bought a desk when I realized we might not even be halfway through the pandemic. I plan to assemble it tonight so I can stop using my dining table as a desk.

→ 10:59 AM, Jul 7

Object-oriented languages and scripting languages are enjoyable to write for different reasons. I like when I get to use both styles for different tasks.

→ 5:17 PM, Jul 6

It’s satisfying to see an exact 10’0” pace. It’s a good place to start. I want to make this feel comfortable, then begin to run for longer distances.

→ 12:04 PM, Jul 6

A COVID mask showroom. As seen at a rest stop in Pennsylvania.

→ 7:30 PM, Jul 5

My eyes get tired on Thursdays and Fridays from looking at screens all week. Trying to remember to rest my eyes more often.

→ 1:46 PM, Jul 2

Holding Facebook and other tech monopolies accountable

Tech journalism is just one piece of the puzzle, but it’s an important piece.

Reporters Describe Their Experiences Covering Facebook — Pixel Envy

It’s not that Facebook’s individual controversies should be allowed to slide; it’s that they should be put into a broader context as both a cause and result if we are to better understand our toxic relationship with a communications, advertising, and surveillance giant.

→ 4:59 PM, Jul 1

A solid album start to finish. Hard to believe it’s 14 years old. 🎵

→ 10:24 PM, Jun 30

How do you find blogs to follow? Not just microblogs, though tips about discovering microblogs are welcome too. I want to follow more thoughtful, well-written blogs on my RSS reader.

→ 8:05 PM, Jun 30

Made an anime version of myself on Picrew.

→ 11:14 PM, Jun 29

Just did a major refactor of the icons on my phone. Now, I have a screen dedicated to habit-tracking, health, and mindfulness apps.

It’s a little tedious to do without iTunes but it’s worth it.

→ 4:41 PM, Jun 29

Trying to find a good probability textbook that isn’t overpriced. I want to really get into the weeds here to gain better intuition.

→ 10:52 PM, Jun 28

Listening to the audiobook of Murakami’s memoir. Only ever read one book by him (Sputnik Sweetheart) but I wanted to know more about this guy before I read more. It’s pretty good so far! 📚

→ 1:46 PM, Jun 27

Just made an impulse purchase of a bunch of books with the excuse that I’m supporting my local bookstore.

→ 1:14 PM, Jun 26

Having an Aimee Mann kind of day. 🎵

→ 10:51 AM, Jun 26

A successful Pathfinder session! I tried to put the group in a situation with no plan for how they could get out. They found a creative solution regardless! It was quite satisfying to see them figure it out methodically.

→ 11:06 PM, Jun 25