As someone who just converted a bicycle to ebike (via hub motor kit installation), it's not really that hard to do a traditional conversion.
The worst part was filing down the metal brake assembly so it didn't rub the hub motor on the rear wheel. I assume that was a very unique compatibility issue. Besides that, it was no more difficult than assembling a computer, just a bit of screwing and wrenching which any bike owner would be able to do (add in some spitting and cursing if you've never worked on a bike before, as I hadn't). Done in a weekend.
The second hardest part was figuring out what to buy. The most straightforward option is a full hub motor conversion kit, which should work for any commuter application. Trying to individually buy parts (likely from aliexpress) is cheaper but a hassle to coordinate, since there's no standard for ebike part compatibility. Then there's also the choice between PAS and torque-sensing, throttle, etc.
I ended up buying the minimal throttle conversion kit from Grintech (~$1200 total) and installing it on a used hardtail mountain bike I got for $200. The bike goes ~26mph on a 48V battery, 30mi range, works like a charm.
Verification is sometimes less conceptually difficult than solving. I'd say for most well-defined problems, verifying is simpler.
E.g. finding a general solution for a cubic polynomial is difficult. Proving that a solution is correct is conceptually trivial: substitute a solution for x, and simplify. Many mathematical problems are well-defined in this way.
In the case of a compiler (CompCert), the program is already, in part, being written according to the language spec. So that definition can be used in verifying a compiler. In a domain where there is no standard specification or required properties, then coming up with a spec is hard (probably as hard as coming up with a solution).
Do you have any objective data for this? In my experience, most subjective claims about men vs. women are unresolvable as either true or false. At best, the discussion degenerates into a Jung-like discussion of anima and animus.
> Computers, TVs, video games, and smartphones have solved that problem.
No, they exacerbated the problem. The point of the quote is not the being alone, but the doing nothing. All your examples just made it harder to do so because there’s always something you can distract yourself with. The point is that you should be able to be alone with your thoughts and nothing else.
BP died in 1662 and that's a translation. The phrasing isn't quite timeless or perfect. The central point anyway is the ability to be without entertainment and possibly also focus. Not just people.
LLMs read and write human-code because humans have been reading and writing human-code. The sample size of assembly problems is, in my estimate, too small for LLMs to efficiently read and write it for common use cases.
I liken it to the problem of applying machine learning to hard video games (e.g. Starcraft). When trained to mimic human strategies, it can be extremely effective, but machine learning will not discover broadly effective strategies on a reasonable timescale.
If you convert "human strategies" to "human theory, programming languages, and design patterns", perhaps the point will be clear.
But: could the ouroboric cycle of LLM use decay the common strategies and design patterns we use into inexplicable blobs of assembly? Can LLMs improve at programming if humans do not advance the theory or invent new languages, patterns, etc?
But starcraft training is not through mimicking human strategies - it was pure RL with a reward function shaped around winning, which allows it to emerge non-human and eventually super-human strategies (such as the worker oversaturation).
The current training loop for coding is RL as well - so a departure from human coding patterns is not unexpected (even if departure from human coding structure is unexpected, as that would require development of a new coding language).
AlphaStar (2019) refined through self-play but was initially trained on human data. I don't know of any other high-level Starcraft AI, but if you do let me know.
> Can you sit down with an unfamiliar domain and develop enough genuine curiosity to get good at it, without a syllabus or a credential dangling in front of you?
Do I have faith that I'll be compensated according to my developed ability?
Looking broadly at the recent past, the correct answer seems "no".
I've known many people who met through games. They offer something similar, in the sense that you can meet new people and learn about them.
The synchronous nature of multiplayer games leaves most of this expression implicit rather than explicit, though, so for some people it doesn't fit the same need. It's a kind of role-play.
I think most people are, for lack of a better metaphor, blood-sucking vampires for honest, explicit, and carefully-crafted communication. People are pleased when I offer it, but they struggle to offer it back, so I learn to not bother. Most relationships degenerate into expressing things better left unsaid, or being entirely superficial.
A case study of myself as an overeager math student:
I used to focus so much on finding "elegant" proofs of things, especially geometric proofs. I'd construct elaborate diagrams to find an intuitive explanation, sometimes disregarding gaps in logic.
Then I gave up, and now I appreciate the brutal pragmatism of using Euler's formula for anything trigonometry-related. It's not a very elegant method, if accounting for the large quantity of rote intermediate work produced, but it's far more effective and straightforward for dealing with messy trig problems.
Agreed. I think the divide is between code-as-thinking and code-as-implementation. Trivial assignments and toy projects and geeking out over implementation details are necessary to learn what code is, and what can be done with it. Otherwise your ideas are too vague to guide AI to an implementation.
Without the clarity that comes from thinking with code, a programmer using AI is the blind leading the blind.
The social aspect of a dialogue is relaxing, but very little improvement is happening. It's like a study group where one (relatively) incompetent student tries to advise another, and then test day comes and they're outperformed by the weirdo that worked alone.
Writing may not be produced for the prestiege of its result, but written words still serve an essential purpose for communication. I think that, as with any essential art, e.g. cooking, people will experiment with it to fit their needs.
Writing is also peculiar in that it is easily referenceable with a deep history, so it serves as a way to compare one's own ideas to others. Memes are similar in principle, but tend towards esotericism and ephemerality in a balkanized internet.
The worst part was filing down the metal brake assembly so it didn't rub the hub motor on the rear wheel. I assume that was a very unique compatibility issue. Besides that, it was no more difficult than assembling a computer, just a bit of screwing and wrenching which any bike owner would be able to do (add in some spitting and cursing if you've never worked on a bike before, as I hadn't). Done in a weekend.
The second hardest part was figuring out what to buy. The most straightforward option is a full hub motor conversion kit, which should work for any commuter application. Trying to individually buy parts (likely from aliexpress) is cheaper but a hassle to coordinate, since there's no standard for ebike part compatibility. Then there's also the choice between PAS and torque-sensing, throttle, etc.
I ended up buying the minimal throttle conversion kit from Grintech (~$1200 total) and installing it on a used hardtail mountain bike I got for $200. The bike goes ~26mph on a 48V battery, 30mi range, works like a charm.