Whole-known-network
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz" class="u-url mention">@<span>dabeaz</span></a></span> respect!</p>
<p>I realize that everyone has a different definition of "fun", but over the last two days, I managed to write an interpreter capable of running the attached program in about 600 lines of Rust using nothing more than emacs, rust, and my wits. No IDE, no LSP, no books, no notes, no code samples, no online searches, and no AI. </p><p>Kind of a sanity check to see if I know Rust well enough to greenfield reproduce something that I struggled mightily with before. <br /> <br />Rock them vibes!</p>
<p>Cherry blossom. This year I didn't forget to catch this short moment when cherries blossom all over our neighborhood.</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/darktable" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>darktable</span></a></p>
<p>Often a machine can do a task better than a human. But economics being what it is, what may actually happen is that machines can do a worse job for a lot less money and for that reason the machines take over that task.</p><p>People warned us about superintelligent machines taking over. What will actually happen is that almost every aspect of our lives will be dominated by machines less intelligent than humans.</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@samth" class="u-url mention">@<span>samth</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://types.pl/@wilbowma" class="u-url mention">@<span>wilbowma</span></a></span> It does not at all for me. For example, your own PL group would rank far hire in Jon Sterling's Rankings ;-) And I'm not just saying that 'cause I like you.</p><p>And my own alma mater was a good place for PL, no doubt, but it was once far better than it is now — and I am pretty skeptical that it is stronger than Cornell and Penn and several others that it precedes by virtue of being "first". Especially Cornell, where they have a very strong bunch of people doing core PL of the kind that very few people even do at CMU anymore.</p><p>All this reveals to me that as far as PL is concerned, Emery Berger's Ratings are pretty dodgy... But you know what they say — if it's wrong about the shit you do know, it's definitely wrong about the shit you don't know.</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/@jonmsterling" class="u-url mention">@<span>jonmsterling</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://types.pl/@wilbowma" class="u-url mention">@<span>wilbowma</span></a></span> csrankings broadly corresponds to my own assessment of deparments in PL; does it not for you?</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@samth" class="u-url mention">@<span>samth</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://types.pl/@wilbowma" class="u-url mention">@<span>wilbowma</span></a></span> I mean, CS Rankings is bad for the same reason that US News rankings was bad... lmao</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/@jonmsterling" class="u-url mention">@<span>jonmsterling</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://types.pl/@wilbowma" class="u-url mention">@<span>wilbowma</span></a></span> But they aren't just "shower thoughts"! US News puts out a whole ranking system that is basically that and also rarely updated. Prior to the creation of csrankings that was the most important ranking of CS departments. </p><p>Additionally, while it's possible that the psychological explanation you gave is true, the opposite is also possible and as far as I know there's no evidence for it.</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@samth" class="u-url mention">@<span>samth</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://types.pl/@wilbowma" class="u-url mention">@<span>wilbowma</span></a></span> I don't see that to be the case at all... </p><p>The thing that makes "Gee, I bet Harvard / Cambridge / Whatever is really good because it is famous!" shower-thoughts fundamentally different from "This extremely detailed website says that CMU is the best CS department ever" is precisely that the latter comes with some "evidence" and so it carries more weight automatically among unfamiliar people, whereas the evidence-free "Harvard Cool!" thing carries comparatively less weight among unfamiliar people.</p><p>So if you consider the relative consequences of "Harvard is best b/c it is the most famous name!" being wrong and "CMU is best because of all this evidence!" being wrong, obviously the consequences of the latter are far more grave because people would have taken it more seriously.</p>