Reinflection experiments in Spanish and Arabic — Early this year, I uploaded a seq2seq model to generate gender counterfactuals in Spanish (el profesor viejo <-> la profesora vieja). Since then, I debugged some issues, made a general-purpose library, and created an initial seq2seq model for Arabic. The goal is to see if passing data through process creates…

Not enough time to research, buy, sell, and balance investments in dozens or hundreds of stocks? That’s why the financial industry has industry-specific ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds)! I am not a financial advisor so this should not be taken as financial advice for you; this is just what I discovered about…

Chicago History Podcast As a new resident of Chicago, recent episodes and a few from their back catalog (2020 to present) have been giving me background on the neighborhood, parks, and more in-depth books about Chicago history if you’re up for a deep dive. ‎Chicago History Podcast on Apple Podcasts We discuss Chicago history - the places, events, and the people behind it all! Have a listen and learn a little bit…podcasts.apple.com

In recognition of the Fourth of July and my multi-border visit to Cyprus, it’s a special sovereignty edition of the reading blog! These are academic reports on international law, so not great for gifting or filling a bookshelf? But good niche maps content. European Exclaves in the Process of De-bordering and Re-bordering (Jaroslaw Janczak and Przemyslaw Osiewicz, 2013) Political science professors Janczak and Osiewicz publish…

Just last month I made my last Arxiv haul post with most of the papers which I’d seen on Twitter, Reddit, and wherever else. More papers have stacked up, and I’ve decided to do a summarize ~half of them now rather than keep falling behind. Adversarially trained neural representations may already be as robust as corresponding biological… Visual systems of primates are the gold standard of robust perception. There is thus a general belief that mimicking…arxiv.org

When I was a kid we didn’t have LEGO in the house; we had Knex. One of the benefits of Knex over Lego was that it’s hard plastic and could make a five-foot tall superstructure like this. I was just the right age when they were releasing new kits, and…

This month I read two books while on the road, before returning home. The third ‘book’ is more of a printed pamphlet, but it was interesting nonetheless. Kafka’s Travels: Exoticism, Colonialism, and the Traffic of Writing (John Zilcosky, 2003) While planning a trip to Prague, it makes sense to reach for a book about their famous writer, Franz Kafka. I really liked…

I had a metric ton of Arxiv links built up in the draft for this post, which I’ve tried to trim down to the papers which I hope can stick around as mental bookmarks for me. Accountability in an Algorithmic Society: Relationality, Responsibility, and Robustness in Machine… In 1996, Accountability in a Computerized Society [95] issued a clarion call concerning the erosion of accountability…arxiv.org

I’m staying close to the UN Green Line, by a ‘Berlin #2’ Kebab House. On the first day, I walked around the corner and saw a bare concrete structure with a roadway going down into the ground. OMG, The Crossing, I think, snapping to scenes from Counterpart and The…