Personal site of Mark Janzer
I’ve been learning about chess engines, and one of the things that surprised me most is the neural net at the heart of the strongest engine in the world. The rule I’d internalized about deep learning was that complex problems need deep networks.
I have been struggling to get myself to play the piano recently. With some experience and a degree in music education, you think it would be easier. The piece that I want to play is a ridiculous rendition of Kung Fu Panda’s Oogway Ascends. This is achievable, but not immediately, I would need to practice multiple hours a day for several months to achieve it. But I don’t do it. Why not? Do I not…
I was in the shower one morning and I thought, “I’ve got to negotiate a 30 hour workweek with my job”, and I felt a familiar knot of dissatisfaction. It was not a new thought, nor a new feeling. I had been thinking about this for weeks and the thought had a familiar shape: “I need X, then I’ll be happy.”