@EdwardEvans no shame in making $ or coding! :) quite to the contrary! what was the number theory angle? its quite a switch... have strong interests in both coding + number theory myself :)

I spent most of my time thinking about algebraic number theory, going into p-adic Galois representations and p-adic Hodge theory

part of a current convo with a friend in Edinburgh: I am just curious. I am currently stuck in someone's bra

And ket operator

hahaha

@EdwardEvans do you enjoy it?

@user586228 0 is a constant

Not at the moment, the pressure is too great and I'm not mentally stable enough to finish it right now. I hope to at some point in the future, but the time really isn't right for me. Add to that financial pressures and it's just not viable right now :)

@EdwardEvans its good to know your limits, academia can be pressure cooker at times. what language etc are you into?

A very special constant @user586228

@user85795 :Why very special?

Mental stability is much overrated.

@Semiclassical how was your academic experience?

@user586228 that is the slope

@vzn I'm learning java right now, I did a bunch with R and Matlab and Maple during my undergrad, but they don't count lol

@user586228 think of slopes when riding a bike on hills. when the derivative is $>0$ then you need to do work to go uphill, and when it is $<0$ you just freewheel.

@EdwardEvans R is a big deal now in datascience. ofc it all counts :) but yeah R is not as much used outside academia. its mostly python. few decades into java myself now excellent choice :)

0 means flat @user586228

@vzn r is used a lot in consulting (health sciences, etc).

Yes but necessarily parallel to x axis right?

Right, I think the more important thing for this position is transferrable skills (since it's a graduate position)

rise = 0 @user586228

I'll say "Number theorists are a rare breed and you want them around"

but that'll probably fall flat

@EdwardEvans you are looking at the wrong thing.

haha. if you have some coding experience youve got something

@user85795 Could not get u

@copper.hat what should I be looking at? :D

know a number theorist myself at my Co. msc. iirc he studied fermat primes

@EdwardEvans the ability to think and figure things out is what is useful.

slope = rise/run @user586228

ok

Right, this is what I hope I can bring to the company. Given that (higher) number theory brings together lots of areas of mathematics to answer questions should translate well

that wasn't a proper sentence but you got it

@EdwardEvans is this a security company?

@EdwardEvans lol read some gh hardy "mathematicians apology" if you get down. also have you seen "the man who knew infinity"? great stuff :)

@copper.hat No it's not, I won't actually mention anything about number theory in the interview, I'm just thinking of transferrable skills for myself. I'll phrase it differently when I actually come to interview.

i'm just curious why nt would be a selling point.

It's not really, I was just joking above

@EdwardEvans you have to play up your actual projects experience in interviews and say the number theory leads to highly analytical/ logical thinking etc... and ofc dont refer to it as terminated msc attempt :)

well, not a bad idea to have a one line connect

@user85795 then at maxima minima the slop changes in the neighbourhood right?

How do u relate?

Sure, I just have to phrase it in a relevant way, not just waffle about number theory lol

@user586228 Not at the point

ok

@EdwardEvans well, i'm serious. think about how you approach problems, the tactics (without getting into nt of course).

got the point

:-)

But @user85795 but why would second derivative vary so much..

@copper.hat Right that's what's relevant. A mathematician's approach to problem solving is highly transferrable and that's what I want to put across to them.

@user586228 look at mountains hill, valleys and ask yourself what is the slope at each point.

@EdwardEvans until we hit about 20 people in a s/w dev company we had no cs people.

That is the change in the first derivative @user586228

the best early on was a process eng who took up programming when he joined us.

think of software as a tool, not an end in itself.

Math is a hole

If you jump in it, you can never stop falling

rabbit

@vzn I mentioned that I'm looking to move into a different career where I can apply skills from my undergrad. I have a nice CV with some experience in IT, as well as a scholarship to a highly prestigious university, and they seem to have been interested enough to give me an interview! I just need to make sure I say the right things to get a foot in the door and the self-improvement and development goes from there.

If you are a rabbit, you don't fall over it, you cross it

So rabbits don't know math

@EdwardEvans you are loading yourself up too much.

When we express a vector $\mathbf{v}$ in Cartesian coordinates going from the origin O to a point P at (x,y) we can express $\mathbf{v}$ as $\mathbf{v} = x\hat{x} + y\hat{y}$ where $\hat{x}$ and $\hat{y}$ are the Cartesian basis vectors. If we wanted to transform to, say, polar coordinates $(r,\theta)$, why can't we just say $r = \sqrt{x^2+y^2}$ and $\theta = \tan^{-1}(y/x)$ and express $\mathbf{v}$ as $\mathbf{v} = r\hat{r} + \theta\hat{\theta}$?

@copper.hat how do you mean?

you are looking for a match, not just for what they want.

you are part of the equation, do not forget that,

it is a perspective.

I'm assuming this has to do with some subtle difference I'm not understanding between coordinates and bases but I'm not sure. Clearly that's not the correct transformation but I'm not seeing why it wouldn't work.

easy to say from the comfort of my own slowly deteriorating home.

hahaha

@LeonhardEuler lots of problem can be solved by brute force :-).

plus developing intuition.

more than asking random questions in a math room and saying random nonsense every 3 hours

right, take the interview seriously, prepare, try to reverse engr what they want and say it, but also, sometimes it takes a bunch of interviews...

all of those fractals you like to plaster here?

Yeah

Well, I don't have any experience in this field and I want to start getting some experience. In the end, if I don't like it, it's always possible to move to a different company. I need to start somewhere! The company looks like it has a nice environment, but of course this is all superficial. I'm not sure what else I can say!

But computational evidence is sometimes useful

@YouKnowMe Can I repost a question here? I think it was lost yesterday...

← <3 <3 <3 fractals! :)

I was learning c++

@EdwardEvans well, i am perhaps saying something different from @vzn. i am saying that you do not need to supplicate yourself.

Wanted to find some nice applications in math

almost a contradiction

@LeonhardEuler coding will be more useful for math (research). the tools have largely yet to be developed. its pioneering stuff :)

Ok

gowers has a neat essay on the subj... fields medal winner :)

@copper.hat okay sure, I'm aware of this though. I wouldn't jump into a job and be a code-monkey for sub-average pay at a company that treated me badly. Unfortunately I also need to experience the company from inside before I can make that judgement, right?

it is useful for many things, graph theory, algebraic stuff, groups,...

(other than reading employer reviews, which are all very good for this company!)

but then, who is going to badmouth their employer online

@EdwardEvans this is true. but keep in mind what you are doing.

google is graph theory monetized. to the tune of hundreds of billions of $. also, deepmind :) google pagerank started out as brin+page Phd thesis/ stanford.

i think of svd when i think of google

and duct taped servers.

@copper.hat okay thanks for the advice, much appreciated :) It's a big move for me and I definitely need to be careful lol

and why i did not take the job

lol google is more than duct tape. other companies (like mine) are about duct tape. google invented SRE, site reliability engineering.

@vzn this is many decades ago :-)

2+ decades ago roughly. but also, yesterday, NOW :)

working with g is tough at the moment.

why?

security is incredibly painful.

Does Google hire mathematicians/maths graduates?

i cannot go into details.

definitely

you mean the software/ server security etc?

yes to @NoName

yes we are drowning in security ourselves, stuff like copious bug patches across all systems with deadlines etc

@vzn i am bursting to elaborate but can't.

every bug is now considered a security vulnerability... ofc somewhat understandable o_O

it is a bit inane to the point of productivity busting.

problem with being world actors.

← spent ½ yr removing stuff like XSRF js vulnerabilities, sigh, @#%& o_O

makes my life more boring unfortunately. no nice cafes to visit anymore (well, that's more covid).

@copper.hat are you talking about like day-to-day safeguards that slow down coding testing or...? man have to type my password(s) way too many times per day :(

@vzn sounds of muffled speech as joe is dragged away kicking...

haha sounds dramatic have never heard of NDAs actually prosecuted lol but w/e

i have. been around a number of fights.

are you talking about legal actions?

Eh

yes.

ok well silicon valley is defn a different world!

and in one notable case, state time in san quentin.

that can't be hard to locate :-).

san quentin for violating an NDA? ?!?

my buddy.

no, more than that.

but ndas are taken seriously in some camps.

have heard 1 vague story from ages ago about "threats" over a noncompete clause. not sure if it actually involved legal action. but this is not silicon valley... urban, but not CA

i better stop here. i'm chatting too much in a public forum.

I have got smth to do

I'm snitching.

Bye...

non competes are almost impossible to enforce in calif.

exactly. probably just about everywhere. not everything in NDAs is enforceable.

if we were in a bar/pub i could regale you...

california has a right to work clause.

believe me, i know the details :-).

lol ok next time in Ca maybe a drink or two on me :P ... was there in august/ sandiego... 3 beaches in 4 days :) think you woulda like the 1 with the excellent outdoor bar + young attractive lady in bikini sitting alone at a table... for about 5m :P

:-). company for drinks always welcome :-)

alas, it was the 2nd trip in 4yrs to CA for me o_O ... did you travel much before covid19?

not so much for work. but personally yes.

work was mainly places with fabs.

and analog design houses :-).

cool. those fabs are amazing works of engr. incredible. would like to do some (more) tours of those.

do any of the places use robotics? havent seen them in ages.

they have for a long time.

← <3 robots in factories :)

even early in just for moving wafers. people are too unhygenic.

fabs are cleaner than the cleanest hospital.

by orders of magnitude.

and more secure than many installations.

like to watch videos of the car automation lines, think theres a real (21st century) beauty there! :) was just watching a promotional video of panyu china, they had a lot of robotics in the video :)

some countries view them as the family jewels.

factories are the family jewels that got ripped off from US before anyone realized it o_O :'( china + germany etc had more of a clue!

i think gm was the first with robots in car manuf.

did you hear Yang who had a lot to say about robotics in the primaries? interesting :)

@vzn we're straying into politics/world view now. dangerous :-).

i should have thought about that before my line of work.

oh, had a long chat about very dangerous politics this morning with semiclassical it was awesome lol :)

thought about what?

the world is not a better place because bigger better ics were developed.

there is no need to feel guilt. sometime progress is not pretty. but there is a reason to think about it. yes have had many similar feelings in recent years.

the world really is a mostly better place because of tech, but tech, like humans, has a dark side, a cost, etc.

the think that surprised me most was the transition of computing from high end mil to gaming/

really, gaming!!!

high end military? yeah gaming is going crazy these days. covid19 actually has been very good for gaming. know that phrase sounds crazy, but hey we live in crazy times.

when compac acquired dec that was the beginning of the end for me :-)

also nvidia is really plugging into ML, its fueling their revenue + dictating chip designs.

i remember where i was sitting at the time i heard the news.

← knew someone who worked at Dec. father of friend

ooh, i'm a fan of nvda in many respects. big fan of Malachowsky.

an ex worked for dec.

how about Sun dying? that was a big one! (in my neighborhood!) unthinkable in earlier days.

met joy, etc.

lurker's interjection What's the market for cryptographers like? :P Given my interests that would seem logical!

consulted on some of sun's designs before oracle.

at least java lives on, it will live on a long time :)

ohh, that is worth another bottle of wine.

@EdwardEvans NSA is hiring bigtime these days o_O

@EdwardEvans that is where i thought you were seeking employment.

defence contractors

@vzn I live in a country whose citizenship I don't hold, so I can't really go for a civil servant position right now :(

cryptography is big in some corps, but they dont really hire cryptographers. coders who work with crypto, now thats something that corps need. just saw nearby huge prj on that whiz by.

But it's something I might look into in future

as long as you have a clean dl, no marij. and clean social media :-).

ahh, need to be a citizen.

(I'll be going for German citizenship in around 5 years, so it's something I'd look into around then)

what is dl?

driver's license.

i need to be more careful what i put here. it lasts forever.

and will be sold to fb as part of a whatsapp upgrade :-.

@EdwardEvans theres a lot of applied crypto. ssh, ssl, https, different algorithms/ protocols, certificates, signatures, stuff like that has real value. also look into bitcoin + other digital currencies :)

jk

block chain has real value.

even in a limited sense.

Okay nice, I'm really, really just starting out, but crypto seems like a logical direction to go in the future lol

@copper.hat sorry about the san quentin friend. but what happens in chat stays in chat ;)

@vzn he is a good guy. i suspect a fall guy. doing very well for himself.

corps are going nuts over blockchain. even central banks at this point. china may be 1st with state digital currency. yeah its the future. its beyond corps + govts. a rare situation. almost like moores law transcends both. etc.

i would distinguish digital currencies from block chain (i know, i know).

Hi guys..

just as with the gold standard it will take a long time

its a genie out of the bottle. or a pandoras box o_O

2020 proves its recession proof. actually, even countercyclical. dollar crash, bitcoin rises. this was imagined/ speculated for many years, last year it was reality.

however, the volatility is still a (big!) problem. alas

well, scary times. even the republicans were printing money. didn't something happen in argentina in that regard?

modern monetary theory reminds me of the Italian Lira.

have heard more about venezuela. a failed state at this point. populace going toward bitcoin.

well, you need to look at the dulles brother's history there.

bigger issues.

wow thats an old ref! but yeah have heard some of them.

i did my little history lesson when i because a citizen :-).

you are not from US? remarkable! o_O yes even a lot of US citizens barely know our own history, sometimes foreigners are far better informed o_O

every country has its conflicts :-).

re GPUs, just read about this amazing chip you will probably like this story, another glimpse of the future

↑ sounds like scifi! very impressive EE! :o