sampling with neural networks [seminar]

Tomorrow (30 March, 11am ET, 16 GMT, 17 CET) Grant Rotskoff will give a webinar on Sampling with neural networks: prospects and perils, with links to developments in generative modeling to sample distributions that are challenging to sample with local dynamics, and the perils of neural network driven sampling to accelerate sampling.

Expectation Propagation as a Way of Life on-line

After a rather extended shelf-life, our paper expectation propagation as a way of life: a framework for Bayesian inference on partitioned data which was started when Andrew visited Paris in… 2014!, and to which I only marginally contributed, has now appeared in JMLR! Which happens to be my very first paper in this journal.

The Magicians [book review]

While in Melbourne, I heard a recommendation for Lev Grossman’s The Magicians and the next day, while checking the Melbourne Writers Festival bookstore, found the book (rather than the Kristoff volume I was seeking), bought it, and read it within a few days.

‘Brakebills will remind readers of Hogwarts, though with more illicit fondling. Grossman has written what could crudely be labeled a Harry Potter for adults.” Michael Agger, NYT

So is this an Harry Potter for adults?! First, I think Harry Potter can be read by adults (if I qualify as adult!). This remark presumably means the book should not be read by young readers, maybe, due to recurrent sex and alcohol consumption, plus some drugs and an overall depressive tone.

Back to Harry Potter, there is the same magical boarding school feeling, even though it is located in upstate New York on the Hudson river.  And not in Scotland. With an equivalent to Quidditch, an evil magician, exams, surly teens, one or two love triangles, &tc. If in a more modern and American way. The difference with Harry Potter is that it also doubles as Narnia! A Narnia eventually turned wrong and sour, but nonetheless a strong similarity of stories and ideas. Of course, this parallel could be seen as an attempt at deconstruction, exhibiting the inconsistencies in the original novels, but it is so subtle it does not feel like it. There are the same encounters with sentient animal creatures, who never reappear after, the same call for Kings and Queens, as in Narnia. This lack of depth at exploring the connections between Harry Potter, Narnia and even some aspects of the Wheel of Time is frustrating in that something great could have come of it. And then… then… comes the worst literary trick in my list, the call to a subterranean quest with endless monsters and accidents! (I obviously exclude Tolkien’ Moria episode from this list!!!) Concluding with the evil character dumping information in the last battle to explain missing bits and pieces in the story.

So, in conclusion, not such a magical book, even though I read it within a few days thanks to my 39 hour trip back to Paris. The Magicians remains too teeny for my taste, hearing self-deprecating depressive monologues occurs way too often to make the main character congenial, and the story has not enough depth or structure to be compelling. A reviewer rightly pointed out it feels like fandom fiction. Rather than a universe on its own. (As for instance Aaronovitch’ Rivers of London series.)

Cayuga 1989

George’s dream

While I have shared this idea with many of my friends [in both senses that I mentioned it and that they shared the same feeling that it would be a great improvement], the first time I heard of the notion was in George Casella‘s kitchen in Ithaca, New York, in the early 1990’s… We were emptying the dishwasher together and George was reflecting that it would be so convenient to have a double dishwasher and remove the need to empty it altogether! Although, at the moral level, I think that we should do without dishwashers, I found this was a terrific idea and must have told the joke to most of my friends. I was nonetheless quite surprised and very pleased to receive the news from Nicole today that Fisher & Paykel (from Auckland, New Zealand) had gone all the way to produce a double dishwasher, or more exactly a double dishdrawer, perfectly suited to George’s wishes! (Pleased that she remembered the notion after all those years, not pleased with the prospect of buying a double dish washer for more than double the cost of [and a smaller volume than] a regular dishwasher!)