This looks great! Nice work.
I have a suggestion: Could you highlight a path when an edge is clicked on? I guess the clicking on the nodes can link to their wiki pages.
Yes, definitely a feature I'd like to add. I can change the opening the page on Wikipedia to happen on double click instead of single click. I am still a d3 noob and need to figure out how to implement the highlight path thing.
A lot of very good answers here. Here's my take on this:
I went through a similar stage in my life. I was recommended mediation, exercise, etc., and I did religiously follow those. However, I never saw much improvement. Nothing helped and I felt that I was loosing it - until one day when I said enough is enough, I'm going to fix this no matter what.
You see, the problem in recommending meditation is that it doesn't always connect to you the same way it connected to me or someone else. That was my problem. I never had the interest and never even felt that meditation will fix my attention span. The more I tried it, the more frustrated I was. That is when I realized I had to do something different. To be clear, it’s not that meditation won’t work for me. It’s just that I had to practice meditation in a different way.
I figured that meditation is just a way of practicing awareness and mindfulness. To do this, I first listed what makes me distracted most. The first reason I found was that I wasn’t happy in my life. I listed whatever made me unhappy, and tried coming up with reasons to counter them. This is typically one of the main reasons why we loose our focus. Something else is bothering you more than what you want to do. Address that first, and rest of the tasks become easy. Tip #0: Spend some time to introspect. Identify root causes for your discomfort and come up with whatever reason that helps you feel less stressed about those.
Next, I realized that I spent too much time on YouTube, Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, etc. The first thing I did was to cut them off. Just check them less frequently (say, once a week) that you are used to before (say, once every few hours). You’ll have some withdrawal symptoms in the first one week, but it gets way better after that. Trust me, you will do just as good without those - I’m a living example. Tip # 1: Identify what distracts you most and try to cut it down.
Next, I wanted to practice mindfulness. To do this, I picked something I used to enjoy before, but not anymore. Painting, sketching, reading, watching old movies, documentaries, reading history, listening to podcasts, listening to music, etc., were all the things I used to do before, but lost interest just because I was loosing my attention span. So I forced myself to start finishing what I started. Take listening to music, for example. I’d start a song, and skip it within a minute just because I used to get restless. I started forcing myself to listen to the whole song. I started forcing myself to finish the whole article, the entire book, the entire movie. The best part of doing these is that you’ll know exactly when you’re getting derailed. I’d take a break - pause the book, pause the movie - and reflect on why I want to skip, and why I want to re-focus. That helped me tremendously. I’d take a few minutes and get back to my goal. Tip #2: Identify your hobbies and practice mindfulness so that you don’t get stressed more than you currently are.
Then I moved on to my actual work. I’d pick a topic that I “sort of know“ and focus on getting better at it. For me, it was selective topics in coding. Just because I practiced mindfulness with other tasks (i.e., hobbies), I was aware of when I was loosing track of my work. And every time I lost track, I’d pause, take a short break, and force myself to get back at it. Tip #3: Practice mindfulness not just at some tasks, but at every task.
Overall, I’d say pay attention to your actions. You’ll get better at this. Give it time, and be patient - nothing comes easy. I hope this helps!
Did any of you succeed in asking such questions to companies (ML/AL or not) and ended up receiving reasonable responses to your questions?
My experiences have never been great when asking such loaded questions. To be clear, I interviewed extensively at small startups and I'm only taking those interviews into consideration for this comment.
The HR and technical interviewers dedicate a large amount of time for questioning you, and reserve the last few minutes to answer your questions. I lost count of how many times the interviewers would just blabber something meaningless in a rush, rather than answer a questions with patience and honesty. Of course, I made my decisions on whether or not to join the team based on such experiences. However, I cannot think of any remarkable instances where the interviewers answered such questions without getting impatient.
Any chats with directors/PMs/C-level executives after receiving an offer were also not very informative. I walked out several times going in and coming back from such chats with no questions properly answered because: (a) they are still figuring out, or (b) they cannot discuss certain details because you haven't said yes to them.
I always answered this for Graphistry candidates. We take a vertical data product mindset to AI -- so just one solid piece of solving the human-in-the-loop investigation problem for security and fraud teams trying to help their responders get a handle on incidents/APIs/logs -- so perhaps we're less concerned about image. For startups with real tech, competition shouldn't be the thing that matters, but execution.
For us, a great interview is one where the candidate teaches us and thereby demonstrates the potential to be a force multiplier for the team. Also, someone asking these kinds of questions suggests we may be able to put them in front of a customer!
> The study of more than 2,000 people found that 42 percent of millennials are at least somewhat familiar with bitcoin, compared with 15 percent among those ages 65 and up.
Something that is not clear from the article is: what exactly does "somewhat familiar" mean?
This, indeed, is a major step for Waymo. While some people may be skeptical about the safety of these rides, we all saw this coming. This has been a part of the ambitious goal most self-driving companies set out when they start. The reason I say "part of the goal", is because the end goal is L5 - to handle more complex scenarios which I assume Waymo is still working on.
Taking the ninety-ninety rule or the rule of credibility into consideration, the remaining 10% of development will probably take 90% of the time. By this, I mean that reaching a stage where L5 cars are owned by consumers can take a long time (if at all people want to buy instead of sharing, but that's a separate topic). For example, running this project in Pittsburgh, Boston, or SF is much more difficult than in suburbs of Arizona. Conditions with rain, snow, uneven terrain, high population density are still difficult to handle.
Several challenges still remain, from both technical and legal perspectives. However, any of that may not undermine the tremendous opportunities for Waymo (or its partners). There are several areas/markets that are ready for this technology (e.g., ride sharing in suburbs, transportation of non-dangerous goods over passengers, etc.)
Why would self-ownership ever be the goal though? I can see people just moving en-masse to Lyft/Uber type services that use a mix of people and machines, with people eventually being phased out, and simply giving up their own cars (except for those who genuinely enjoy driving).
Interesting question. Like you, I too believe that a large population may prefer Lyft/Uber type services instead of dealing with the concerns of owning one (e.g., parking, requiring space for parking, insurance, time spent in fueling, maintenance, etc.).
However, I tend to think that there still may be a decent size of population who'd prefer owning. Others mentioned the convenience of using cars for storage, being readily available, lower cost of owning, reduced insurances, customizations, etc. Along with these, I believe some other factors exist.
In context of self-driving cars, we typically tend to picture urban transportation first. However, there will still be needs for long distance commuting, or taking long trips for pleasure. There will always be places where people frequent less compared to major spots/suburbs in a city.
People may not always want to hop into a random car every time they take a trip. The cost/time involved in flagging a car of your choice may not be worth the effort for some. Also, keep in mind that many think of cars as a statement, another way of expressing their beliefs. Take for example, preferring German vs. American vs. Japanese, some prefer minimal space, others may like to exhibit opulence.
All in all, there will be a large shift towards not-owning cars, but there may always be a market for owning (at least for a long while).
While there are some valid points there, I think most of those benefits can be realized to some extent without anyone needing to actually "own" any of these cars.
> using cars for storage
While it's true that you won't be able to just stash all your stuff in a car you don't own forever, I think it's entirely feasible to have a system that lets you rent a car for a day to use in this manner. Obviously not quite as good as owning a car, but you can get a lot of the same benefits in limited circumstances.
> being readily available
I think under most circumstances shared cars will actually be more "readily available" than a car you own. Once autonomous ridesharing services reach a certain level of market penetration, it's practically guaranteed there'll be a car less than a minute away whenever and wherever you call for one. Plus there's no need to worry about where you parked, whether your car is out for repairs, or whether you can drive home without leaving your friend who hitched a ride with you on the way there stranded without a vehicle.
> lower cost of owning
Wouldn't a shared vehicle actually cost less, since the cost is split among all the different people using it?
> reduced insurances
Again, probably be cheaper with shared vehicles, since the driverless car company can self-insure.
> customizations
Yeah, this you'd probably lose with shared vehicles. No more bumper stickers or vinyl wraps. Though there may still be a way to pick a car of a specific brand or paint job if you so desire.
Here in Copenhagen we have a car sharing service called Greenmobility that offers 45 hours of driving for about $190 a month. Electricity, insurance and city-wide parking fees are included and 45 hours a month are sufficient for commuting.
The cost of owning a car would be at least thrice what this service costs. A loan on a new car starts at almost $400 a month. The electricity alone would cost a private individual around $100.
The inconvenience of having to find a car and being unable to keep it for extended periods is real and may be enough reason for many to want to own a self-driving car, but the cost of owning is certainly higher.
And towing boats, or ATVs, or anything that won't fit in a small vehicle. Or going to Costco/Sam's Club and loading up on groceries. Sometimes I think many on HN live in an urban bubble without children, where everything is either ordered online or picked up at a bodega on the corner. For much of the US, life is nothing like that. There's a reason the Ford F-150 has been the most popular selling vehicle in the US for many, many years.
What makes you think you wouldn't be able to summon a self-driving Ford F-150 via the Waymo app? It's not like minivans are the only cars capable of being self-driving.
I think in a lot of places the low population density would mean the F-150 would be 20+ minutes away every time. You might get sick of that and be willing to pay to always have it.
I don't know about that. Imagine for a minute that every car on the road right now were self-driving. How far away do you suppose the nearest pickup truck is from you right now?
There may indeed be locations where 20+ minutes is a realistic answer, but I suspect those places are more rare than you think.
But I don't think you can get to "every car is self-driving" without a pretty high proportion of self-ownership in rural or exurban areas. Lots of people live ~20 minutes from the nearest downtown-ish area, and you can't really serve all those people without a pretty serious wait.
You'll end up a) waiting longer for "uncommon" vehicles, b) paying more than for an L5 econobox stuffed with three other commuter.
Minivans are being used in these trials because they can carry multiple people to different destinations. That's the only reason. Minivans suck.
Imagine a boat owner. They need an F-150 with a trailer hitch, plus the wiring for the boat trailer's lights. So if they want to move their boat around, they need to wait 20 mins for something they can currently do right now without waiting, without dealing with network outages, with the ability to tow something heavy.
Look at the sustained performance of a Tesla S at Nurbergring. Towing takes a lot of torque, and will kill a battery like a Tesla. Plus the car needs to be able to get a bit wet/muddy sometimes.
As many have said here before, it really depends on the use case. Many have cars customized for various activities. They also essentially use their cars as mobile storage lockers--especially parents with children. The way some people use vehicles in a handful of dense cities is utterly unrepresentative of how most people use their cars and trucks. To the degree that vehicle depreciation is more miles-based than time-based, it's not even clear how much driving up utilization past a certain base usage really helps financially.
You can't have self-ownership. It's not remotely possible due to the safety considerations. Self driving cars need to have more oversight than FAA/aircraft.
Even with self driving vehicles, America will still have terrible traffic. If anything, self driving vehicles will make things even worse, instead of America finally fixing its broken/non-existent mass transit system.
I wrote about this a while back. Basically even if you only had self-driving vehicles on an interstate, all of them filled to 4 people each, travelling at 120km, you still couldn't even get to the fraction of the capacity of a single rail line running at 5 minute intervals:
If you can't own (or lease, but that's just a financing variant) a self-driving car, the concept is going to be basically a non-starter. People who already take taxis/Uber/Lyft/etc. will appreciate a 50% cut or so in rates but anyone else who already drives a car daily will just pass for most of the same reasons they own a car today.
Do not agree. Habits will change as it will be cheap. My kids already are very, very comfortable using Uber where me and my wife are like let's take our car.
Are your kids paying for Uber out of their own pocket? If not, then their opinion about the financial side is moot. My kids love to be chaeuffered about by me.
It would be far cheaper for me to take Uber to work every single day than pay for my car + fuel + maintenance + insurance. Like....half of what I pay a month if not more. Yet having the car for my own personal use whenever I want is still worth the premium IMHO.
There is certainly a lot of comfort in knowing the car will be exactly where you left it last night so you can load your kids up to go to school, go to the hospital, evacuate in an emergency etc.
Also, cars are status symbols. Everyone has a phone with a clock on it, but watches still haven't disappeared entirely. Going driverless won't suddenly convince everyone to stop liking their cars and prefer generic Uber vehicles.
Even if it's not a status thing you buy vehicles with the features you want, equip them for outdoor sports, store gear in them, etc. And, as you say, if I really need a vehicle in a hurry because of an emergency or just because I'm running late I really don't want to fiddle with a mobile app.
All the mileage-related costs are still there though. You're probably overestimating the degree to which simple age (and time value of money) dominates car cost. It is admittedly greater in states with snow--and hence salt on the roads in the winter.
I spent almost one year in a company where my situation was very much like yours right now. I was constantly frustrated and wanted to quit, but I couldn't because of several reasons. I noticed that such frustration was negatively impacting my work (although no one noticed/cared) * AND * my life outside of work. Once I had that realization, I decided to put an end to it and here's how I did it:
I started using a time tracker. I noticed that if I truly focused, I was able to get all my work done in 3-4 hours instead of 8 hours in a workday. This was amazing because every day, I was done with what was expected from me by the lunch hour. As you would expect, I kept this a secret. Once again, no one noticed anything abnormal as I was delivering with the same pace.
Every lunch hour, I'd quickly eat my lunch and practiced Spanish for 30 minutes. This bumped up my spirits me because I was having fun while learning something new. The next 3-4 hours, I whole-heartedly dedicated the time to sharpen my skills. I was basically reviewing fundamentals, practicing for interviews, and was keeping up with new research in my community. Once I realized I could move, interviewing and leaving the company was very easy.
In hindsight, I think the shift in my mindset occurred after I stopped caring about my then situation and started focusing on where I wanted to be.
I'm in a great place now, but just so you know - the politics, vague requirements, and deadlines still exist :)
You never really work for yourself (unless you're a self-sustaining farmer) - you work for clients/users, and they can be even more fickle than the corporate overlords.
Publishing research without any affiliation could be difficult because of various reasons beyond your control. Having an advisor or a team can significantly boost your publication quality. Think in terms of how quickly you can validate your ideas, get proper feedback while preparing the publication, and get proper visibility for your work.
Keep in mind that several large tech-companies (e.g., Google, Facebook, Yahoo, IBM, Xerox, etc.) look for research engineers, or software engineers that work with research teams. You could start looking for such jobs and collaborate with teams/team members that publish their work at top journals/conferences. Such teams tend to be highly selective, but that is definitely something different from taking competitive exams. You'll probably have to create a strong portfolio to indicate that you can "independently" conduct research (e.g., showcasing some novel ideas on your website, sharing implementations on GitHub, listing your contributions to open-source projects, etc.).
Another option is to look for any research associate positions with labs/professors.
