Vanessa @Vanessa@octodon.social
Likes cats, neural networks, cupcakes, and super computing access. May or may not be a robot, but it would definitely be rude to ask.
People think you're a monster when you say you fed your friend a weird bug.
But that friend was a spider.
And she rolled it into a little burrito.
And she yumped that bugritto right up.
In the end it's just matrices of numbers (representing weighted connections and biases) and known activation functions that we selected before training (usually Gaussian or sigmoidal but anything differentiable will do if you like to experiment). Simple? Probably not. Utterly impenetrable? No.
Maybe that made no sense without context.
So, here’s the thing about understanding neural network solutions:
I’ve done it.
I’ve trained networks and then interpreted their internal structure to figure out how they solved the problem of getting from point A to point B.
A big big caveat is that I’ve done this with fairly small networks.
But I’m keen to figure out how to scale things up.
My concern is that people keep hearing it is impossible and as a result very few of us try.
Welp, I've contacted a favourite podcast to correct their statement that neural networks are impossible to understand. I'll do more of this in the future, I think, but I'll probably wait until I'm done the paper I'm currently writing since it has some new approaches not in my previous publications.
Shamelessly favouriting every cat photo I see. ❤️🐱❤️
FYI - if you assume foul intent because I'm white/straight/CIS, I totally get it.
Like, you have every right to be wary of our shit because we fuck stuff up all the time. It's almost all we do.
"I have become a language warrior. I want to join all those others in the world who are fighting for marginalized languages. No language is ever marginal to the community that created it. Languages are like musical instruments. You don’t say, let there be a few global instruments, or let there be only one type of voice all singers can sing."
-Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/an-interview-with-ngugi-wa-thiongo/
Drinking coffee.
Rubbing fuzzy tummies.
Life is pretty grand.
also: the German term for the wind in your face you get from moving at speed is "Fahrtwind"
do with this information what you will
Better depiction of my new hair colours.
https://octodon.social/media/jSkjlXeghbdEk8A6k-c
How to get a private 🔒 toot to your followers on a different instance without mentioning them: if you have an account on that instance, mention it! That way, it federates and is readable by your followers there!
Wie du privat🔒einen Toot an Followis auf einer anderen Instanz machst, ohne sie zu mentionen: wenn du einen Account auf der anderen Instanz hast, mentione den! So föderiert der Beitrag und ist von Followis auf der anderen Instanz lesbar.
My hair is now full of pastel greens, blues, purples and pinks that I really just can't capture. Maybe I'll have better luck in the daylight tomorrow.
https://octodon.social/media/0bis97BmhRZO_VhX6hQ
Spangle has a new box.
https://octodon.social/media/ofybRHc95vEiV0_n4jE
Don't mind me. I'm just over here spilling coffee all over myself because apparently I don't know how drinking works. (Once again, the primarily black wardrobe saves the day.)
Oh shit. Prima Donna just launched a sports bra. Yes please finally.
Grim violent nightmare. But awake to find two cutely snoring cats on me so maybe the day will be okay after all.
Once again doing a weird little dance while I read my notes and try to remember how these motion capture angles work so I can describe things properly. Which way are things going when I have strictly negative values for internal shoulder rotation around Thorax Z? Why do I still have to look this stuff up and work it out by moving my body every single time? I wonder what it's like to remember things.
Oh hey! Also there is trashy chocolate in my cupboard! I guess that will actually do.
Welp, I'm glad we had this important talk.
(I can't actually go get cake because I'm doing science and also I'm very lazy.)
Seeing pictures of cake makes me want cake.
So does reading the word cake.
So does remembering that cake exists.
So does thinking about what I ought to eat (because inevitably I remember about cake).
Cake cake cake cake cake.
Give me all the cake.
