// μ = m // dayvan cowboy // music is math

About the Vetta project’s gradual discovery of matrix-oriented programming:

I got used to coding like this on a summer course (way beyond my actual understanding level) on numeric methods for partial differential equations. We used Matlab back then. Then, in the next trimester, I took a neural networks course. The actual course assignments didn’t require much coding, but I spent at least a week writing a somewhat generalized backpropagation learning algorithm in terms of matrices. The code is unreadable now, if not followed with its (long lost now) paper documentation, which consisted of some scrabbling and hollow matrix shapes. Now, I find matrix-oriented programming fascinating and (I was told in my summer course) it’s great for automatic parallelization but it’s somewhat of an anti-pattern for most purposes (like financial code, for example). It also may lead you (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis-wise) to phrasing problems in inappropriate terms. The whole of economics spent the 20th century mis-describing the functioning of a modern economy in matrix form, and I’m not just referring to input-output analysis, but to the greater program of neo-walrasian/debrevian program of general equilibrium.

I was such a dayvan cowboy that I spent many a night rewriting code instead of learning how to use neural net software. Boy, do I miss programming. I feel like I’ve lost some intellectual edge by fitting into the “stable mood” box. Talk about the temptation of dropping the meds.

On A new library allows readers to borrow people for a 30-minute chat. Here’s the experience of one man who offered himself as a human book

I NEVER SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN THIS POST. I was manic, trying to drug myself out of it, and I used broken, terse english that recquires extra reader attention to get the point. Antpsychotics are not nootropics. Risperidone won’t make you smarter. I addressed these points on a comment, but this has become the primary driver of traffic to this website, so it should be STRESSED OUT.

Risperidone makes me smarter.

This is not the first time a drug is introduced in my cocktail for circumstantial reasons and has deep, nontrivial effects. Apparently antipsychotics make me smarter, and since I’ve been taking more of them than I should — even though they make me depressed and I’m only supposed to take them for two weeks ending thursday — I’m switching to Geodon, which is supposed to work the same, not mess with your hormones (making me smelly and even more girly) and be a mild antidepressant too.

So, wait, is this just for bipolar people who were really really smart to begin with, but had their wits fogged down by the illness (something which I have felt), or is there smart sauce in antipsychotics which is being kept from the general population as part of a giant conspiracy?

I think it’s pretty much obvious from the phrasing which version I subscribe to, but what if more people are just fogged down and can be cleared up with antipsychotics?

Is this another “Psychiatry is underutilized” rant? Yes. Is there even such a category? It seems so .. obvious, so generative. Anyway, more young people who feel their (even mild) emotional problems have fogged their brilliance over the years should consult psychiatry.

And that symbol in the title is a bad attempt at a turnstile.