Robert Winslow

I work (and sometimes teach) in ML, distributed systems, and Rust. Cofounded EraDB. DMs are open, let's talk! Kindness over cleverness. he/him

[Wouter van Oortmerssen @wvo]

FlatBuffers 1.12 released! https://t.co/hwYBZjNyOP New Swift & Kotlin ports! Object API for C#/Go/Python, gRPC for Python and Swift, JSON for C# and FlexBuffers for Java. 247 PRs since 1.11! Get it while its fresh!

[Robert Winslow @robert_winslow]

@wtgowers @filippie509 When the CEO of a self-driving car company gets autonomously driven 100 miles on Highway 1 in California, during a heavy rainstorm, in the areas without guardrails nor cellular coverage, then we can use summary statistics. Until then, we need to reason by cases, not averages.

[Robert Winslow @robert_winslow]

@wtgowers @filippie509 When the CEO of a self-driving car company gets autonomously driven 100 miles on Highway 1 in California, during a heavy rainstorm, in the areas without guardrails nor cellular coverage, then we can use summary statistics. Until then, we need to reason by cases, not averages.

[Timothy Gowers @wtgowers @wtgowers]

Similar to the question of whether you would prefer a driverless car that is on average a lot safer than one driven by a human (you included) but that very occasionally makes fatal mistakes of a kind no human would ever make.

[Wouter van Oortmerssen @wvo]

Why programmers love to create abstractions: it's an anchoring for their mental model. Why other programmers hate your abstractions: it's a new foreign language to learn.

[Larissa Schiavo @lfschiavo]

Sometimes feels like we’re in the ‘Radium is new and glows, therefore it’s unequivocally good and should be put in face creams, watches, and mouths’ phase of AI development

[matt blaze @mattblaze]

On reflection, I now realize I was being too narrowly prescriptive on this.

I believe “crypto” should almost always be used exclusively as shorthand for “cryptography”. But language evolves. In rare cases, and depending on context, it can also mean “cryptology”.

[Robert Winslow @robert_winslow]

I wrote a new tutorial on getting started with #FlatBuffers in @rustlang: https://t.co/YJyIhWN0hI

[Wouter van Oortmerssen @wvo]

FlatBuffers release 1.11: https://t.co/4ME1OaIyCF

['(Robert Smith) @stylewarning]

Folks who don’t write scientific/math code: It’s more true with this code than any other that the *thinking* behind it is orders of magnitude more important than the actual lines written. Often (but not always!) the actual code writing part is not very difficult. (1/5)

[Smerity @Smerity]

We are already modifying what society learns, how it interacts, and what it aims to achieve, all based on an objective function that's about as complex as the paperclip maximizer.

[Robert Winslow @robert_winslow]

@frankmcsherry @narayanarjun Your DMs are not open :-)

[Solomon Hykes @solomonstre]

If WASM+WASI existed in 2008, we wouldn't have needed to created Docker. That's how important it is. Webassembly on the server is the future of computing. A standardized system interface was the missing link. Let's hope WASI is up to the task!

[Will Oremus @WillOremus]

"Keeping Reactors Cool," by the operators of Chernobyl

[Robert Winslow @robert_winslow]

@dillonforrest Do tell! :-P

[Robert Winslow @robert_winslow]

(Testing user stories <-> compiling with a type checker.)

[Robert Winslow @robert_winslow]

User stories are static types for your product.

If you document and regularly test them, your team will be on the same page as you. The project's puzzle pieces may start finally falling into place.

If you don't have user stories, your product is full of underspecified UX.

[MMitchell @mmitchell_ai]

I keep coming back to this framing of Potential Harms from Automated Decision-Making ("AI") from the Future of Privacy Forum. https://t.co/lESY1xu6uZ

[Angel Giuffria 🦾 @aannggeellll]

You hear me yelling about representation all the time. So here we are; little arms, nubs, stumps out. Let’s stop this kind of damaging hurtful & inaccurate talk. Let’s stop the mindset. Love you all.

[Robert Winslow @robert_winslow]

One person's "emergent behavior" is another's "cascading failure". Via @ThatMightBePaul https://t.co/sCaiP7gMtw