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lohankin's comments

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: How I learned to write music in real time

Perfect pitch is very common, can be developed by training. My daughter said once she was the only one in their class who didn't have perfect pitch (she was on music program at university). Musicians don't agree whether perfect pitch is necessary, or even whether it's beneficial. What you do need is 'absolute relative pitch' - the ability to identify intervals. I don't have perfect pitch, but I can play any melody from the first listen right away, transposed into key of F major (or G minor for minor keys). I just know these keys very well. The secret of learning how to play by ear is: transpose everything into the same key, and play it there. Never try to master all keys - it's impossible (very few people, even among world-class musicians, can play in all keys equally well). (I'm speaking about piano. On other instruments, the situation can be different).

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: Evolution experiment has now followed 68k generations of bacteria

Can you cite any experiment that can distinguish volitional choice from non-volitional choice (whatever that means)?

In the absence of such experiment, both options are purely speculative (by definition).

BTW, is your statement above a result of volitional choice, or non-volitional choice? How do you know? :)

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: The Depression Thing

Following generic ideas as to how to improve your life is what makes people depressed in the first place. You MUST do this, you MUST do that, become rich, retire early, make the world a better place, do something for humanity, healthy diet, exercise, you name it... Sure this all makes you depressed - it's surprising there's still someone not depressed out there. And now what? More diet, more exercise? Come up with a list of things you enjoy. Be contrarian. Stop listening to anyone, and especially - to your "inner voice" - he is lying to you.

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: These problems were designed to prevent Jewish people from passing (2011)

Those cases were probably quite common. From wikipedia article about Glenn Gould, the great Canadian pianist: "The family's surname was changed to Gould informally around 1939 in order to avoid being mistaken for Jewish, given the prevailing anti-Semitism of prewar Toronto and the Gold surname's Jewish association"

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: These problems were designed to prevent Jewish people from passing (2011)

If not for this quota, you would have much greater number of "known physicists and mathematicians from USSR with Jewish names" LOL In some places (Moscow University math dep-t) the target was about 2%, but I heard some technical schools didn't accept anyone (after Natan Scharansky affair. Long story...)

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: These problems were designed to prevent Jewish people from passing (2011)

The target acceptance rate was rumored to be 2% - which roughly corresponded to the percentage of Jewish population in USSR. I was one of those Jewish applicants in 1973 :) Exam was conducted in a separate room. When in doubt, the criteria for identifying Jews among all applicants was funny (in retrospect): they tried to guess by the last name. But some names are more "typical" than others, so the criteria was not 100% accurate. They preferred to err on the side of caution, and some perfectly Russian people were put in the same exam room with the Jews. This is my recollection.

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: I’m 35 and I may suddenly have lost the rest of my life

Forgot to mention most important tidbit I learned. Normally, you need to have your first colonoscopy at the age of 50. Mo matter if you have symptoms or not. But for certain ethnic groups, the probability is much higher. Your doctor may, or may not, tell you this (political correctness? Illiteracy? Not sure. In my case, family doctor was in denial even when he saw it), you need to do your own research. Find out where you belong, you may need it at age 30.

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: The non-linearity of productivity

while in the "Zone", you lose the ability to reflect on the things you are writing - long trip often results in complete bullshit. Which you can discover only upon waking up. Then you get stunned and paralyzed. Sometimes it's a good idea to just throw away the whole thing and start from scratch. I found experimentally that it's good idea to set time limits for your "productivity periods", and keep them rather short.

lohankin | 8 years ago | on: Counterintuitive problem: People in a room keep giving dollars to random others

Let's consider a different problem. There are 100 non-negative numbers summing up to 10000. Let's choose a random combination of numbers satisfying this condition. Intuitively, it's quite clear that typical case will be very different from equilibrium (where every number=100). I fail to see how the transfer of 1 dollar at a time is qualitatively different. So the result is quite intuitive - contrary to what the article suggests.

lohankin | 9 years ago | on: Show HN: Polyphonic Web Audio Synthesizer

I would love to use it, but no preset is good for just playing with MIDI keyboard. Notes sound ad infinitum. Any advice on how to calibrate it to sound like electric piano? Maybe add presets for playing? (Even if I manage to find a good combination of parameters - which is unlikely - I can't save it anyway).

EDIT: I opened an issue on github for this

lohankin | 9 years ago | on: What If Time Really Exists? (2008)

> In a classical word, you must simulate only one path. In a quantum word, you must simulate both. You don´t need some magical conscious observer to force the collapse of the wave function. A CCD detector of a camera or a simple wall is enough to force that the "wave" collapse into a "particle" and the detector or wall gets a small spot where the "particle" hits it.

This is a common misconception (among programmers). There's zero experimental evidence for the effect you mention, and zero theoretical derivation. Circumstances under which wave function collapses is the greatest mystery of QM.

lohankin | 9 years ago | on: Why Google A.I. is the last user interface

Term "understanding" will be banned by then, replaced with "backpropagation". And if you fail to backpropagate whatever you are told, you will be pronounced a fascist on the spot.

lohankin | 9 years ago | on: Hubble Finds 10 Times More Galaxies Than Thought

True, but this new variation is fundamentally different exactly because now it's not just an abstract process of unknown nature, but a "computation". It will be interesting to see how the idea will be reconciled with "science". E.g. with "random mutations" allegedly driving evolution, to name just a single aspect.
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