skei's comments | WingNews

skei | 1 year ago | on: Ask HN: What's the most creative 'useless' program you've ever written?

During my postdoc, I wrote some code running parameter optimisation on a large dynamical system. It wasn't clever code, it was closer to a grid search than anything else. I spun it up across 200 cores of the local supercomputer, I waited 72 hours... and then nothing. I had forgotten to write the results to disk.

skei | 5 years ago | on: Imperial mathematician scoops $3M Breakthrough Prize

I did my undergrad, Masters, and PhD at Warwick. I was originally aiming for a Cambridge, for a conditional offer, and failed to make the grades in the exams.

No regrets. Warwick is a fantastic university.

I actually met Martin Hairer a few times, as my doctorate was between maths, physics, and computer science departments. We didn't overlap much in interests ( or ability... ) but he seemed nice.

skei | 5 years ago | on: John Conway has died

I had dinner with John Conway in 2013. I was just leaving Princeton as a psychic and a mutual friend set it up as my goodbye party.

He was quite extraordinary to speak to. We talked about a whole host of things, and he signed his book for me. I'm very sorry to hear of his passing.