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Translating problems across domains alert (!). This article got me thinking. Oncology research sounds like live-debugging the race conditions of a millions-yea
by gen220 8y ago
Translating problems across domains alert (!).
This article got me thinking. Oncology research sounds like live-debugging the race conditions of a millions-year-old, self-mutating program with billions (trillions) of lines of source code... And to top it all off, it's written in a language whose syntax is elusive.
If you're lucky, you can sometimes observe some aspects of its execution, but always at the cost of context-depriving tunnel vision, and only with a really expensive and proprietary IDE.
If that analogy's anywhere close to the mark, I can't imagine the patience of the people doing this research; bravo, sincerely.
With that analogy, this article suggests that researchers have attached an information-theory-backed meaning to a previously-observed pattern in the observed life cycle of our cells. The black box is revealing itself, with deliberate observation, to be an increasingly intricate and beautifully-designed grey box. Every lumen of that box is hard-fought, and must be super rewarding!
Nature's one heck of an engineer :)
- alexpetralia 8y agoIt's always fun when people frame any given problem as an engineering problem. I'd enjoy seeing the reverse: an engineering problem framed as an artistic or literary problem, for example.
- mushufasa 8y agoRead italo calvino!
- alexpetralia 8y agoInteresting, I'll start with "Invisible Cities". Thanks!
- alexanderdmitri 8y agoInvisible cities is wonderful, I'm excited for you. And speaking of invisible cities, I came across this really neat project a little while ago: https://github.com/mewo2/deserts/raw/master/novel.pdf https://github.com/mewo2/deserts/raw/master/novel.pdf If I remember correctly (don't have the time atm to dig into it again) the project had first trained one net to generate images, then had another one trained on invisible cities to create the descriptions for the images. The above pdf is the output.
- alexpetralia 8y agoThis is amazing. Such a perfect example of using engineering in service of art. Thanks for the recommendation. [Edit] Here is some context for the link you provided: https://procedural-generation.tumblr.com/post/138688390613/the-deserts-of-the-west-nanogenmo-2015-travel https://procedural-generation.tumblr.com/post/138688390613/t...
- toomuchtodo 8y agoNot sure which thread I first saw this suggestion, but it was only about 2-3 weeks ago; I bought all of their books, and I've been very satisfied. So, thank you to all HN goers who make this recommendation! It is solid.
- GuiA 8y agoAlso recommended: Einstein's Dreams, by Alan Lightman. A literary exploration of relativity.
- protonimitate 8y agoWhile not exactly the same thing Paul Graham wrote about hacking and painting and the similarities. http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html
- sowhatquestion 8y agoI would recommend Kafka's short story "The Great Wall of China"
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- manuisin 8y agoWoah, I had similar thoughts while reading this. But I believe this reduces the hard bound line that people believe exists between extroverts and introverts. May be some people are naturally hard wired but what if it is just a state of mind used to justify understanding why they lack communication with either human or machine. What if we actively tried debugging running humans?
- kodz4 8y agoIn software, while everything seems massive and endlessly complex, the moment you spot your first little bug or fix it, all that complexity and mystery goes into the background. It's like a little door opens, showing you where you can go next. The same story applies with everything from oncology to astrophysics to music to cooking to anything you can think off.