To see why #JohnHopfield shared in this year’s physics #NobelPrize, you can do what he did in the early ’80s and build a simple hardware neural network, using the children’s electronics toy SnapCircuits. Here are the instructions. https://nautil.us/build-your-own-artificial-neural-network-its-easy-237976/

I recently started playing #Wordle and today was extremely frustrating. The system tells me a single possible word remains, when several would fit. There must be some hidden set of rules that governs solutions. Why are these rules not made explicit? This failure to define the game properly makes it almost entirely a matter of luck.

The #Bangladesh visa application asks your occupation, and here are some of the acceptable responses.

One reason I hate living in #nyc: Not only are restaurants booked up a month in advance, many NYers actively *like* this—they love the competition. Why should getting a reservation be a “game” that we should seek to “win”? Whatever happened to just going out to eat on the spur of the moment? Yeah, I realize this is a First World Problem, but I also think that many of NY’s more serious problems, such as income inequality, are rooted in this kind of toxic hypercompetitive Wall Street mentality.

Some actual good news in today’s paper: the #Holmdel #HornAntenna is not going to be torn down for a housing center. Instead the plan is to make it a town park: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/science/astronomy-holmdel-horn.html.

I’m clearing off my shelves for my forthcoming new book on physics, neuroscience, and A.I. and have extra copies of #SpookyActionAtaDistance to give away. The first people who PM me are the winners! Take your pick of English, Italian, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese. I’ll ship within the Lower 48, but if you’re farther afield, you can PayPal me the postage.

NOAA just sent a #tsunami warning for northern New Jersey, among other places. You have to scroll way down to find it was a test. If a tsunami could reach this far inland, we'd probably be talking an extinction-level impact....

The #NYTimes editors begin an editorial on city policy by saying #NewYork is “the greatest city in the world.” Why did they think this was a good rhetorical device? Does sound urban policy depend on a city’s self-perceived ranking? If anything, the phrase demonstrates New York’s greatest problem: arrogance, which creates an inability to learn from best practices elsewhere. No European or Asian city would tolerate the infrastructure here, and cultural institutions are in their own bubble.

I used to play the #SpellingBee but stopped because the word list is so infuriating - they refuse to accept obviously correct words. Here's an example from today.

There should be a word for paradoxical Amazon book reviews that pose interesting and intelligent questions... that the book has answers for. The reviewer seems to have read the book, yet if they had, why would they pose this particular question? Here's an example for my last book. lf this reviewer had emailed me, we could have had a great discussion. I could have pointed out the pages where I posed the same questions and offered extended answers. No doubt my book has flaws, but THIS wasn't one!