Ellipsix Informaticshttps://www.ellipsix.net/2023-04-03T21:30:00-07:00arXiv Fool's Day 2023, now with more chickens2023-04-03T21:30:00-07:002023-04-03T21:30:00-07:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2023-04-03:/blog/2023/04/arxiv-fools-day-2023-now-with-more-chickens.html<p>I had a feeling I’d be writing this post.
Last week <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/04/from-minecraft-to-memes-arxiv-fools-day-2023.html">I only found six joke papers</a> to add to <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">my list</a>, but today’s arXiv feed delivered a very strong update, with eight more, bringing the 2023 total to fourteen, tying last year’s record.</p>
<p>I did <em>not</em>, however, have a feeling I’d be reading the phrase “large overdensity in the overall distribution of chickens”.
One of the highlights of today’s feed is this <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17626">extremely well-researched survey of bounds on the chicken density function (CDF) of the universe</a>.
While a lower bound is well established, the paper makes the first case for an upper bound as well, <span class="math">\(10^{23}\)</span> chickens per cubic parsec.
Fortunately (for the chickens, if perhaps not for science), that probably falls short of the <a href="https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/">gravitational binding threshold for small animals</a>, but if the density fluctuations are large enough, who knows.
I definitely want to see followup studies on this one.</p>
<p>(Loosely) speaking of birds, we also have the creatively titled “<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17628">ChatGPT scores a bad birdie in counting gravitational-wave chirps</a>”, which pretty firmly establishes that ChatGPT is not as good as actual scientists at counting gravitational wave events.
(With some neat visualizations, too!)
However, ChatGPT may be good at other things… for instance, is it any better at writing astrophysics papers than counting?
We find that topic explored in “<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17853">Can AI Put Gamma-Ray Astrophysicists Out of a Job?</a>”, which is actually really well put together: it shows a series of prompts structured to produce the sections of a paper, along with their responses from ChatGPT <em>and</em> commentary by the authors.
The AI does quite a good approximation of sounding like a scientist (including recognizing the importance of beer), but the authors conclude that their jobs are probably safe for a while.</p>
<p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.18227">Another paper suggests a more sobering perspective</a>, though.
It tackles the difficult problem of why, despite the thousands of exoplanet observations, no exomoons have been observed.
Following up on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonfall_%28film%29">recent work by Emmerich et al</a>, we have to consider the credible hypothesis that the moons have been deorbited into their host planets by out-of-control AIs.
It may only be a matter of time....</p>
<p>Moons were actually a fairly popular topic this year.
For those who celebrate the Lunar New Year but get irritated that it jumps around to different points in the common solar calendar, never fear: <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17697">you just have to wait 252 million years</a> until the Earth’s rotation aligns with an integer multiple of the moon’s revolution period.
Don’t wait to start planning your True New Year parties!
Of course, by then, if the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.18217">new naming scheme suggested by another paper</a> catches on, we might just be calling it “Sun Db”.
Or “moonmoon rock star Sun Db” for the pedants.
No really.
It makes sense.</p>
<p>There are even more where those came from, though!
Check out <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the entire list of joke papers this year, and for previous years</a>.
And as usual, please <a href="mailto:contact@ellipsix.net">let me know</a> of any papers I’ve missed.</p>
<p>P.S. Even though it appears to be a legitimate project and not a joke, I have to give a shoutout to <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17609">the Python library <code>ronswanson</code></a> which builds table models for the astrophysical computer modeling framework 3ML.</p>
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</script><p>I had a feeling I’d be writing this post.
Last week <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/04/from-minecraft-to-memes-arxiv-fools-day-2023.html">I only found six joke papers</a> to add to <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">my list</a>, but today’s arXiv feed delivered a very strong update, with eight more, bringing the 2023 total to fourteen, tying last year’s record.</p>
<p>I did <em>not</em>, however, have a feeling I’d be reading the phrase “large overdensity in the overall distribution of chickens”.
One of the highlights of today’s feed is this <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17626">extremely well-researched survey of bounds on the chicken density function (CDF) of the universe</a>.
While a lower bound is well established, the paper makes the first case for an upper bound as well, <span class="math">\(10^{23}\)</span> chickens per cubic parsec.
Fortunately (for the chickens, if perhaps not for science), that probably falls short of the <a href="https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/">gravitational binding threshold for small animals</a>, but if the density fluctuations are large enough, who knows.
I definitely want to see followup studies on this one.</p>
<p>(Loosely) speaking of birds, we also have the creatively titled “<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17628">ChatGPT scores a bad birdie in counting gravitational-wave chirps</a>”, which pretty firmly establishes that ChatGPT is not as good as actual scientists at counting gravitational wave events.
(With some neat visualizations, too!)
However, ChatGPT may be good at other things… for instance, is it any better at writing astrophysics papers than counting?
We find that topic explored in “<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17853">Can AI Put Gamma-Ray Astrophysicists Out of a Job?</a>”, which is actually really well put together: it shows a series of prompts structured to produce the sections of a paper, along with their responses from ChatGPT <em>and</em> commentary by the authors.
The AI does quite a good approximation of sounding like a scientist (including recognizing the importance of beer), but the authors conclude that their jobs are probably safe for a while.</p>
<p><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.18227">Another paper suggests a more sobering perspective</a>, though.
It tackles the difficult problem of why, despite the thousands of exoplanet observations, no exomoons have been observed.
Following up on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonfall_%28film%29">recent work by Emmerich et al</a>, we have to consider the credible hypothesis that the moons have been deorbited into their host planets by out-of-control AIs.
It may only be a matter of time....</p>
<p>Moons were actually a fairly popular topic this year.
For those who celebrate the Lunar New Year but get irritated that it jumps around to different points in the common solar calendar, never fear: <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17697">you just have to wait 252 million years</a> until the Earth’s rotation aligns with an integer multiple of the moon’s revolution period.
Don’t wait to start planning your True New Year parties!
Of course, by then, if the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.18217">new naming scheme suggested by another paper</a> catches on, we might just be calling it “Sun Db”.
Or “moonmoon rock star Sun Db” for the pedants.
No really.
It makes sense.</p>
<p>There are even more where those came from, though!
Check out <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the entire list of joke papers this year, and for previous years</a>.
And as usual, please <a href="mailto:contact@ellipsix.net">let me know</a> of any papers I’ve missed.</p>
<p>P.S. Even though it appears to be a legitimate project and not a joke, I have to give a shoutout to <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17609">the Python library <code>ronswanson</code></a> which builds table models for the astrophysical computer modeling framework 3ML.</p>
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</script>From Minecraft to memes: arXiv Fool's Day 20232023-04-01T21:30:00-07:002023-04-01T21:30:00-07:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2023-04-01:/blog/2023/04/from-minecraft-to-memes-arxiv-fools-day-2023.html<p>That’s right, it’s time for this blog’s annual tradition: an update to <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the list of April 1 arXiv joke papers</a>!
It started six years ago <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/86358/236">on Academia Stack Exchange</a> and since then has grown into the most comprehensive list of joke papers on arXiv that I know of.</p>
<figure style="float: right">
<img alt="" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/04/arxiv-2303-16915-figure-2.png" title="Figure 2 from arxiv:2303.16915, used with permission of the WHAC collaboration">
<figcaption>
WASP-12 as a squar: figure 2 from "<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16915">A Modest Proposal for the Non-existence of Exoplanets: The Expansion of Stellar Physics to Include Squars</a>" by the WHAC collaboration, used with permission
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s slim pickings this year, though, with only six joke papers (maybe five) posted so far.
Maybe it’s because April 1 is on a Saturday, when arXiv doesn’t update.
I’ll be watching the feeds on Monday to see if there are more.</p>
<p>Until then, here’s what we’re looking at: as is typical in the modern era, exoplanets are a hot area of joke research.
Or… could it be the lack of exoplanets?
There is a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16915">brilliant theoretical study of cuboid stars, or <em>squars</em></a>, showing how they can neatly explain the light curves that have been claimed to provide evidence of exoplanets without the need for any additional celestial bodies, and touting the virtues of Minecraft for astronomical simulation.
On the other hand, another group at the same institution has made <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17035">a counterproposal that <em>everything</em> is exoplanets</a>!
(This is the first instance I know of where an April 1 paper actually <em>cites</em> another one from the same year.)
Clearly this topic is far from settled, and it’s going to be an exciting source of developments for years to come.</p>
<p>Outside of exoplanets (unless they are, in fact, everything), there’s also a rather poetic pontification about open star clusters and their “tails”, stars that have been pulled away from the cluster by tidal forces.
This one actually has a veneer of respectability, though: despite all the flowery language, it seems as if it’s talking about a legitimate astronomical concept.
And <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17103">a paper exploring the correlations between UFO sightings, hot air balloons, and meteor showers</a> makes some fairly insightful statistical points.
However I leave it to the reader’s judgement to evaluate the conclusion that “reported UFOs are frequently lighter-than-air craft that use meteor showers as a screen to enter the Earth’s atmosphere and possibly use their host bodies to cloak their approaches towards Earth”.</p>
<p>Moving along the line towards even more legitimate research, I was very pleased to see another meta-study, this one <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17059">investigating whether using cheeky paper titles gets you more citations</a>.
And according to their analysis, it does!
You can’t overdo it, though: “Striking the right balance is therefore crucial. May we recommend aiming for a level 4 cheekiness on a scale of 1-5.”
Overly cringey meme titles are out.
There also appears to be a 15% citation boost from incorporating a colon.
I can only hope that this applies to blog posts as well.</p>
<p>Finally, what may be the most legitimate of all: a submission called <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16959">Finemensch Lectures on the Strong Interactions</a> caught my eye with its submission comment “99 pages, zillions of figures; submitted to Unphys.Rev.D. Any resemblance to actual persons or physics is purely coincidental.”
Knowing that Unphysical Review sets a high bar for (something that may or may not be related to) quality, I had high hopes, but on the other hand, nobody writes 99 pages for an April Fool’s Day paper… right?
Well, apparently now they do.
This paper is <em>actually</em> 99 pages long and it <em>actually</em> appears to outline a lecture series in particle physics, complete with real equations and exercises.
Color me confused.
(And if you read the paper maybe you can figure out where “confused” fits into SU(3) color space.)</p>
<p>If these don’t whet your appetite for classic arXiv Fools’ Day science, have a look at the <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the whole list</a>!
And as usual, please <a href="mailto:contact@ellipsix.net">let me know</a> of any papers I’ve missed.</p><p>That’s right, it’s time for this blog’s annual tradition: an update to <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the list of April 1 arXiv joke papers</a>!
It started six years ago <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/86358/236">on Academia Stack Exchange</a> and since then has grown into the most comprehensive list of joke papers on arXiv that I know of.</p>
<figure style="float: right">
<img alt="" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/04/arxiv-2303-16915-figure-2.png" title="Figure 2 from arxiv:2303.16915, used with permission of the WHAC collaboration">
<figcaption>
WASP-12 as a squar: figure 2 from "<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16915">A Modest Proposal for the Non-existence of Exoplanets: The Expansion of Stellar Physics to Include Squars</a>" by the WHAC collaboration, used with permission
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s slim pickings this year, though, with only six joke papers (maybe five) posted so far.
Maybe it’s because April 1 is on a Saturday, when arXiv doesn’t update.
I’ll be watching the feeds on Monday to see if there are more.</p>
<p>Until then, here’s what we’re looking at: as is typical in the modern era, exoplanets are a hot area of joke research.
Or… could it be the lack of exoplanets?
There is a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16915">brilliant theoretical study of cuboid stars, or <em>squars</em></a>, showing how they can neatly explain the light curves that have been claimed to provide evidence of exoplanets without the need for any additional celestial bodies, and touting the virtues of Minecraft for astronomical simulation.
On the other hand, another group at the same institution has made <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17035">a counterproposal that <em>everything</em> is exoplanets</a>!
(This is the first instance I know of where an April 1 paper actually <em>cites</em> another one from the same year.)
Clearly this topic is far from settled, and it’s going to be an exciting source of developments for years to come.</p>
<p>Outside of exoplanets (unless they are, in fact, everything), there’s also a rather poetic pontification about open star clusters and their “tails”, stars that have been pulled away from the cluster by tidal forces.
This one actually has a veneer of respectability, though: despite all the flowery language, it seems as if it’s talking about a legitimate astronomical concept.
And <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17103">a paper exploring the correlations between UFO sightings, hot air balloons, and meteor showers</a> makes some fairly insightful statistical points.
However I leave it to the reader’s judgement to evaluate the conclusion that “reported UFOs are frequently lighter-than-air craft that use meteor showers as a screen to enter the Earth’s atmosphere and possibly use their host bodies to cloak their approaches towards Earth”.</p>
<p>Moving along the line towards even more legitimate research, I was very pleased to see another meta-study, this one <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.17059">investigating whether using cheeky paper titles gets you more citations</a>.
And according to their analysis, it does!
You can’t overdo it, though: “Striking the right balance is therefore crucial. May we recommend aiming for a level 4 cheekiness on a scale of 1-5.”
Overly cringey meme titles are out.
There also appears to be a 15% citation boost from incorporating a colon.
I can only hope that this applies to blog posts as well.</p>
<p>Finally, what may be the most legitimate of all: a submission called <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.16959">Finemensch Lectures on the Strong Interactions</a> caught my eye with its submission comment “99 pages, zillions of figures; submitted to Unphys.Rev.D. Any resemblance to actual persons or physics is purely coincidental.”
Knowing that Unphysical Review sets a high bar for (something that may or may not be related to) quality, I had high hopes, but on the other hand, nobody writes 99 pages for an April Fool’s Day paper… right?
Well, apparently now they do.
This paper is <em>actually</em> 99 pages long and it <em>actually</em> appears to outline a lecture series in particle physics, complete with real equations and exercises.
Color me confused.
(And if you read the paper maybe you can figure out where “confused” fits into SU(3) color space.)</p>
<p>If these don’t whet your appetite for classic arXiv Fools’ Day science, have a look at the <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the whole list</a>!
And as usual, please <a href="mailto:contact@ellipsix.net">let me know</a> of any papers I’ve missed.</p>Automated pushes to PyPI2023-01-31T20:45:00-08:002023-01-31T20:45:00-08:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2023-01-31:/blog/2023/01/automated-pushes-to-pypi.html<p>For the last year and a half, I’ve been (co-)maintaining a handy little Python project called <a href="https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-localserver">pytest-localserver</a>.</p>
<p>Naturally, I completely neglected to mention this on the blog.
(Surprise!)</p>
<p>Anyway… I just released <a href="https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-localserver/releases/tag/v0.7.1">a new version</a> which has a nifty feature that I’ve been looking forward to for a while: the ability to build packages and upload them to <a href="https://pypi.org">PyPI</a> as part of our automated build and test pipeline.
That means we can release a new version by clicking buttons in GitHub’s web UI rather than manually running <a href="https://twine.readthedocs.io/en/stable/"><code>twine</code></a> and other commands.</p>
<figure><img alt="Hooray, automatic deployment works!" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/01/pytest-localserver-deployment.png" /><figcaption>Hooray, automatic deployment works!</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Normally I’m all for running things on the command line rather than clicking buttons, but when you’re maintaining a piece of software, repeatability and consistency are key.
You don’t want some quirk of your local environment corrupting a build or sneaking some sensitive information into the package that’s going to be distributed to thousands (or let’s be honest, dozens) of people.
During <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/01/goodbye-soundhound.html">my time at SoundHound</a> I developed a bunch of internal Python packages, some of which were shared outside the company, and leaking confidential info was always something to be very careful about.</p>
<p>Plus, with months between releases, a deployment procedure isn’t something you’re necessarily going to remember off the top of your head.
And while Python infrastructure has come a <em>long</em> way in making deployments simpler and more standard (mostly just run <code>pyproject-build</code> and <code>twine</code>), it’s still not trivial to be sure you’re getting it exactly right.
Here’s <a href="https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-localserver/blob/c59541c964a54ce2de4522fb281b7d5dbf8ac942/README.rst#preparing-a-release">the procedure we used to use</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>Ensure that the <code>CHANGES</code> file is up to date with the latest changes.</li>
<li>Create a tag whose name is the PEP 440-compliant version number prefixed by <code>v</code>, making sure to include at least three version number components (e.g. <code>v0.6.0</code>).</li>
<li>Make sure that all tests pass on the tagged version.</li>
<li>Push the tag to Github.</li>
<li>Make a fresh clone of the repository, and in the root directory of the new clone, run <code>pyproject-build</code> (from the <code>build</code> package). This will create source and wheel packages under <code>dist/</code>.</li>
<li>Upload the source and wheel to PyPI using <code>twine upload</code> (see <code>twine</code>).</li>
<li>Using the new release form on Github, prepare notes for the new release following the pattern of previous releases. The “Auto-generate release notes” button will be useful in summarizing the changes since the last release.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>Each package has its own quirks like this — how to handle tagging, what tests to run and when, and so on.
And if one person is maintaining multiple packages (as I did at SoundHound) or multiple people are co-maintaining a single package, it gets that much more complicated to keep things straight.
At this point, hiding as much of that procedure as you can behind one UI button starts to look really nice.</p>
<p>If you’re curious, you can check out <a href="https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-localserver/pull/58">the changes I made</a> to enable automatic deployment.
This is actually just the first step; I’m hoping to integrate testing as well, so GitHub will build the package, test it, and upload it all in one.
But that’s a pull request for another day!</p><p>For the last year and a half, I’ve been (co-)maintaining a handy little Python project called <a href="https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-localserver">pytest-localserver</a>.</p>
<p>Naturally, I completely neglected to mention this on the blog.
(Surprise!)</p>
<p>Anyway… I just released <a href="https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-localserver/releases/tag/v0.7.1">a new version</a> which has a nifty feature that I’ve been looking forward to for a while: the ability to build packages and upload them to <a href="https://pypi.org">PyPI</a> as part of our automated build and test pipeline.
That means we can release a new version by clicking buttons in GitHub’s web UI rather than manually running <a href="https://twine.readthedocs.io/en/stable/"><code>twine</code></a> and other commands.</p>
<figure><img alt="Hooray, automatic deployment works!" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/01/pytest-localserver-deployment.png" /><figcaption>Hooray, automatic deployment works!</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Normally I’m all for running things on the command line rather than clicking buttons, but when you’re maintaining a piece of software, repeatability and consistency are key.
You don’t want some quirk of your local environment corrupting a build or sneaking some sensitive information into the package that’s going to be distributed to thousands (or let’s be honest, dozens) of people.
During <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/01/goodbye-soundhound.html">my time at SoundHound</a> I developed a bunch of internal Python packages, some of which were shared outside the company, and leaking confidential info was always something to be very careful about.</p>
<p>Plus, with months between releases, a deployment procedure isn’t something you’re necessarily going to remember off the top of your head.
And while Python infrastructure has come a <em>long</em> way in making deployments simpler and more standard (mostly just run <code>pyproject-build</code> and <code>twine</code>), it’s still not trivial to be sure you’re getting it exactly right.
Here’s <a href="https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-localserver/blob/c59541c964a54ce2de4522fb281b7d5dbf8ac942/README.rst#preparing-a-release">the procedure we used to use</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>Ensure that the <code>CHANGES</code> file is up to date with the latest changes.</li>
<li>Create a tag whose name is the PEP 440-compliant version number prefixed by <code>v</code>, making sure to include at least three version number components (e.g. <code>v0.6.0</code>).</li>
<li>Make sure that all tests pass on the tagged version.</li>
<li>Push the tag to Github.</li>
<li>Make a fresh clone of the repository, and in the root directory of the new clone, run <code>pyproject-build</code> (from the <code>build</code> package). This will create source and wheel packages under <code>dist/</code>.</li>
<li>Upload the source and wheel to PyPI using <code>twine upload</code> (see <code>twine</code>).</li>
<li>Using the new release form on Github, prepare notes for the new release following the pattern of previous releases. The “Auto-generate release notes” button will be useful in summarizing the changes since the last release.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>Each package has its own quirks like this — how to handle tagging, what tests to run and when, and so on.
And if one person is maintaining multiple packages (as I did at SoundHound) or multiple people are co-maintaining a single package, it gets that much more complicated to keep things straight.
At this point, hiding as much of that procedure as you can behind one UI button starts to look really nice.</p>
<p>If you’re curious, you can check out <a href="https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest-localserver/pull/58">the changes I made</a> to enable automatic deployment.
This is actually just the first step; I’m hoping to integrate testing as well, so GitHub will build the package, test it, and upload it all in one.
But that’s a pull request for another day!</p>Goodbye SoundHound2023-01-26T13:45:00-08:002023-01-26T13:45:00-08:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2023-01-26:/blog/2023/01/goodbye-soundhound.html<p>Unfortunately my first post for 2023 is a bit of a downer.
My five-and-a-half year <a href="{file}hello-soundhound.md">journey with SoundHound</a> has come to an abrupt end, as I was among nearly half the company affected by a massive layoff and restructuring earlier this month.
Honestly, though, I don’t feel too bad about this (at least not for myself) — stick around and I’ll tell you why.</p>
<figure><img alt="Hound voice assistant, copyright SoundHound AI, Inc., all rights reserved" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/01/hound.jpg" /><figcaption>Hound voice assistant, copyright SoundHound AI, Inc., all rights reserved</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To be clear, working at SoundHound was an amazing experience, and my coworkers there are, I’m convinced, the best a person could possibly ask for.
From day one I felt welcomed as part of a community who are extremely talented while also being humble, kind, and collaborative.
Whether I was engaging with other developers, language specialists, IT/ops support, the talent acquisition team, data engineers, the office managers and front desk staff, or even the executive team, I consistently felt appreciated, supported, challenged, and enabled to do my best work.
And a lot of those coworkers are my closest friends.
There’s a reason why many of us still hang out together, even people who have moved on to other workplaces years ago.</p>
<figure><img alt="Our last pizza run before my final day at SoundHound. Photo by Junru Ren, all rights reserved, used with permission." src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/01/asony-jan-2023.jpg" /><figcaption>Our last pizza run before my final day at SoundHound. Photo by Junru Ren, all rights reserved, used with permission.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond that, SoundHound was a fantastic place to grow into my role as a software developer and architect.
I mean, this is the work I had been doing throughout my time in academia, designing and writing computer programs, but I didn’t have the right “label” or pedigree, and aside from dabbling with a couple open-source projects, I didn’t have the experience of working as part of a large team.
Fortunately, the engineering management at SoundHound saw some potential, I guess, and entrusted me with responsibility for one of the key features of the Houndify platform.
(Point of interest search, if anyone is curious — it’s the part that handles queries like “show me some good Italian restaurants nearby that are open for dinner tomorrow”.)
I got the opportunity to design the infrastructure and lead a small team, to help build up a development workflow and create tools, and to scale our work to over 15 languages and a dozen external data sources.
I’m immensely grateful to everyone I worked with who helped me develop that experience, especially my manager Joe and our CEO Keyvan (who wrote the first version of point of interest search).</p>
<p>The unfortunate thing is, all the work I put into that project over the past five-ish years never actually made it to the public.
If you go sign up on <a href="https://www.houndify.com">Houndify</a>, you can use the original Local Search domain which was developed before I got there, but most of the code I worked on never quite became ready for a public release.
I had really been looking forward to the day when I’d be able to open up the app, show it off to someone, and say “here’s what I made”… now I’m not sure if that will ever happen.
Not that it’s a waste of effort; this feature helped bring in millions of dollars of revenue for the company.
It just would have felt nice to be able to hold on to a piece of what I built.</p>
<p>Anyway, coming back to the reason I don’t feel too bad about this whole thing, there are actually two reasons.
First, even though I liked the work I was doing, I had been working on that point of interest search project for a <em>long</em> time, and the progress was often excruciatingly slow and complex.
It was pretty stressful moving forward so slowly and having to deliver regular progress reports that amounted to tiny bits of progress.
So even though I was disappointed to get the news, I was also about 30% relieved not to have to deal with that anymore.</p>
<p>And second, I am <em>absolutely</em> clear that this isn’t a reflection on my performance.
I mean, I know layoffs rarely are, but in this case in particular
I’ve gotten a <em>lot</em> of supportive messages from other people at SoundHound — coworkers, managers, even like half the C-suite — saying how much they’re going to miss me and that they would love to keep me around if only the money were there.
The whole thing happened because of a massive and unanticipated budget shortfall, so SoundHound had to restructure itself, trimming every possible expense and paring down to the minimum that could take the quickest possible path toward becoming profitable, and my project just wasn’t part of that path.
Definitely not my fault.</p>
<p>With all that in mind, while it’s a shame to have to leave my formative developer years behind, I’m looking forward to some new challenge.
Fortunately, I’m not in a position where I absolutely must find a new job right away; no visa issues and I have enough savings to last a while.
I’ll be looking for the right opportunity to come my way over the next several weeks.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying having a bit of time to myself to relax and work on personal projects, which should mean more posts to come on the blog!</p><p>Unfortunately my first post for 2023 is a bit of a downer.
My five-and-a-half year <a href="{file}hello-soundhound.md">journey with SoundHound</a> has come to an abrupt end, as I was among nearly half the company affected by a massive layoff and restructuring earlier this month.
Honestly, though, I don’t feel too bad about this (at least not for myself) — stick around and I’ll tell you why.</p>
<figure><img alt="Hound voice assistant, copyright SoundHound AI, Inc., all rights reserved" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/01/hound.jpg" /><figcaption>Hound voice assistant, copyright SoundHound AI, Inc., all rights reserved</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To be clear, working at SoundHound was an amazing experience, and my coworkers there are, I’m convinced, the best a person could possibly ask for.
From day one I felt welcomed as part of a community who are extremely talented while also being humble, kind, and collaborative.
Whether I was engaging with other developers, language specialists, IT/ops support, the talent acquisition team, data engineers, the office managers and front desk staff, or even the executive team, I consistently felt appreciated, supported, challenged, and enabled to do my best work.
And a lot of those coworkers are my closest friends.
There’s a reason why many of us still hang out together, even people who have moved on to other workplaces years ago.</p>
<figure><img alt="Our last pizza run before my final day at SoundHound. Photo by Junru Ren, all rights reserved, used with permission." src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2023/01/asony-jan-2023.jpg" /><figcaption>Our last pizza run before my final day at SoundHound. Photo by Junru Ren, all rights reserved, used with permission.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond that, SoundHound was a fantastic place to grow into my role as a software developer and architect.
I mean, this is the work I had been doing throughout my time in academia, designing and writing computer programs, but I didn’t have the right “label” or pedigree, and aside from dabbling with a couple open-source projects, I didn’t have the experience of working as part of a large team.
Fortunately, the engineering management at SoundHound saw some potential, I guess, and entrusted me with responsibility for one of the key features of the Houndify platform.
(Point of interest search, if anyone is curious — it’s the part that handles queries like “show me some good Italian restaurants nearby that are open for dinner tomorrow”.)
I got the opportunity to design the infrastructure and lead a small team, to help build up a development workflow and create tools, and to scale our work to over 15 languages and a dozen external data sources.
I’m immensely grateful to everyone I worked with who helped me develop that experience, especially my manager Joe and our CEO Keyvan (who wrote the first version of point of interest search).</p>
<p>The unfortunate thing is, all the work I put into that project over the past five-ish years never actually made it to the public.
If you go sign up on <a href="https://www.houndify.com">Houndify</a>, you can use the original Local Search domain which was developed before I got there, but most of the code I worked on never quite became ready for a public release.
I had really been looking forward to the day when I’d be able to open up the app, show it off to someone, and say “here’s what I made”… now I’m not sure if that will ever happen.
Not that it’s a waste of effort; this feature helped bring in millions of dollars of revenue for the company.
It just would have felt nice to be able to hold on to a piece of what I built.</p>
<p>Anyway, coming back to the reason I don’t feel too bad about this whole thing, there are actually two reasons.
First, even though I liked the work I was doing, I had been working on that point of interest search project for a <em>long</em> time, and the progress was often excruciatingly slow and complex.
It was pretty stressful moving forward so slowly and having to deliver regular progress reports that amounted to tiny bits of progress.
So even though I was disappointed to get the news, I was also about 30% relieved not to have to deal with that anymore.</p>
<p>And second, I am <em>absolutely</em> clear that this isn’t a reflection on my performance.
I mean, I know layoffs rarely are, but in this case in particular
I’ve gotten a <em>lot</em> of supportive messages from other people at SoundHound — coworkers, managers, even like half the C-suite — saying how much they’re going to miss me and that they would love to keep me around if only the money were there.
The whole thing happened because of a massive and unanticipated budget shortfall, so SoundHound had to restructure itself, trimming every possible expense and paring down to the minimum that could take the quickest possible path toward becoming profitable, and my project just wasn’t part of that path.
Definitely not my fault.</p>
<p>With all that in mind, while it’s a shame to have to leave my formative developer years behind, I’m looking forward to some new challenge.
Fortunately, I’m not in a position where I absolutely must find a new job right away; no visa issues and I have enough savings to last a while.
I’ll be looking for the right opportunity to come my way over the next several weeks.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying having a bit of time to myself to relax and work on personal projects, which should mean more posts to come on the blog!</p>Giving Back2022-12-31T17:15:00-08:002022-12-31T17:15:00-08:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2022-12-31:/blog/2022/12/giving-back.html<p>Yeah, I’m just running with the most cliché possible title for this post.</p>
<p>One of the things I’ve always liked about Stack Overflow is their “<a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/12/25/stack-overflow-gives-back-2010/">Stack Gives Back</a>” program.
Each December, they donate some amount of money <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/383963/56541">to open-source software projects that the Stack Exchange sites use</a>, as well as to five or so charities with the allocation chosen by the site moderators.
I always thought that was a really nice thing to do: when you benefit from the work of volunteer open-source developers, it’s only fair to support them if you have the means to do so.
And back when I was a moderator on Physics Stack Exchange, it was nice to be effectively given the choice of where to donate $100 so I could support organizations that were meaningful to me, especially at times when I couldn’t really justify making a donation from my own money.</p>
<p>So now that I have the means, I’m going to do my own round of “giving back”.
In the past few days I’ve made donations to the following projects:</p>
<ul>
<li>€50 to <a href="https://kde.org/community/donations/">KDE</a>, the desktop environment that I use every day at home and work and the reason I got into C++ programming in the first place (which allowed me to get this job)</li>
<li>$50 to the <a href="https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/">Mozilla Foundation</a>, maintainers of the last standing competitor to Google’s web browser engine (and also the Thunderbird email client although I think that might use a separate donation pool)</li>
<li>$99 for a supporting membership to the <a href="https://www.python.org/psf-landing/">Python Software Foundation</a>, my favorite quick-and-dirty-but-also-generally-great programming language</li>
<li>$50 to the <a href="https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LandingPage">Wikimedia Foundation</a> in recognition of all the random Wikipedia articles I’ve read while waiting for code to compile over the past year</li>
<li>$50 (plus fees) to the <a href="https://archive.org/donate">Internet Archive</a> because they’re doing great work to preserve knowledge and maintain accountability</li>
<li>$8.55 CAD to <a href="https://techhub.social/about">techhub.social</a>, the Mastodon instance I joined when Twitter imploded (more on that to come later) (why $8.55? Exchange rates, basically)</li>
</ul>
<p>This is all in addition to the Patreon subscriptions and regular donations I’ve been making before.
Honestly, I get enough out of all these organizations that they would be worth supporting regularly.</p>
<p>If you can, join me in sending some support to whatever organizations you’ve benefitted from this year as well!</p><p>Yeah, I’m just running with the most cliché possible title for this post.</p>
<p>One of the things I’ve always liked about Stack Overflow is their “<a href="https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/12/25/stack-overflow-gives-back-2010/">Stack Gives Back</a>” program.
Each December, they donate some amount of money <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/383963/56541">to open-source software projects that the Stack Exchange sites use</a>, as well as to five or so charities with the allocation chosen by the site moderators.
I always thought that was a really nice thing to do: when you benefit from the work of volunteer open-source developers, it’s only fair to support them if you have the means to do so.
And back when I was a moderator on Physics Stack Exchange, it was nice to be effectively given the choice of where to donate $100 so I could support organizations that were meaningful to me, especially at times when I couldn’t really justify making a donation from my own money.</p>
<p>So now that I have the means, I’m going to do my own round of “giving back”.
In the past few days I’ve made donations to the following projects:</p>
<ul>
<li>€50 to <a href="https://kde.org/community/donations/">KDE</a>, the desktop environment that I use every day at home and work and the reason I got into C++ programming in the first place (which allowed me to get this job)</li>
<li>$50 to the <a href="https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/">Mozilla Foundation</a>, maintainers of the last standing competitor to Google’s web browser engine (and also the Thunderbird email client although I think that might use a separate donation pool)</li>
<li>$99 for a supporting membership to the <a href="https://www.python.org/psf-landing/">Python Software Foundation</a>, my favorite quick-and-dirty-but-also-generally-great programming language</li>
<li>$50 to the <a href="https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LandingPage">Wikimedia Foundation</a> in recognition of all the random Wikipedia articles I’ve read while waiting for code to compile over the past year</li>
<li>$50 (plus fees) to the <a href="https://archive.org/donate">Internet Archive</a> because they’re doing great work to preserve knowledge and maintain accountability</li>
<li>$8.55 CAD to <a href="https://techhub.social/about">techhub.social</a>, the Mastodon instance I joined when Twitter imploded (more on that to come later) (why $8.55? Exchange rates, basically)</li>
</ul>
<p>This is all in addition to the Patreon subscriptions and regular donations I’ve been making before.
Honestly, I get enough out of all these organizations that they would be worth supporting regularly.</p>
<p>If you can, join me in sending some support to whatever organizations you’ve benefitted from this year as well!</p>Celebrating arXiv Fool's Day 2022!2022-04-03T01:40:00-07:002022-04-03T01:40:00-07:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2022-04-03:/blog/2022/04/celebrating-arxiv-fools-day-2022.html<p>Academia, sometimes you amaze me. This year produced a record-breaking <em>fourteen</em> new entries to <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">my list of April 1 arXiv joke papers</a>, which I’ve been “diligently compiling” for several years (and “definitely not” just reading and repeating from Twitter and <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/86358/236">Stack Exchange</a>).</p>
<figure style="float: right">
<img alt="Pictures of the pets studied in the paper with their exopet names" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2022/04/arxiv-2203-17185-figure-9.png" title="Figure 9 from arxiv:2203.17185, used with permission of the Astrobites collaboration">
<figcaption>
Direct imaging of exop(lan)ets: figure 9 from "<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17185">First Detections of Exop(lan)ets: Observations and Follow-Ups of the Floofiest Transits on Zoom</a>" by the Astrobites collaboration, used <a href="https://twitter.com/astroHDE/status/1510382501843329029">with permission</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As usual, astro-ph carries the pack, accounting for twelve of the papers (though several are also cross-listed in other categories).
Exoplanets continue to be a hot area of research, both on the experimental side, with <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17185">a flurry of new exop(lan)et detections</a>, and on the theoretical side, with a startlingly precise prediction of <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17075">when exoplanets will be discoverable <em>inside</em> our own solar system</a>.
The latter paper smartly raises some concern about runaway growth in the exoplanet discovery rate and proposes the solution of sending astronomers to the exoplanets for further study.
Fortunately, science has covered the need for <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16791">parking lots</a>.
Cosmology is also well represented, with <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16551">an inspired new measurement of the Hubble constant</a> and a proposal for <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16563">the nature of warm dark matter</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, more terrestrial matters are also well represented.
I think we’ve all been waiting for the definitive answer to <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16580">whether a hot dog is a sandwich</a>.
And there’s an extremely enlightening <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17095">triple case study of peer review</a> that presents some surprising revelations about the motivations of the authors and reviewer.</p>
<p>I was also quite pleased to see a couple papers that I’m convinced are at least 20% legitimate, despite all claims to the contrary.
<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16546">This proposal for dark mode journals</a> comes highly recommended as bedtime reading, and there’s also <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17123">an attempt to improve upon the much-maligned <em>h</em>-index</a>.
I also have to give an honorable mention to <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16689">“Undecidable problems in quantum field theory”</a> which actually makes a legitimate physical argument but nevertheless ends with the following story:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One day, while preparing the table for the supper, he told his wife that he finally finished an article for April Fools’ day, to which his wife exclaimed: “We can work only half as usual, because one of us needs to take care of the kids while the other is working, and then you were using that precious time to write an article for <em>April Fools’ day?!?</em>“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To top it all off, for the first time we have <a href="https://astrobites.org/2022/04/02/april-fools-2022/">peer review of the April Fool’s Day papers</a>, courtesy of Astrobites!</p>
<p>If you like these, go check out the <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the whole list</a>!
And as usual, please <a href="mailto:contact@ellipsix.net">let me know</a> of any papers I’ve missed.</p><p>Academia, sometimes you amaze me. This year produced a record-breaking <em>fourteen</em> new entries to <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">my list of April 1 arXiv joke papers</a>, which I’ve been “diligently compiling” for several years (and “definitely not” just reading and repeating from Twitter and <a href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/86358/236">Stack Exchange</a>).</p>
<figure style="float: right">
<img alt="Pictures of the pets studied in the paper with their exopet names" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2022/04/arxiv-2203-17185-figure-9.png" title="Figure 9 from arxiv:2203.17185, used with permission of the Astrobites collaboration">
<figcaption>
Direct imaging of exop(lan)ets: figure 9 from "<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17185">First Detections of Exop(lan)ets: Observations and Follow-Ups of the Floofiest Transits on Zoom</a>" by the Astrobites collaboration, used <a href="https://twitter.com/astroHDE/status/1510382501843329029">with permission</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As usual, astro-ph carries the pack, accounting for twelve of the papers (though several are also cross-listed in other categories).
Exoplanets continue to be a hot area of research, both on the experimental side, with <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17185">a flurry of new exop(lan)et detections</a>, and on the theoretical side, with a startlingly precise prediction of <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17075">when exoplanets will be discoverable <em>inside</em> our own solar system</a>.
The latter paper smartly raises some concern about runaway growth in the exoplanet discovery rate and proposes the solution of sending astronomers to the exoplanets for further study.
Fortunately, science has covered the need for <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16791">parking lots</a>.
Cosmology is also well represented, with <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16551">an inspired new measurement of the Hubble constant</a> and a proposal for <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16563">the nature of warm dark matter</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, more terrestrial matters are also well represented.
I think we’ve all been waiting for the definitive answer to <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16580">whether a hot dog is a sandwich</a>.
And there’s an extremely enlightening <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17095">triple case study of peer review</a> that presents some surprising revelations about the motivations of the authors and reviewer.</p>
<p>I was also quite pleased to see a couple papers that I’m convinced are at least 20% legitimate, despite all claims to the contrary.
<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16546">This proposal for dark mode journals</a> comes highly recommended as bedtime reading, and there’s also <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.17123">an attempt to improve upon the much-maligned <em>h</em>-index</a>.
I also have to give an honorable mention to <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16689">“Undecidable problems in quantum field theory”</a> which actually makes a legitimate physical argument but nevertheless ends with the following story:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One day, while preparing the table for the supper, he told his wife that he finally finished an article for April Fools’ day, to which his wife exclaimed: “We can work only half as usual, because one of us needs to take care of the kids while the other is working, and then you were using that precious time to write an article for <em>April Fools’ day?!?</em>“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To top it all off, for the first time we have <a href="https://astrobites.org/2022/04/02/april-fools-2022/">peer review of the April Fool’s Day papers</a>, courtesy of Astrobites!</p>
<p>If you like these, go check out the <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the whole list</a>!
And as usual, please <a href="mailto:contact@ellipsix.net">let me know</a> of any papers I’ve missed.</p>Happy arXiv Fool's Day!2021-04-02T13:30:00-07:002021-04-02T13:30:00-07:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2021-04-02:/blog/2021/04/happy-arxiv-fools-day-2021.html<p>When scientists the world over turn their attention to the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16636">floofy objects</a> on their keyboards and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16737">Taylor Swift’s emotional state</a>, that means only one thing: time to make an update to the <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">list of arXiv joke papers</a>!
That’s right, it’s April Fool’s Day 2021, academia style.
Here’s my wrapup.</p>
<figure style="float: right">
<img alt="Diagram and photos of a cat lying in different positions including belly-up and belly-down, labeled with the angle of the cat's orientation" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2021/04/arxiv-2103-16636-figure-2.png" title="Longitudinal coordinates of floofy objects: figure 2 from arxiv:2103.16636, used with permission">
<figcaption>
Longitudinal coordinates of floofy objects: figure 2 from "<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16636">Detection of Rotational Variability in Floofy Objects at Optical Wavelengths</a>", used with permission
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This time, with some help from Twitter, I found eleven submissions covering a wide range of fields.
Representing the stalwart astro-ph, we have the aforementioned <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16636">floofy object rotation paper</a> and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16572">an infectious model of dark matter</a>.
From high energy theory, we have <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16583">a prediction of when publication of conjectures is going to bring on the heat death of the universe</a>.
In the category of popular physics, there’s <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.17058">an investigation of curious behavior involving a laster pointer</a> — with one of the best paper titles of all time — and a very practical study of <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16574">how certain tasks always take longer than we think</a> (and why I never finish writing blog posts).
There are also two excellent artificial intelligence studies that <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16575">definitively settle whether Jaffa cakes are cakes</a> and tell you <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16737">which Taylor Swift song you should be listening to</a>.
Taking an interesting “meta” perspective on arXiv Fool’s Day is <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.17057">a historical review of humor in science</a> (which includes its own list of joke papers on arXiv).
And finally, but possibly my favorite, <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.17198">“The Swapland”</a>, a science newsletter chock full of, well, nonsense — I can’t possibly do it justice with a summary, you’ll just have to see for yourself.</p>
<p>If you like these, there’s plenty more to offer some welcome amusement.
Check out the <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the whole list</a>!</p>
<p><a href="mailto:contact@ellipsix.net">Let me know</a> of any papers I’ve missed that should be added.</p>
<hr>
<p>My thanks to Laura C. Mayorga for kindly granting permission to use the floofy object rotation figure in this blog post.</p><p>When scientists the world over turn their attention to the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16636">floofy objects</a> on their keyboards and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16737">Taylor Swift’s emotional state</a>, that means only one thing: time to make an update to the <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">list of arXiv joke papers</a>!
That’s right, it’s April Fool’s Day 2021, academia style.
Here’s my wrapup.</p>
<figure style="float: right">
<img alt="Diagram and photos of a cat lying in different positions including belly-up and belly-down, labeled with the angle of the cat's orientation" src="https://www.ellipsix.net/blog/2021/04/arxiv-2103-16636-figure-2.png" title="Longitudinal coordinates of floofy objects: figure 2 from arxiv:2103.16636, used with permission">
<figcaption>
Longitudinal coordinates of floofy objects: figure 2 from "<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16636">Detection of Rotational Variability in Floofy Objects at Optical Wavelengths</a>", used with permission
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This time, with some help from Twitter, I found eleven submissions covering a wide range of fields.
Representing the stalwart astro-ph, we have the aforementioned <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16636">floofy object rotation paper</a> and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16572">an infectious model of dark matter</a>.
From high energy theory, we have <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16583">a prediction of when publication of conjectures is going to bring on the heat death of the universe</a>.
In the category of popular physics, there’s <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.17058">an investigation of curious behavior involving a laster pointer</a> — with one of the best paper titles of all time — and a very practical study of <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16574">how certain tasks always take longer than we think</a> (and why I never finish writing blog posts).
There are also two excellent artificial intelligence studies that <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16575">definitively settle whether Jaffa cakes are cakes</a> and tell you <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.16737">which Taylor Swift song you should be listening to</a>.
Taking an interesting “meta” perspective on arXiv Fool’s Day is <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.17057">a historical review of humor in science</a> (which includes its own list of joke papers on arXiv).
And finally, but possibly my favorite, <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.17198">“The Swapland”</a>, a science newsletter chock full of, well, nonsense — I can’t possibly do it justice with a summary, you’ll just have to see for yourself.</p>
<p>If you like these, there’s plenty more to offer some welcome amusement.
Check out the <a href="https://www.ellipsix.net/arxiv-joke-papers.html">the whole list</a>!</p>
<p><a href="mailto:contact@ellipsix.net">Let me know</a> of any papers I’ve missed that should be added.</p>
<hr>
<p>My thanks to Laura C. Mayorga for kindly granting permission to use the floofy object rotation figure in this blog post.</p>Hope Is Born Again by Jim Brickman and Point Of Grace2020-12-25T00:00:00-08:002020-12-25T00:00:00-08:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2020-12-25:/blog/2020/12/hope-is-born-again-by-jim-brickman-and-point-of-grace.html<p>For the coveted final spot on my list, I’ve made a choice that surprised even me when I first considered it.
<strong>Hope Is Born Again</strong> combines the exquisite piano ornamentation of Jim Brickman with an uplifiting melody sung by Point Of Grace.
And to top it off, the string and percussion accompaniment beautifully complement the piano and vocals, all parts blending together without overwhelming each other.
No other piece of music better captures the idealism of the holiday, making this the perfect song for Christmas Day itself.</p>
<p>May you all find something that brings you hope this holiday season.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/2v6CC3moswBpWuEXxzCroF" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"></iframe>
<p>You can now get the entire series of songs as <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6T9xLMOzf22dQgxDhspSbe">a Spotify playlist</a>.</p><p>For the coveted final spot on my list, I’ve made a choice that surprised even me when I first considered it.
<strong>Hope Is Born Again</strong> combines the exquisite piano ornamentation of Jim Brickman with an uplifiting melody sung by Point Of Grace.
And to top it off, the string and percussion accompaniment beautifully complement the piano and vocals, all parts blending together without overwhelming each other.
No other piece of music better captures the idealism of the holiday, making this the perfect song for Christmas Day itself.</p>
<p>May you all find something that brings you hope this holiday season.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/2v6CC3moswBpWuEXxzCroF" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"></iframe>
<p>You can now get the entire series of songs as <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6T9xLMOzf22dQgxDhspSbe">a Spotify playlist</a>.</p>Hallelujah by Mannheim Steamroller2020-12-24T12:00:00-08:002020-12-24T12:00:00-08:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2020-12-24:/blog/2020/12/hallelujah-by-mannheim-steamroller.html<p>Today’s post is a bit sentimental because <strong>Hallelujah From “The Messiah”</strong> is perhaps the song that was most instrumental (haha) in making Mannheim Steamroller my favorite band.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, my favorite radio station played Christmas songs nonstop from the day after Thanksgiving until December 26.
I liked Christmas music well enough, but most of it was kind of forgettable.
Every once in a while, though, I’d hear a song that stood out from the pack, something that captured my interest so much that I’d stay up late every day listening for that song in the hope that the DJ would announce its name.
Several of those childhood favorites are on my list; even among them, though, Hallelujah was special.
It was the first Mannheim Steamroller song I’d ever heard; it was so different from all the traditional carols I’d heard before, so much more exciting and vibrant and full of holiday energy, that I just <em>had</em> to know what it was and who performed it.
For years it was my white Christmas whale.
And when I finally found out the name and the artist, I knew I’d be a fan for life.</p>
<p>(Fun fact: this is not entirely unrelated to why I now work at <a href="https://www.soundhound.com">SoundHound</a>.)</p>
<p>On this Christmas Eve, it’s my pleasure to share that little memory from a more innocent and happier time.
I hope you find whatever captures the holiday spirit for you.</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/7Md8H3A2uvv5u8rwFEsNPa" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"></iframe>
<p>You can now get the entire series of songs as <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6T9xLMOzf22dQgxDhspSbe">a Spotify playlist</a>.</p><p>Today’s post is a bit sentimental because <strong>Hallelujah From “The Messiah”</strong> is perhaps the song that was most instrumental (haha) in making Mannheim Steamroller my favorite band.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, my favorite radio station played Christmas songs nonstop from the day after Thanksgiving until December 26.
I liked Christmas music well enough, but most of it was kind of forgettable.
Every once in a while, though, I’d hear a song that stood out from the pack, something that captured my interest so much that I’d stay up late every day listening for that song in the hope that the DJ would announce its name.
Several of those childhood favorites are on my list; even among them, though, Hallelujah was special.
It was the first Mannheim Steamroller song I’d ever heard; it was so different from all the traditional carols I’d heard before, so much more exciting and vibrant and full of holiday energy, that I just <em>had</em> to know what it was and who performed it.
For years it was my white Christmas whale.
And when I finally found out the name and the artist, I knew I’d be a fan for life.</p>
<p>(Fun fact: this is not entirely unrelated to why I now work at <a href="https://www.soundhound.com">SoundHound</a>.)</p>
<p>On this Christmas Eve, it’s my pleasure to share that little memory from a more innocent and happier time.
I hope you find whatever captures the holiday spirit for you.</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/7Md8H3A2uvv5u8rwFEsNPa" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"></iframe>
<p>You can now get the entire series of songs as <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6T9xLMOzf22dQgxDhspSbe">a Spotify playlist</a>.</p>Sleigh Ride by the Boston Pops2020-12-23T12:00:00-08:002020-12-23T12:00:00-08:00David Zaslavskytag:www.ellipsix.net,2020-12-23:/blog/2020/12/sleigh-ride-by-the-boston-pops.html<p>Today’s Christmas song is an all-time classic.
The Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler were the <em>first</em> to perform <strong>Sleigh Ride</strong>, back in 1949, and since then it’s become <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleigh_Ride#Details">one of the most frequently performed holiday songs</a> ever.
This particular recording is from ten years later, but it’s probably as close as you’ll get in digital form to the original.</p>
<p>As much as I love the <a href="./05-sleigh-ride.md">modern pop version of Sleigh Ride</a>, the Boston Pops’ orchestral version is unmatched in its elegance.
Between the ever-present sleigh bells and the consistent beat, it really captures the feel of adventuring through a wintery landscape.
And to top it off it includes the distinguishing feature of Sleigh Ride, the trumpet horse whinny at the end.
This song definitely deserves a spot in any holiday music collection.</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/2Nx2NuqUwk4kdcvPJtXnXM" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"></iframe>
<p>You can now get the entire series of songs as <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6T9xLMOzf22dQgxDhspSbe">a Spotify playlist</a>.</p><p>Today’s Christmas song is an all-time classic.
The Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler were the <em>first</em> to perform <strong>Sleigh Ride</strong>, back in 1949, and since then it’s become <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleigh_Ride#Details">one of the most frequently performed holiday songs</a> ever.
This particular recording is from ten years later, but it’s probably as close as you’ll get in digital form to the original.</p>
<p>As much as I love the <a href="./05-sleigh-ride.md">modern pop version of Sleigh Ride</a>, the Boston Pops’ orchestral version is unmatched in its elegance.
Between the ever-present sleigh bells and the consistent beat, it really captures the feel of adventuring through a wintery landscape.
And to top it off it includes the distinguishing feature of Sleigh Ride, the trumpet horse whinny at the end.
This song definitely deserves a spot in any holiday music collection.</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/2Nx2NuqUwk4kdcvPJtXnXM" width="300" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"></iframe>
<p>You can now get the entire series of songs as <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6T9xLMOzf22dQgxDhspSbe">a Spotify playlist</a>.</p>