2022-06-10 bayesian priors and software people
Channel: dorian taylor
Date: 10/06/2022

Apparently I recorded with both the laptop mic and the lavaliere running so I sound weird. Thinking about Jaynes' (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521592712?tag=doriantaylor-20) anecdote about "decibels of surprise" about a paper (handily self-referentially about Bayesianism) that claimed two orders of magnitude better performance than incumbent methods was initially disbelieved because the claim was too good. This led me to think about "software people" who understand that orders-of-magnitude performance gains are precisely what software (at least on a good day) does. The irony of course is that even the software industry is full of non-software people.

00:00 - i missed wednesday's warmup
00:17 - jaynes' claymes
02:36 - order-of-magnitude gains is what software does
03:05 - "software people"