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The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

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Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#311

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Interesting. What kind of habits?

Glasses and ID together. Car keys on top of work items like laptop and badge. White board next to front door with dates and reminders and mail to drop off. Arrange things like you would for a Sims character.

Oh... yeah, those make sense. I already do a lot of those things so that I can be sure I don't forget anything.

And I'm not even "old" yet...I guess it will pay off in the long run.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#312
post #216

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I think the test case (which nobody has passed) for true photographic memory is: you are given an image of a bunch of random dots with no apparent structure, then you are given a second such image, and you have to mentally combine them and say what image they form. Because if you superimpose the two images of random dots — say using transparent slides, one on top of the other —- they actually form a photograph of Mar…

I don't know if I agree that it's a good test. If I had two images in front of me of random dots, I cannot superimpose them and see a picture of Marilyn Monroe, no matter how long I can look at them. (ah, actually I could go cross-eyed to make them overlap in my field of vision, but I can't do it mentally). I could imagine a "spot the difference" type of test would be a good one though. The fields of random dots are…

Right, the point of the test is that you can't do it unless you can (relatively quickly) memorize what looks like a random picture of noise. With true photographic memory, that should be possible.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#313

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Um, yeah, I stated all the evidence at hand. If you’re looking for a strong convincing case, I ain’t giving one. And the likely cause wouldn’t be some gamma rays, it’d be from ingesting radioactive or chemically harmful matter.

So, your theory is he licked that plutonium sphere when he was in there? Sounds legit!

The argument is that it's plausible, not certain.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#314

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Its not talked about alot, but basically ashkenazis are the genesis of alot of modern intellectual ideas and companies. both FB and Google are ashkenazi creations

Also Bernie Madoff , Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein; should we be quick to talk about their origin?

I do think theres something to all of it, not interested in getting my account banned though...

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#315
post #279

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There is a reason why a cashier works for minimum wage. A few days ago I went to a grocery store to buy sparkling water. I got 16 small bottles and arranged them as a 4 by 4 grid before cashier, so she wouldn't need to spend time counting them and delaying the line. It took her over 10 seconds to count the bottles: apparently, she didn't recognize the pattern and counted them by groups of 3-4 bottles covering the cou…

> Imagine a 3x3 grid and draw there words oil/gas/dry. Now read all the words that you see on the grid. I can't do this for shit and I'm a genius.

I bet you can still enumerate them though through a different method.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#316

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> Imagine a 3x3 grid and draw there words oil/gas/dry. Now read all the words that you see on the grid. I can't do this for shit and I'm a genius.

I bet you can still enumerate them though through a different method.

Walking home that day I was obsessed with this. I guess I did okay. Found at least one five-letter word ("grail", I remember). I can't see all the letters at the same time, so I feel like I'm cheating when I do it.

On the other hand even when I think of a three letter word I don't see the letters, I just kind of know what they are.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#317
post #285
post #281

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>This scene hints that the cashier's analytical skills are >next to none and this alone explains why she is a cashier. Her numerical analytics skills perhaps, but she might be great at something else. Maybe she is a poet, or a musician, or great at handling 5 kids, or something else that you are terrible at. Just something that doesn't pay well, so she has to be a cashier. This is kind of a form of Moravec's paradox:…

Eh. Poetry and handling kids is orthogonal to intelligence. Intelligence is a very narrow and specific skill of discerning the real. It allows us to predict things. Coincidentally, it allows to make money and thus is well paid. It's ok if others disagree with me. My two examples above are meant to hint that intelligence consists of two distinct skills: ability to keep a still detailed image in your mind (the 3x3 grid…

Handling kids maybe but poetry and music are only orthogonal to intelligence at ameteur level. Professional poets and musicians tend to be highly intelligent even by your definition.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#318
post #279

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> If you're intellectually gifted (many programmers are) Lets not jerk each other off too hard, eh? Just like everybody in life, in any trade or profession, most programmers are just average people like everybody else. They just happened to luck out and be good at a talent that pays well. Odds are incredibly high you aren't any smarter than somebody who paints houses for a living, fills your prescription, or plays fo…

There is a reason why a cashier works for minimum wage. A few days ago I went to a grocery store to buy sparkling water. I got 16 small bottles and arranged them as a 4 by 4 grid before cashier, so she wouldn't need to spend time counting them and delaying the line. It took her over 10 seconds to count the bottles: apparently, she didn't recognize the pattern and counted them by groups of 3-4 bottles covering the cou…

I can see the paper title now: "The correlation between IQ and scores and the table top game boggle".

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, yeah, I stated all the evidence at hand. If you’re looking for a strong convincing case, I ain’t giving one. And the likely cause wouldn’t be some gamma rays, it’d be from ingesting radioactive or chemically harmful matter.

So, your theory is he licked that plutonium sphere when he was in there? Sounds legit!

Everyone (and many family members) working at SSFL 15 years later died early of contamination. They were careless in those days. Probably had a few buckets of the stuff laying around like at the Grand Canyon gift shop.

Re: The Unparalleled Genius of John von Neumann

#320
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason why a cashier works for minimum wage. A few days ago I went to a grocery store to buy sparkling water. I got 16 small bottles and arranged them as a 4 by 4 grid before cashier, so she wouldn't need to spend time counting them and delaying the line. It took her over 10 seconds to count the bottles: apparently, she didn't recognize the pattern and counted them by groups of 3-4 bottles covering the cou…

> Imagine a 3x3 grid and draw there words oil/gas/dry. Now read all the words that you see on the grid. I can't do this for shit and I'm a genius.

It took me about five minutes to even understand the task. I first pictured a 3x3 grid with a word in each box. I thought I was supposed to populate the boxes with any word from the list -- oil, gas, or dry -- and then read them back.

I guess I'm living proof that not all programmers are smart.

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