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You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

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Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#311

My startup was approached by a corporate VC that wanted to make a strategic investment. Based on the attendee list from our meeting, which included very high up folks from the company, I felt good going in. They expressed interest in our technology that makes reading on screen easier [1], but they were surprised to learn that we didn't use machine learning to accomplish this. I indicated that it was actually quite ef…

General comment on colour highlighting - I read the updated /individual page and found it very... difficult. The colours led me to speed up and slow down at an uncomfortable rate, to the extent I had to re-read it three times. I typically receive 200-1000 emails per day which all need to be read (yay!) plus at least 30k words per day out of email (business stuff but excluding newspapers, books, etc). I speed-read abo…

Similar experience here. I suspect it's not a good option for speed readers.

Also, there are issues with red-screen sleep promoting systems like f.lux.

Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#312

My startup was approached by a corporate VC that wanted to make a strategic investment. Based on the attendee list from our meeting, which included very high up folks from the company, I felt good going in. They expressed interest in our technology that makes reading on screen easier [1], but they were surprised to learn that we didn't use machine learning to accomplish this. I indicated that it was actually quite ef…

I did your test. Interesting idea. Feedback: I got "It looks like BeeLine didn’t improve your reading speed this time through." which I think needs another pass from your copy editors.

Interesting idea overall. I've been using spritz a lot recently and I'm liking it more and more though it doesn't seem to have progressed from when I discovered it a few years ago.

Re the investors blindly wanting ML - we have this problem too (and it's definitely a problem - I can see this in spite of having a masters in ML). On the bright side, some investors - often the better ones - have said things like "I was interested the moment you didn't use ML or blockchain in your pitch", so stay true to your vision :)

Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#313
post #228
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, nobody wants a misaligned investor. But I had the impression the negotiations already failed, because one buzzword could not be satisfied. My comment was meant more as advice to overcome such problematic situations during negotiations, than to mislead someone about what you are actually doing.

I remember every dishwasher and washing machine had "fuzzy logic" in the 90s (at least according to stickers). Just because it was the AI/ML/Deep Learning/Big Data/IoT of the time. No, fuzzy logic won't make your washing machine better. Yes, you can implement some stuff in fuzzy logic.

I don't remember this from the 90's very well, so I read the wikipedia page. I saw the following diagram and wondered how many washing machines and dishwasher's considered themselves to use fuzzy logic because they simply kept track of the temperature instead of just being in hot / cold states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic#/media/File:Fuzzy_....

Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#314
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get a notification beep from emails? How about just turning that off? If anyone really needs to reach you they can just call you, no?

I get a vibrate notification. And you are right that there are steps I can take to stop this if this became truly disruptive. However it is a mere annoyance, but annoying enough that I think "seriously, fuck off!" if it happens which presumably is NOT the sort of engagement they are looking for :-)

I mean turn it off fully at night, actually. Notifications are a psychological hack–our brains get a little endorphin rush off seeing or hearing them, which makes us want more. They don't serve any actually useful purpose, though. You could stand to not know about new emails, Twitter and Facebook replies, etc., until the morning. If it's an emergency anyone you care about can already reach you by phone.

App notifications are just programming you to be psychologically dependent on them. You can break free of the programming.

Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#316
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, I almost always bounce if I don't immediately see pricing information as it is an important signal with respect to whether or not this is something that's targeted towards me and/or whether or not they think I'll get sticker shock if they show it to me right away. In either case, the lack of readily available pricing makes me negatively inclined to spend more time looking into a product where I don't know if…

I agree. There have been a lot of times I’ve been interested in something that seems to be exactly what I’m looking for but when I manage to find pricing information it’s starting at $990/mo. And now I’ve wasted all that time on a product very obviously not designed to help me remember to pick up bread at the store.

I appreciate that Citus Data is right out in the open that entry level is $800/mo. I know straight up I can’t afford it. But they also tell me the size of their minimum instances, which also tells me my product hasn’t yet scaled to the level to need their service. And by the time it does, $800/mo will be acceptable.

Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General comment on colour highlighting - I read the updated /individual page and found it very... difficult. The colours led me to speed up and slow down at an uncomfortable rate, to the extent I had to re-read it three times. I typically receive 200-1000 emails per day which all need to be read (yay!) plus at least 30k words per day out of email (business stuff but excluding newspapers, books, etc). I speed-read abo…

Wow! Would you mind sharing some practical advice on how to actually train to read this fast?

After writing this, I realise you may need to speed read it!

My first company provided a speed reading training course for the best part of a day.

It wasn't the best targeted course for most people there. We mainly read legal and policy documents which by their nature are terse, and the method of speed reading taught traded-off retention against speed against accuracy. It was more of a concept, which you can go off with an develop yourself. So here's the idea -

1. Start with a text that is quite verbose but not overly so. A code specification or Brett Easton Ellis novel is a no. A light news article should be fine or non-technical book should be fine.

2. Recognise that when you read, you don't read a word from letter start to finish, you basically look in the middle of it and the word is recognised. If you have dyslexia, this technically probably doesn't work; but if you have dyslexia, you've probably invested countless painful hours to something a lot of us take for granted and hats off to that.

You might not notice, but you probably read multiple-words at a time already. Commonly paired words are often read together, like 'a few'. YMMV. Harness that.

3. Mentally split a page of text into narrow columns, perhaps the width of 2 medium length words. Flick your eyes across a line of text. Only focus on the middle of the mental column and absorb the words, like a snapshot (no need to blink).

This is where accuracy starts to degrade. If the text consists of obscure words or lots of figures, accuracy can hurt at the start. Grammar patterns are important too - as long as the text is written by a native or very close near native speaker, anticipation and auto-ordering in this mini-snapshot can be hard or impossible; likewise unfamiliar or complex sentence structures from a native speaker.

4. Now, start to speed up over a paragraph. This is where retention starts to hurt. You certainly don't want to be wording-out words, as this will slow you down and defeat the purpose. But when you've read a block of text, have you been able to follow the meaning at the end.

Again, using well written, non-overly terse training text is important.

5. You should be tired by now, having done this for several hours. Our trainer then suggested changing the 'snapshot' from one line, to two lines, so you're essentially reading the start of the second line before finishing the end of the first line. I can do this but your text needs to be super non-terse for this to work at the start, and even then it's weird. If you can cover a single line pretty fast in less than a second certainly, then this starts to become feasible.

tl;dr

Went on a training course. Was pessimistic as were my colleagues at the start. Persisted afterwards by trying a few minutes per day. Became a habit, especially when seeing articles or documents that I needed to read but didn't need to scrutinise. Important to choose the right tool for the right job. I'd not use this technique to read a document where I'm not familiar with the content-scope; I wouldn't use this technique to read a contract I'm signing, or where specifications/requirements are being very clearly outlined. I do use it to read things like bloomberg.com articles, or PMBOK Guide :)

Hope a little useful, and the above can set you on some kind of direction to learn more. I highly recommend a half-day instructor-led course to kick you off. I imagine there's a college near you which has something.

Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. There have been a lot of times I’ve been interested in something that seems to be exactly what I’m looking for but when I manage to find pricing information it’s starting at $990/mo. And now I’ve wasted all that time on a product very obviously not designed to help me remember to pick up bread at the store.

I appreciate that Citus Data is right out in the open that entry level is $800/mo. I know straight up I can’t afford it. But they also tell me the size of their minimum instances, which also tells me my product hasn’t yet scaled to the level to need their service. And by the time it does, $800/mo will be acceptable.

Ah, so were you talking about the partner pricing, for integrating into a site/app? I can see how it would be helpful to at least have some prices shown for that, to show the ballpark. For a casual website owner who just wants to make the copy easier to read, the pricing is de minimis (just enough to make sure that folks are serious about integrating and not wasting our time with a bunch of back-and-forth). Shoot me an email if you want to talk further!

Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#319
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. What this all boils down to in 2018 is data. Data acquisition, data cleansing, data filing, etc. But what else is there, now? You're going to create a new, novel ANN network? Cool, can't wait to peruse your paper. Maybe someday it's considered groundbreaking. Right now it's not solving immediate problems. Immediate problems were solved with 1970s ideas + 2018's infrastructure.

A word against hasty generalisation - just because you don't interact with it on a daily basis doesn't mean it isn't being worked on elsewhere. There is an increasing number of ML-first companies out there. They are solving problems like object detection, portfolio strategy optimization, medical diagnosis, etc. Things that are 100% not possible to do with just SQL and Bash, and much less expensive than to have humans…

I think the 10% is exActly what these AI first companies should be targeting .

Re: You probably don't need AI/ML. You can make do with well written SQL scripts

#320

The problem with SQL is that eventually you will end up with thousands of SQL scripts. Have you ever tried to debug a 100k SQL? It’s a nightmare. Some of the scripts used to be simple, but got too complicated due to new requirements like this article doesn’t mention how he would deal with multiple time zones, currencies, different type of customers, multiple promotions for repeat customers and etc.

Are you suggesting that AI/ML makes those new requirements go away? Or that managing those requirements becomes easier because AI/ML software figures it out?
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