News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by mr_mitm on Sunday March 31, 2024 @03:34AM (#39882225)
For those who don't know, Quanta Magazine is financed by Jim Simons (from Chern-Simons theory) who became known as a very successful hedge fund manager. I just love the idea that he's using a portion of his billions to fund a little non-profit math magazine.
Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by kwant_kiddo on Sunday March 31, 2024 @05:07AM (#39882644)
it is a shame they don't do physical print through
Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by cout on Sunday March 31, 2024 @10:27AM (#39884583)
I agree. Quanta is the sort of material I like to read during my morning coffee ritual before I start a day of screen time.

Are there any quality print magazines like it? I used to get Physics World a long time ago and have been looking for something in print to scratch that same itch.

Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by ketanmaheshwari on Sunday March 31, 2024 @10:30AM (#39884619)
Communication of ACM (CACM) still prints magazines. They are reasonably good quality.
Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by sn9 on Sunday March 31, 2024 @01:26PM (#39886130)
They actually kinda do have print collections of some of their articles, but in the form of books and not well marketed [0].

[0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/gift-store

Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by uptownfunk on Sunday March 31, 2024 @11:43PM (#39890726)
A physical magazine would be nice. I just print papers out on my printer these days and mark em up with my pen of choice :)
Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by PartiallyTyped on Sunday March 31, 2024 @07:50AM (#39883391)
The world could always use more people like that.

Something something effective altruism.

It doesn't even need to be altruistic. One would expect that out of sheer self-interest, one would look into propelling humanity forward by elevating and liberating as many people as possible, enabling the brightest of our species to solve the hardest problems and elevate humanity. Though accepting that one needs others to solve problems one does not understand, that they play a supporting role takes a great deal of humility.

Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by throw_pm23 on Sunday March 31, 2024 @10:30AM (#39884614)
Yeah, Jeffrey Eppstein was also one that funded a lot of science and science journalism. Fuck effective altruism.
Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by PartiallyTyped on Sunday March 31, 2024 @11:33AM (#39885181)
I don't associate myself with that particular group of people, nor did I in any way condone such behaviour, nor do I support long-termists and so on.

My comment was mostly calling out the hypocrisy of some EAs, Long-termists, and the likes. It points out the myopic, self-centered, irrational, and too self-important view, the often exhibited messiah complex, and of course the absence of humility.

Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by throw_pm23 on Sunday March 31, 2024 @02:55PM (#39886980)
Yes, apologies, and I didn't mean to sound negative. Unfortunately a lot of nuance gets lost in writing..
Re:Mathematician Who Made Sense of the Universe's Randomness... by bmitc on Sunday March 31, 2024 @12:52PM (#39885845)
The issue is that we've setup the system to require people like this, which more often than not exposes us to people the opposite of Jim Simons, like Robert Mercer, Peter Thiel, etc. Instead having a proper tax structure, we rely on altruistic wealthy individuals, which are rare, and mainly get people who want to drive us into libertarian hellscapes.