plake

Yeah, "left as an exercise" can mean anything from "this is an undergraduate exercise" to "if you understand both the field and this paper, you could write a different, much longer paper, and we both know this, so let's assume I wrote that one."

It's probably not impossible to build a proof language that makes that kind of thing doable, but I suspect that (a) it would be genuinely difficult to operate it skilfully, much as being a really good developer is difficult, and (b) it would take a huge collective effort on behalf of each research community to prove the foundational results everyone relies on.

Whereas the system we have right now, despite sounding kind of weird to outsiders, mostly works okay? I'm just not sure a switch to formal proofs would be worth the time investment -- or that you could convince the many researchers less interested in tech than myself.

I think it will be quite some time yet. As a researcher, my objection to computer-aided proofs is not that they're hard to read -- you would of course write a human readable version to go with it -- but rather that they're extremely time-consuming to write. (And writing papers is hard enough already.)

A typical research paper is written at a very high level; often steps in the argument will assume the reader is also a skilled mathematician, and invite them to fill in the lower-level details themselves. This reasoning is as much intuitive as it is formal; I suspect it will be a while before proof assistants are as intelligent as the typical reader of a mathematics paper.

I think there's an outside perspective that if math isn't 100% logically verified, it's worthless, which doesn't really match up with my own experience. Most results rely more on the intuition of the authors than on the precise logic they write down; thus the surprising result that papers with logical gaps are, very often, still correct.

Also not an American, but the US left has a lot of controversial views that are nothing to do with the things you've listed. Surely you've heard of some?

Or perhaps that the pressures against legible expertise are worse in the US?

Exactly. It's one type of candidate, that the OP happens to like; you don't need this stuff to get hired. Personally my gut reaction to lots of side projects or social media is slightly negative, simply because my experience has been that those candidates tend to interview slightly worse.

I think side projects can be valuable when you want to demonstrate competence at something, and you don't otherwise have experience to draw on. If you're a barista who's learning to code in their spare time, or you want to understand a hot new technology, sure. Otherwise, I'd rather ask you about your actual work.

I’ve seen this happen frequently in both iBooks and Apple Music, which is why I refuse to use either. I always assumed it was a DRM thing? Kindle doesn’t do this at all, and while Spotify does, it’s much rarer, and always waits until you have connectivity, so it can immediately re-download.

It’s such an obvious deal-breaker, I don’t understand how “let’s delete your stuff all the time, even in offline mode” made it through testing.

For UK sources, I'd suggest adding The Spectator. They're not perfect (some of their columnists strike me as fairly obvious shills), but overall I've found them the most intelligent right-of-centre source.

For the Americans reading, they have a US site too, might be worth checking out?

It probably depends on the candidate pool, but I've had a few interviews where the candidate can tell they missed the bar, and genuinely just wants advice on how to work on it.

Definitely if they start trying to haggle, or pressure you into something, that's a hard pass, I'll say whatever bullshit it takes to get them out the door. I'm happy to help out the former at the expense of fielding the latter, though I can understand why not everyone is!

Because giving good feedback is hard work, and candidates won't always take it well (even if they don't sue). If the employer has already decided not to hire you, there's just not that much in it for them.

For what it's worth, as an interviewer I'm happy to give feedback in person, at the end of the interview, if the candidate asks for it. It's much easier to do when you're both in the same room, and asking e.g. "is there anything you think I could improve on?" makes a positive impression either way.

I never understood why some colleges set group work, it seems like such an obviously terrible way to evaluate people. Good students will end up doing all the work, and if you try to change that, the good students will lie about it to appease you.

You can just set individual projects, it's not that hard.