I've always wondered if machine learning would help here - we already have language agnostic embeddings (LaBSE, LASER) - now all we need is a way to pronounce them. Perhaps you could learn one by training an autoencoder that is constrained somehow just like the human vocal chords are
It does also explain why they are not found all over the Roman empire but mostly in the north (the article mentions England, Germany, and the Netherlands) where it is probably COLD for the average Roman legionnaire
I often wonder why so much effort is being put into shoehorning everything into a single language. Wouldn't it make much more sense to use a fully differentiable DSL for machine learning / xla, then call it from whatever host language you use? This approach has worked really well for SQL for the past couple of decades.
Has it worked really well? I feel ORMs are a sign it hasn't. Though I really enjoy having learned SQL and being able to interact with almost all relational databases.
Not much really... In many languages ORM's require just about as much boiler plate or careful error checking as copy pasting SQL strings with supportive structs... Not saying ORM's are bad, some are OK some are maybe even good. Project/team dependent...
That said, I find the concept of abstracting ML ingredients outside of languages a nice one although its not entirely novel(python's been doing this from day 1 :D). The strength for keeping it in 1 language can be profound though. Compilers can optimize across operations. Calling many atomic functions from an API/server from a client loses that unless implemented carefully. That one language benefit is a big part of what Julia has to offer.
I could see a value addition statement being made if the "whole market" solution included a lot of goodies. But every time I think of what that looks like - I think it looks like Julia in 2-5 years....
Boilerplate. Writing serializers and deserializers by hand is not an efficient use of developer time.
Related to ORMs, but not quite on topic - query building. Type checked queries, parts of which can be passed around business logic, are very powerful and flexible.
There are more and more libraries that let you to write SQL and bind the results into native records (objects, structs) in the host language. I find it an interesting middle ground
being able to do interprocedural cross language analysis seems awesome considering how much code is written in C++, but used in higher level languages.
This experiment has been done in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in the 90s. It gained a tonne of publicity but it did not end up getting widely adopted. Most homeless people (understandably) feared getting stigmatized if they were spotted sleeping in one. https://museumrotterdam.nl/collectie/item/71471-1-3
"By that definition the USD is a ponzi. No, national currencies too fail to fit the definition, because people do not "invest" in them with the expectation of gain" <-- The 6.6trillion/day forex market begs to differ.
Well, insurance industry is a negative sum game (zero sum minus costs of running it) in which all the buyers expect to lose money and all the sellers make it. Still, it's a good idea to buy insurance in some circumstances as utility of money curve is different different for the insurance buyer and insurance company. Such transactions are good for both sides (as they maximize their utility even though the buyer losses in pure money terms).
Now apply that to Forex. There are players who needs to hedge against target currency devaluing and others who are willing to take the risk premium. That you can gamble on it if another matter but then again, you can gamble on many different otherwise useful financial instruments.
Nobody "invest" in USD. You invest in assets which you expect to appreciate. People investing in Bitcoin do so expecting to control a portion of a finite supply, which defeats its purpose of liquidity.
People absolutely invest in USD, in expectation of appreciation. South Korean banks sell saving accounts denominated in USD as an investment product. Money flows into it when USD appreciates and flows out when it depreciates.
Also it is not true that "governments make their currencies slightly inflationary precisely to discourage hoarding." In fact, this is done so that there can be economic expansion. It is true that some economists have advocated for deliberately trying to increase inflation to spur spending, but it turns out that actually forcing inflation is not easy (see also: Japan for the past two decades).
Gross daily trading volumes are a poor gauge of how much capital investors have deployed in a particular market, seeking returns. A single international transaction may induce several forex trades, such as when the sale price of goods is denominated in USD or some other non-local currency. Combine that with the complex, usually leveraged hedging strategies employed by banks and multinational firms, and it’s easy to see whence such a massive figure comes.
There are a lot of people who are "investing" in Bitcoin right now not out of expectation of real gains, but as a way to maintain assets against an inflating dollar... nominal gains, but not real ones.
Haha, yes if you're just a "weekly" investor. But for me who invested years ago, my assets begs to differ. Back then there were people I know personally that like you who also said that it's a bad idea to invest in crypto, I'm very glad I didn't listen to them haha. Now I just tell them it is not yet too late before global adoption.
I struggled with the accounting concepts until I stumbled on this blogpost from Martin Kleppmann: https://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-compu.... After that I finally 'got' the accounting graph, and I don't care too much about the medium or the software anymore (its a google sheet in my case).
