₦airaland Forum

@omohayek

My apologies for sounding pompous, I got quite exasperated. You did ask "Why Julia"? And I answered that clearly. Obviously you disagreed with my submission, and that is okay. You needed not call me names.

You really have no idea just how ridiculous you sound to me, given that I actually work in biotechnology. Go ahead, tell me what shotgun sequencing is all about, and how you might go about doing it. Or maybe you'd like to explain how you'd look for epistatic effects in a GWAS (if you even know what that is)? How about giving me an update on the most recent developments in using Crispr-Cas9? Or why don't we switch the conversation to discussing approximate solutions for the Navier-Stokes equations, or new techniques for simulating the 4-body problem? As I'm a generous guy, I'll let you pick the subject, and we can get down to details. Be my guest!

Of all these topics, I would have been glad to discuss numerical methods for the Navier-Stokes equations with you, as that was very much in line with my PhD thesis, but considering how our conversation has gone, I think I am done here. The other topics are out of my scope, since I don't work in biotechnology. I already told you I work in Engineering, so asking me about topics in bio fields is really odd. All I said was that you sounded as if you were looking down on Brown's use-case because "Julia is only being used in bio at Brown, and not even computer science". And I pointed out that bio-math requires a lot of scientific computing.

I'm sorry, but this is utterly inane. What exactly did I initially do if not ask why you were curious about Julia? Are you really that lacking in reading comprehension, or is your memory so bad that you can't even look back that far into the past? I'm sorry for not realizing straight away that I was dealing with someone of limited intellect combined with extreme self-regard.

You asked why I was curious about Julia. I answered in detail. You disagreed with WHY I was curious about Julia and you began to put it down. How does that even make sense, disagreeing with someone's preferences?

In any case, no vex sir. I apologize.

omohayek:
If you don't know why I mentioned Scala, you obviously know a lot less about functional programming than you think you do.

Why are you mentioning Scala in a conversation about scientific computing? Scala is a functional language but is it used in scientific computing for industrial problems (not toy ones. Every functional programming language can be used in scientific computing, if we want to be that way about it)?

omohayek:
This is a meaningless response. Why are they just for prototyping? I and many others use them for serious numerical work that is actually paid for, which is one more reason why I found your long response utterly pointless.

Meaningless responses? Did you read where I said that I use Python and NumPy/SciPy for my paid job? Or did you gloss over that too? I said for extremely difficult problems, you can't get enough performance from them! Not that they are useless, but they are useful for an initial prototype. If you have a problem that for instance generates matrices of an order of hundreds of thousands, NumPy and SciPy will begin to cough whereas they will work beautifully for smaller problems. THUS they are best for an initial prototype.

omohayek:
Another content-free response. You say I pointed you to a link, but you don't bother to actually refute any of the points raised on the link.

Guy you are taking this thing personally and I don't even know why. There are enough refutals on the same blog itself. Why should I bother rehashing someone's gripes? You googled and pasted a link showing what SOMEONE doesn't like about Julia, but you didn't present your own thoughts so why should I reply the blogger's gripes here? This thread is about awareness, and again I never asked anyone to stop using their everyday tools.

omohayek:
You tell me the university you're working at, and I'll tell you the one I went to. Meanwhile, having looked at the list on the page you provide, the only Ivy League universities there are Cornell and Brown, and at Brown Julia is listed only for one course in molecular biology (i.e. not in the CS department). Neither Cambridge nor Oxford appear, nor do University College London or Imperial College. Needless to say, not one of the top Asian schools (e.g. Tokyo or Kyoto University) is listed either. Admit it, your far-reaching claims for Julia's usage in the "top universities" was merely hyperbole.

Nah I work in the intersection of engineering, programming and applied mathematics but I don't need to tell you the university that I am working at, just like it is your prerogative to tell the one you attended, or not. Mentioning "only molecular biology" shows how much you really work in the fields of scientific computing. Mathematical and molecular biology has some of the greatest problems in scientific computing today, about as many as fluid mechanics & ocean engineering and other fields in applied partial differentiation equations. And saying that it is taught at some of the top schools in the world does not mean that ALL the top schools in the world will be listed there, or that they are all computer science programs. Geez isn't that ridiculous? Scientific computing by far transcends computer science. If I have to explain that, then you are certainly not working in the fields neither did you study in any of them. Plus, being IVY LEAGUE has to do with sports, and doesn't necessarily mean that a school not listed in Ivy League is not a top school in the US especially in graduate study. Some IVY league schools can't hold a torch towards MIT in some fields, but that's another story.

I don't even care if you went to any of those schools or not. My question was WHEN did you attend it, and yet you never heard of or attempted to try out, Julia?

If you want to discuss scientific computing and not the school you attended, I am more than glad to converse with someone who knows what he is saying and not someone throwing Scala and Clojure into the mix JUST because they are also functional.

omohayek:
I'd assumed you were just curious about Julia's takeup with other developers interested in functional programming. If you'd said upfront that you were actually engaging in advocacy, I wouldn't have bothered even responding to your initial post.

I was explaining why Julia is more useful for scientific computing. Yes it is a functional programming language and there are other functional ones, but Julia is a functional one that brings the best of the worlds together.

I agree you probably shouldn't have bothered responding to my post, if you didn't understand what the thread is about and weren't willing to ask.

PastorAIO:
Hmmm… this is quite convoluted. Let me see if I understand what you are asking. Are you suggesting that since all we can demonstrate is spatio-temporal then it'll be impossible to demonstrate the supernatural?

Well, not strictly. What I said was Natural was Influence that passed through spatiotemporal, while supernatural Influence can pass through extra-dimensions. Yet the Cause and Effect (the influencer and the influenced) can still be firmly spatiotemporal.

Take for instance the case of Quantum Entanglement. Here are two objects, photons. What is done to one photon has an immediate effect on the other photon. That immediacy is what requires a supernatural explanation. The initial change in the first photon does NOT emit an influence that travels through space, over time, to affect the other photon. The immediacy suggests that the influence probably passed through another dimension in which the two photons are a lot more proximal, even co-located.

Natural or Supernatural comes in when we try to explain the phenomenon. If the phenomenon can be explained within a spatio-temporal framework then that is a Natural explanation. If it cannot then it requires a supernatural explanation.

As it turns out it has been impossible (thus far) to create a theory of physics that does not resort to extra-dimensional frameworks. This is why most Atheists/Materialists have a hard time even just presenting a definition of what they mean by Naturalism or Supernatural. There is no definition that holds without some actual scientific evidence that says that there are supernatural phenomena too.
When I pin MY definition on the spatiotemporal that is just my own arbitrarily defined use of the words Natural and Supernatural. Anyone who wants to discuss it with me and disagrees with my definition should produce their own definition and I'll be happy to discuss the terms with him/her within his/her own defined framework. So far all I've ever encountered is people ducking from the responsibility of defining what they mean when they use the terms.

Lol sorry about the convolution. Yes that was what I implied. And thanks for clarifying.

Not sure if you were referring to me but I did define what I meant, to which you disagreed and provided this counter explanation.

To be clear, are you saying that when an influence is transmitted through an extra-dimension outside 3D space and forward-time, then it is supernatural, while a natural influence is confined to 4D spacetime?

Matter traveling through reverse time is essentially antimatter, and that is why I think reverse time travel is rather unlikely. "Influences" traveling backward in time is another thing entirely, since influences are not matter in themselves. I never thought of it like that so I was trying to understand where you are coming from.

From Klein's theory in the 1920s we know the 5th dimension is compacted to the order of 10^-33 cm so it is mostly unobservable to us. And we know the superstring theory requires a dimension of 10 and above to make sense. This means we have to compactify the intermediate 4 dimensions in between to fit the gap. Ergo the recent "Bulk theory" (Gia Dvali, Arkani-Hamed Nima and Dimopoulos Savas) which says that reality is made up of two membranes and "we" are clinging to one membrane while there is a large gap of bulk compacted dimensions between "us" and the "other membrane". If this bulk of extra dimensions actually exist, then we should have unexplained missing energies as gravitons seep into higher realms and neutrinos escape into the bulk gap. Discovering the Higgs Boson in 2012 gave even more weight to this idea's possible correctness.

Now to your point. Assuming the Bulk theory is accurate, then every particle on this "membrane" of spacetime has a similar particle vibrating on the other membrane except that those other ones have more mass (like musical overtones). But whatever happens here will be reflected on the other end and vice versa (Matthew 18:18 is that you?). This might also relate to "influences" that seem "uncaused" or "not yet caused" within our own spacetime observation.

omohayek:
Actually, I have plenty of experience with numerical computing myself, so the lengthy explanation you provided is unnecessary.

Na wa oh. And here was I thinking I was giving a detailed response rather than simply hand-waving the topic. You were mentioning Clojure, Scala (I wonder why?) so I figured you are not into scientific computing.

omohayek:
What's not clear to me is what problem Julia will solve for you that can't be solved using, say, good old Numpy/C, or even plain C++14?

I already explained this above (not sure if you read it). And I can't believe you are still mentioning NumPy/SciPy (which are at best for prototyping) after all my explanation!

omohayek:
The reality of Julia isn't necessarily as rosy as you seem to think it is, either; read the following.

http://zverovich.net/2016/05/13/giving-up-on-julia.html

There will always be nay-sayers. Pointing me to a link does not demonstrate anything tangible. That's one story.

omohayek:
As for the idea that Julia is being taught at "all the world's top universities today", that is manifestly not true.

Oh? Can you give any background to this statement?

omohayek:
I actually went to one of those top universities myself, and have friends and co-workers from most of the others;

Not saying you didn't attend one of those top universities, but when? Your information may be outdated. When was this, and what is your field of numerical research? This is my own daily bread and butter so I am more than willing to delve as deep as you want into the topic. I am currently working at one of these universities, in fact.

And here is an official but inexhaustive list of universities all over the world using Julia: http://julialang.org/teaching/

omohayek:
Julia has nowhere near the amount of mindshare that even Haskell does, let alone Python.

Julia is about freaking 2 years old and in active development, man. It is a developing answer to a problem in the numerical world. I never said it is the be-all or that it has marketshare (not mindshare) as Haskell or Python that have been around for ages.

The point of this thread was to create some awareness. I am not trying to ask anyone to drop the tools they already use, but Julia has bright prospects for its age. For instance, for my own daily numerical work I use C, MATLAB, Mathematica, FORTRAN, Python with NumPy and SciPy, and FreeFem++ in no particular order. I am just beginning to add Julia into it all because when I did my own graduate course in Scientific Computing, Julia hadn't emerged. Maybe it was the same for you (assuming you are referring to a graduate course and not an undergrad one).

jayriginal:
Decided to look in at the programming section (haven't done that in a while) and guess who I found?

Hello Inesqor!!!

How are you my brother it's been ages. Glad to see your post.

On topic, I never heard of Julia until now. I'll look it up. Is Julia object oriented? You didn't mention that.

Hahaha bros man! Yes oh it's been ages upon ages! Really good to see you here. How body? I followed a link from google the other day and landed on Nairaland then logged in again! Hehe.

Yes Julia is object-oriented!

omohayek:
What exactly are you using Julia for? It's not as if there is a shortage of functional programming languages out there, so why does Julia interest you ahead of the likes of Clojure, F#, Haskell or Scala?

Caveat: I am an engineer & programmer in the worlds of numeric / scientific computing, and that's why this matters. Sometimes speed really matters. You don't want to wait for many months to run various simulations to see if that adjustment you made to an engine will be a disaster. You can't tell a medical patient with a blocked artery to wait for a couple of weeks while simulations of your numerical code run. Some processes are time-critical and computationally expensive and you have to deal with that.

Usually there are three steps to do numeric computing:
- Prototype it
- Make it Faster
- Make it Blaze. i.e.

First you develop the work in a prototyping language: like MATLAB, Python or Ruby. This will be an easy to read language and generally accessible. Once your code is WORKING, then you begin to rewrite it in something faster like C or C++, paying attention to the parts of the code that run slowly. After this, you begin the awkwardness of rewriting the still-slow parts of your code using OpenCL, CUDA or even Assembler. This third step is where the insanity usually is!

Some languages like Fortran skip the first part essentially. Fortran is more or less "unreadable" but it gets the job done to almost C or F# level.

Some functional languages like Haskell and F# combine the first two steps but if you are doing something that is really computationally expensive (e.g. solving billions of equations at once, which is something that could happen when you are studying PDES - for instance, dealing with fluids numerically, which occurs often in engineering and medicine) then even these ones stutter and cough really bad. When you really need speed, you have to go way down to Assembly for some parts of your code. e.g. where the crazy iterations, loops, switches and IF/ELSE statements are wearing away at your machine.

Switching between the layers of abstraction from rapid prototyping of an algorithm, to making faster and less readable code, to making bleeding-edge fast code that will not collapse on you when it matters most, is a lot of mental pain and waste of time and programming resources.

Julia, with inspiration from LISP, bridges that gap. It breaks down that wall between your high level code and the native assembly. It is built from the ground up to cope with the rigor of scientific computing, and at any time you can peek beneath the curtain and view (and even manipulate) the LLVM representation as well as even the assembler code that runs directly under your high-level functional code.

It is no wonder that Julia is the numerical and functional language of choice currently being taught at all the world's top universities today, from Brown to Stanford to MIT in the USA, as well as others all over the world, since as far back as 2013.

PastorAIO:
Don't let the atheists catch you saying that theism has anything to do with supernatural/naturalism. There are many theists who may believe in the supernatural but it doesn't play much of a role in their ideology. And there are many Atheists who have a rich supernatural beliefs. Like some buddhists for instance.

But the question of what people mean when they say supernatural has been of interest to me for a while now. It is another one of those ill defined terms that people use a lot.

The sense in which I use Natural and Supernatural is not in reference to things (corporal entities), but rather to processes. So there are various things and beings, and these things and beings can undergo Natural Processes and/or Supernatural processes.

Definition: Natural Processes are Processes in which influence passes from one event to another through space and through time, through the more proximal parts to the less proximal parts.

For example, if you take the universe as a string of events that started from the Initiation (to avoid creation vs big bang imbroglio) and extend as history through time towards the future, then I would take that to be a Natural Process.

In a Natural process all events are caused by prior events that occurred before them. Influence only travels forwards in Time. What you do today cannot have an outcome on what happened yesterday but what happened yesterday can have an outcome on today.

On the other hand Influence can move in any direction in space. But what is closer to the Cause (source of influence) experiences the influence before what is further.

What is Supernatural would then be any process that seems to over rule this Natural process.

For example. If I witness in my imagination an event that is yet to occur, i.e. a future event is making an impression on my mind today then possibly influence has passed backwards through time to make an impact on my mind.

Or another example, if you take the universe as one long historical process and you now imagine a Volition that is outside of this process (i.e. outside of the chain of causality) yet emits an influence that determines the outcome of an event in History, that Non-temporal influence would be supernatural.
I must point out that when I say that this volition is outside of history I'm not talking about the likes of most human volition which is just a part of the Natural process. e.g a man watches an advert and discovers that he has a strong desire to buy a pair of shoes and he goes out to buy them. You can trace his purchase back to the Advert he saw. The Volition was brought about by a prior event in time.
This is different from a volition that is not influenced by anything in the environment, not the upbringing, not the society, nothing. Such a volition influences history but is not influenced by history.

Before this starts becoming a long story, the long and short of what I'm saying is that I see the dichotomy of Natural Supernatural as a reference, not to beings or things, but to processes that things undergo.

Thanks for the correction about theism and supernatural beliefs.

This, about "processes" rather than "beings", is a really interesting view! Hmm I never exactly thought of it this way. I will think further on this, but two things come to mind now:
- Don't you think it might be a bit reductionist (in theory) to say it all comes down to the spatio-temporal? I mean, the spatio-temporal is all we really can demonstrate. How do we know that our arguments about supernatural processes are not fallacies of self-knowing?
- Since it is hard (or impossible?) to demonstrate or reproduce any information that is not bound in space and time, wouldn't this mean there is no way to properly (scientifically) investigate "supernatural" claims, until we find feasible ways to transcend space and time? All we would have to work with is information produced "after the fact" (where "after" is yet another reference to a natural process. Can we ever understand supernatural processes then, being natural beings?)

I have recently been delving further into it, and I was wondering if anyone has comments about their own experiences with Julia. I don't have a particularly structured question at this time so I won't be taking this to StackOverflow yet. In all, it's a very beautiful language and if you do any computational or functional programming you will enjoy it!

PastorAIO:
Greetings InesQ!! How you dey?

I don't identify as an atheist, not yet. I've been there before in my past and I doubt I'll go back there.

However I am atheist to many concepts of God, if not all.

The whole affair is made more complicated by the realisation that when people talk about God they are all talking about something slightly (or not so slightly) different. So to be an atheist one has to specify what one is being an atheist about.

Besides I don't think the main bone of contention is whether or not there is a Creator, but rather whether there is a distinction between Natural and supernatural realities.

I dey kampe, sir! Good to see you are in good e-spirits.

True, notions about God are subjective to the believer. Our experiences interacting with our own beliefs / disbeliefs are unique, but how the world is shaped by these beliefs/disbeliefs is what we all share together.

I would venture to say that the theism question is whether or not the word "supernatural" has any meaning at all (most atheists say it is a figment of people's imagination). And if it does, what is our "business" with such entities, or what is their business with us, and/or what are the rules of engagement.

Can there possibly be anything of a nature that is "beyond natural"? If intelligent life exists outside Earth, whether in the form of physically-bodied entities, waves of energy or say, an entire self-connected and intelligent universe, can any of these be regarded "supernatural" since they lie outside the purview of what we naturally know? Does the fact that we do not yet know something qualify it as supernatural (only until it is known)? Etc. More questions than answers...

ITbomb:
That scene with the Maester and Varys birds reminds me of APC and PDP supporters.
They can be used to bring down empires and warlords but all they get in return are SWEETS

That moment when Jon Snow completed NYSC

Any Julia users on Nairaland?

PastorAIO:
Every now and again a thread comes along in nairaland that makes sticking around worthwhile.

What a sweet thread!!?

If you had to, would you identify as an atheist nowadays?

Oh boy no be small thing oh. So I missed all of this.

Thank God for Thanksgiving, so I have time for NL.

Pastor AIO, thanks for the enlightening perspective! It is remarkable how we share few similar beliefs but for the ones we do, you are generally able to express the ideas way better than I can.

Reyginus:
You are Nigerian by virtue of the location you found yourself and not by virtue of our respective moralities so it wouldn't apply here.

Of course I read the article. Can we say a thing is the same thing if it is corrupted?

Oh, I am not even in Nigeria but my point is that when people say "I'm tired of being a Nigerian", it is a trope. Somewhat like a hyperbole! An exaggeration. My point has nothing to do with morality or the lack thereof.

Corruption does not change the nature of a thing, even though it might color one's perceptions or perspectives about it. Is a house that has not been cleaned for 10 years still a house? Is a dirty, poor, old, sick and hungry hobo still a man?

Image123:
You have a right to your thoughts, i was never vexed.

Don't vex that i thought you vexed. Your "you don't have the monopoly of personal pronouns I'm sure" was uncalled for if you didn't vex, though. But that's my own problem, I guess.

Oh my. I need to read this thread again. So many interesting posts and responses by some of my favorite NLers.

This comment is a bookmark to help me find it easily when I have some time to spare.

Busybody2:
Oh boy! Yours was one of the monikers I used to come across in this sections eons ago. One thing you need to understand is that we as humans are not perfect and stable and are being kept together by the grace of the Most High God, and as Anas09 stated everything you listed is in the Bible so don't allow stuffs like this to demoralise you.

Thanks! I didn't mean it literally though. It's just a think piece for the Christians that are not paying attention to a hurting world, and the article loaded with a little exaggeration.

Reyginus:
InesQor defines an idea of a thing and then interprets it to mean another thing. The things you are tired of in the first place are largely not Christian so you can not claim to be tired of being a Christian. You can simply say you are tired of pretending to be a Christian.

Lol see how you just blackguarded me like that sha.

The "tired of being a Christian" is used loosely and in a sardonic manner. It is written in such a way as to make Christians see that they need to pay attention to some issues, and not that the author or myself is ACTUALLY tired of being a Christian. Urgh let's not be so literal. We were expected to read between the lines here. That's why I'm asking, did people really read the article?

If I say I'm tired of being a Nigerian because the whole world has stereotyped us as internet fraudsters, does it mean that I plan to change nationality? Or rather does it mean that I am not satisfied with some things generally associated with Nigerians and I wish to draw attention to those issues?

Sarcasm, sarcasm!

sonOfLucifer:
WOW!!!!!!!

INESQOR!!!!!!

Was thinking about you some days back and going through your old threads. Hope you are good. amanfrommars/muskeeto

Heeey brother man! Lol good to see you here again. How body? No mind me jare, I hardly come around here anymore!! Yes I'm fine thanks

Image123:
Read the article and jumped to my answer. You don't have the monopoly of personal pronouns i'm sure.

Oh dear me. I would have thought it sensible and rational that if someone replies on a thread and mentions nobody, but uses a pronoun then we can assume the person is referring to the OP.

No vex oh.

plappville:
I dont think you have felt Christ at the first place....try and discover him. Build a relationship with him, then come back and give us a testimony.

Did you even read the article to see the point?

Image123:
Well, what would you rather be? Same argument can be made for being alive, being human, and any major religion and position. Let your light SO shine remains on point.

Guy, did you read the article or you jumped to conclusions based on the topic and my name?

Thoniameek:
Dealing with it. There's something called religion and then there's relationship with God. And no one should mix the two....

Hmm left to me I think religion is PART of our relationship with God.

It's like saying "there is something called breathing and then there's being alive, and nobody should mix the two". They are intertwined, and one is a strong sign of the other.

Our religion is the apparent evidence that we have a relationship with God. Anybody can claim to have a relationship with God.

SirWere:
Well, wha do I care Every man has to carry his own cross.

Your apathy makes me feel like my point here is made. Cheers mate.

SirWere:
An european/westerner can afford not to believe but here? In this country


There has to be an afterlife, there just has to be!!!

If you read carefully, you'll see that I have not said that I don't believe in God or the afterlife.

This is a think-piece to make all Christians look inwards and see what they can do differently in a world where faith without works is dead.

Thoniameek:
Have felt this way.....

Do you still feel this way?

Kelsey Munger wrote this article here http://kelseymunger.com/2015/09/14/im-tired-of-being-a-christian/

Excerpts below. I feel she speaks for me on many levels, and these are some reasons I don't always announce that I am a Christian even though I adhere to Christ and his teachings.

What about you? Do you feel the same way? And what will you do about it?

I’m tired. I’m tired of being a Christian. People say it’s only a term, only a word but that word feels like the lead apron at the dentist’s office. It’s pushing down on me from all sides, clipped tightly around my neck. It carries the weight of the hearts that have been wounded and the spirits that have been broken in the name of Christianity.

It carries the weight of teenagers who have been kicked out of their homes — gay teens and unwed mothers. It carries the weight of women who have been told to submit to their abusive husbands. It carries the weight of women who question their value, their worth, because they were raped or had sex with someone they loved before they were married. It carries the weight of so many tears that have been shed after someone was verbally accosted by a Christian. It carries the weight of scars and wounds that run so deeply they’ve latched onto people’s identities and sense of self-worth.

And I’m tired. I’m tired of being a Christian. This isn’t irritation or angst; it’s exhaustion.

I’m tired of being a Christian if it means I have to believe that I have a monopoly on ethical living or spiritual truths. If my personal creed needs to be forced on or applied to anyone other than myself, than this isn’t for me. I’m tired of the policing in the name of righteousness, which really just starts sounding a lot like I’m-more-right-than-you-ness. If enforced, unasked for “accountability” is the rule, then I’m tired of being a Christian.

I’m tired of being a Christian if it means silencing those who have been hurt by the church. If we’re just expected to read the bible every day despite the panic attacks; if we’re just expected to go to church every Sunday despite the scars; if we’re just expected to keep our mouths closed because our church experiences were traumatic and less-than-stellar, then I’m tired of being a Christian.

It might only be a word but it carries the weight of so much pain and sorrow. But somehow, despite it all, I still find myself clinging to Christ. As a child sitting in children’s Sunday school he seemed to say: “It’s okay, you’re welcome here. Come sit down right here next to me.” And now God calls again, she calls, Mother calls, welcoming me to sit down next to her. And I do. But I’m worn out. I’m exhausted. I’m tired.

Gbola5:
Not the old gods. The seven, theres a difference.

Exactly. The old gods, and not the seven.

Seun:
I've changed my mind about the sand snakes. The last episode really showcased their very pleasant, firm, and upstanding ... characters.

Looooooool!

Mathematics is the language of science, and music to the ears of human experience.

AreaFada2:
.

Lol.
He's not a physiologist or anatomist.
Medulla to him simply means "brain" or "brain capacity".

Haha I was being sarcastic. I simply couldn't resist it.