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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 14

I was invited to give this plenary talk at the Electronic Imaging Symposium this past February. The recording is now available on YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s59U...

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 13

Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons have been hacked to hilarious effect

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 12

ruined by tariffs

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 12

What I’ve learned here is that some will not get it, even if explained in the simplest terms.

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 12

it's called "volatility drag" - look it up. and it doesn't need fixed percent. I used a fixed number so it would be easier for people to understand. apparently it wasn't easy enough

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 12

Most people don't understand that volatility alone can kill your investments

start with capital P
lose 5% one week: (1-0.05)*P
gain 5% the next week: (1+0.05)*(1-0.05)*P.

repeat the pattern for 1yr (52 weeks):
(1+0.05)^26 *(1-0.05)^26 *P = 0.88P

You lost 12% of your money.

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 11

bias-variance tradeoff

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 7

It's a cruel irony that those who orchestrated this stock market crash are already insulated from its effects. They will be fine.

The real tragedy is that it's the ordinary person – the retiree, the small investor, the hardworking individual – who will suffer the most.

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 4

"That Mr. Musk has come to hold so many of the same beliefs about social engineering and economic planning as his grandfather is a testament to his profound lack of political imagination, to the tenacity of technocracy and to the hubris of Silicon Valley."

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/o...

Opinion | The Rise and Fall of Elon Musk (Gift Article)

His belief that liberal democracy has failed and that technologists should lead can be traced to the unusual life of his grandfather.

www.nytimes.com

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 4

Warning signs you're dealing with a cynic:

* says “that’ll never work...” before any evidence
* often assumes the worst of people
* every interaction is a 0-sum game
* uses criticism to signal competence

2/2

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 4

Every profession has its personality types. In my experience the most difficult people to work with are cynics - no matter how talented they may be.

Healthy skepticism is positive and curious. Cynicism is not - it's judgmental. The difference is under-appreciated.

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 4

A wonderful scholar and person, he is. Taught me so much.

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 3

Meta has one VP for every 300 employees. They’re a dime a dozen.

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 3

This tour de force overview by the incomparable Alan Willsky (my former advisor) is well worth reading, and a great reference for anyone studying AR models for generation.
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?rep...

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Apr 3

Autoregressive models have become more popular recently. Speaking to people, I get the sense most folks are unaware of the history of the topic in signal processing. In particular, AR across scale got a lot of attention in the 90s. There are a lot of great papers on the subject but one stand out…..

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 31

I think the "zero" connotation came before "digit" though. So perhaps arabic inherit that more directly from sanskrit

Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 31

monsieur le zero

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 30

A cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption - the foundation of all of cryptography research and practice.

Not widely appreciated is that the word cipher has its direct origin in the arabic word صفر (sifr) meaning zero.

Andصفر itself roots to sanskrit शून्य (śūnya)

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 28

give this kid a PhD

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 27

A man walks into a library and asks whether they have a book on Pavlov’s dog and Schrodinger’s cat. The librarian thinks for a moment and says “it rings a bell, but I’m not sure if it’s in or not”

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 26

I posted this thread four months ago. To my knowledge not a single one of these 10 basic features has been implemented on this website. It can’t be that hard.

Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Nov 22

Here’s why this website is not ready - I’ll start a list:

1. Notifications take for ever to load
2. The mobile - in particular tablet - apps are clunky
3. Since number of views of a post are not shown, it’s impossible to gauge level of engagement with a post
4. Can’t save drafts, let alone threads

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 24

Model Distillation

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 21

Bonus: this form is flexible enough to adapt both the length and to different audiences.

n/n

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 21

And finally, use the last 5-10 minutes to summarize and talk about what you think are important new directions to pursue in research and how these could have impact for the team and the products of the company, or the department and their areas of interest and growth.

3/n

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Peyman Milanfar @docmilanfar.bsky.social · Mar 21

Second, you can spend the next 20-25 minutes doing a deep dive on just one of them - say, the one you're most proud of, or the one that matches the hiring team/departments interests and needs best.

2/n

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