That looks perfect, thanks. But it also looks like a job offer. If they want a servant they can pay my full commercial rate. And they don’t need to, because they can find a much brighter and more idealistic PhD student who’ll do it for them for peanuts.
So much so that I’m not going to even fill out the form. I don’t have the qualifications they’re looking for, and that kind of application process is always a sign that it’s not worth bothering. Just wasting the time of everyone involved.
But if someone recommends me to them (who? why?), and they get in touch and offer to pay me some reasonable retainer (£2000/month?) just to plough through whatever infrabayesianism is under my own power and try to come up with a sensible explanation and some illuminating examples, like I was reading it for fun, then I would totally be up for that. I may fail, of course. And either side can end the deal at any time without notice. So what would they have to lose?
Topology and functional analysis were favourites of mine as an undergraduate (30 years ago!!), I’ve never done measure theory or convex analysis. Background in reinforcement learning theory? Well I read the first half of Sutton and got it, and did all the exercises, and I’ve been meaning to get round to the second half.
But I think that I can still claim to be able to understand complicated maths, especially if I get to talk to the people who came up with it, and sometimes I can teach it to other people or at least help them to understand it.
That looks perfect, thanks. But it also looks like a job offer. If they want a servant they can pay my full commercial rate. And they don’t need to, because they can find a much brighter and more idealistic PhD student who’ll do it for them for peanuts.
So much so that I’m not going to even fill out the form. I don’t have the qualifications they’re looking for, and that kind of application process is always a sign that it’s not worth bothering. Just wasting the time of everyone involved.
But if someone recommends me to them (who? why?), and they get in touch and offer to pay me some reasonable retainer (£2000/month?) just to plough through whatever infrabayesianism is under my own power and try to come up with a sensible explanation and some illuminating examples, like I was reading it for fun, then I would totally be up for that. I may fail, of course. And either side can end the deal at any time without notice. So what would they have to lose?
Topology and functional analysis were favourites of mine as an undergraduate (30 years ago!!), I’ve never done measure theory or convex analysis. Background in reinforcement learning theory? Well I read the first half of Sutton and got it, and did all the exercises, and I’ve been meaning to get round to the second half.
But I think that I can still claim to be able to understand complicated maths, especially if I get to talk to the people who came up with it, and sometimes I can teach it to other people or at least help them to understand it.