Matt Barnes

Check out our latest release in Gemini!

@Calsef Moving to DeepMind. Organizational change 🙃

@BarnesMJ ???

Last week wearing the Google Research t-shirt

@WSDOT_East any update on SR 20 north cascades plowing? looking forward to biking it before it opens to cars!

@wsdot_north any update on SR 20 north cascades plowing? looking forward to biking it before it opens to cars!

Presenting world-scale inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) in Google Maps. Learn how RHIP, a new IRL algorithm, along with advances in graph compression & parallelization led to relative improvement in the quality of suggested routes in Google Maps. → goo.gle/3EBAc75

@markus_with_k 👋

@googlemaps Overall: 16-24% improvement in route accuracy Personally, very excited by the potential this has for cycling and walking. These are often some of the most difficult routing problems, since its about so much more than just ETA

Our multi-year project using Inverse RL to improve route quality in @googlemaps is finally out! Scaling was HARD. It took advancements on parallelization, graph compression, dominant eigenvector inspired initializers, and a new generalized IRL algorithm to make it possible.

@Calsef Scoop: sometimes I vote yes and other times I vote no!

Every time I read Pedersen’s emails, I get flashbacks to peer editing high-school classmates’ essays. How does he write 200 words and say less than nothing??

@williamwilcock @CascadeBicycle @WAbikes How so? Cycling is inversely correlated with income (see Census stats below). And sales taxes are, in general, regressive.

@CascadeBicycle @WAbikes Yet another tax break that will primarily benefit the privileged. BAD POLICY!

⚡ Our friends at @WAbikes are working on a bill that would reduce the cost of electric bikes, with the goal of boosting e-bike sales and enabling more people to pedal rather than drive. Check out the story and find out how to get more involved! ⚡ bit.ly/2Nxnijx

@Calsef @eliglazier @ashleyrgold Willie Brown Birds all day

@eliglazier @ashleyrgold Cc @BarnesMJ

Seeing people not dressed properly for the weather is going to really stress me out today. HATS AND GLOVES PEOPLE

@kkitani Yeah, GSA hosts an annual ice skating event for grad students. Watching them skate for the first time is magical (and inevitably comical).

It makes me so happy to see new grad students who have never seen snow, enjoying their first snow experience in Pittsburgh. They’re mostly from India and California.

@zacharylipton Hyperloop IS the shiny distraction.

@BarnesMJ You think Hyperloop is non-shiny and not enjoying sufficient hype?

The greatest strengths of CS academia may be that it 1) gives you skills coveted in both industry & every adjacent academic discipline; & 2) may be (comparatively) the least doctrinaire field about what methods & problems are in scope. Perhaps the safest place to do creative work

@zacharylipton I think this trend partly stems from the techno-optimistic “CS can do anything” attitude, which has benefits (like you mention) but also downsides (esp. distracting from less-shiny, non-CS solutions). e.g. Hyperloop

So CS continues to grow, dominate the economy, hire more faculty etc, but it’s also absorbing much of the creative work that could have been done in other departments if they had a more sincere commitment to academic freedom.

@Calsef @ashleyrgold @eliglazier Gnocchi 🥄

@BarnesMJ @ashleyrgold @eliglazier What did the Barneses have for dinner?

@ashleyrgold hello, axios tech reporter. Why is every website sending me emails about new terms of service today???

@Calsef @ashleyrgold @eliglazier Ashley, I have a scoop for you. It’s 231.

@ashleyrgold @eliglazier @BarnesMJ But what about section 230?

@bigdiehl90 Indiana w the deviled eggs

@AliBaumanTV @AP Or failing to protect anyone, really.

NEW YORK (@AP ) - A judge says most crosswalks in New York City violate laws protecting the disabled by failing to properly protect blind pedestrians.