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wcbeard10

823 karma · joined March 5, 2013

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wcbeard10··on What programming languages are used most on weekends?
The funnel shape of the scatter plot immediately reminded me of an article on the insensitivity to sample size pitfall [0], which points out that you'll expect entities with smaller sample sizes to show up more often in the extremes because of the higher variance.

Looks like the tags with the biggest differences exemplify this pretty well.

[0]- http://dataremixed.com/2015/01/avoiding-data-pitfalls-part-2...

wcbeard10··on Deep learning nanodegree foundation
There seems to be a pretty wide spectrum of abstraction for DL tools, from writing by hand to Theano to Keras, for example. Will this course focus on any tool in particular?
wcbeard10··on The Sound of Silence
I often find myself frustrated when an important decision is made with little explanation in politics or business by someone who I assume is intelligent. It may strike me as a bad decision, but I try to be charitable and assume they have a good reason. I've thought that they often don't offer good explanations because they feel too busy to take the time to communicate, they're just not good at communicating or they don't recognize its importance.

This post suggests they could also have a better perception of the possible risks that even effective communication could entail than I do.

wcbeard10··on Georgia Tech Offers Online Master of Science in Analytics Degree for Under $10K
My wife and I have done some of the same coursework (for different degrees), me on campus and hers online. I actually would have preferred online. Rigor seemed equivalent, but I find the ability to pause and rewind lectures invaluable.
wcbeard10··on Google AMP Cache, AMP Lite, and the Need for Speed
On ios safari, holding down the refresh button in the url bar gives you the option to request the desktop site.

As kludgy as that is, I've found it a worthwhile workaround until this is fixed.

wcbeard10··on 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV
It's a tricky issue, and gas tax probably won't be enough going forward.

The EV fee is a bit disproportionate because of the limited range and fewer average miles driven, but there's no easy fix.

wcbeard10··on 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV
> Georgia, which also has a $5,000 state subsidy

Sadly, this is no longer the case. They've actually gone in the opposite direction, imposing an additional $200 annual fee on EV owners

http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2015/06/24/georgias-electric-ve...

wcbeard10··on Hakaru – Probabilistic Programming
I occasionally use probabilistic programming systems, and find this project fascinating, but I've been wondering for a while what the vision is.

Is it meant mainly as a research project/proof of concept (seems I've seen elsewhere that it's funded by the DARPA PPAML project), or is it intended to become a commonly used piece of software with a community like pymc3 and stan?

wcbeard10··on Is the FDA Too Conservative or Too Aggressive? Analysis of Clinical Trial Design
A good summary and commentary here

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/08...

wcbeard10··on Ask HN: How to not base self worth on your own work?
This seems intuitive. Scott Adams expresses a similar idea as focussing on 'systems' rather than 'goals.' Failing to meet a goal leaves you with nothing if the goal is all you focus on, but what you learn from the system is more reusable.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964992706/goals-vs-systems

wcbeard10··on Apache Zeppelin – Interactive analytics on Spark
I have no idea about Zeppelin's lineage, but looks like there's also Spark Notebook https://github.com/andypetrella/spark-notebook which more closely resembles the IPython notebook. I'd love to hear an explanation of the differences between all of these notebooks.

Can't wait to see if the Jupyter split will contribute to a consolidation or proliferation in the notebook-verse...

wcbeard10··on Apple's Research Kit
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9172248

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9375565

wcbeard10··on A simple explanation of how money moves around the banking system (2013)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6793063
wcbeard10··on Ask HN: Anyone using a “no hands” setup for programming?
After hearing this talk, I used this repo as an inspiration to get started on my own setup: https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/aenea

Works well for me, but with some friction from reliance on a Windows VM.

wcbeard10··on How To Think About Chess
Reminds me of the Bill Cosby outtake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRzL8I0xC3c

wcbeard10··on Mac OS X Isn’t Safe Anymore: The Crapware / Malware Epidemic Has Begun
Thanks for the tip. I just downloaded it with brew cask and feel like I've found the mobius strip of package management.
wcbeard10··on In 2013, measles killed more kids than car accidents or AIDS
The 'guilt and control' phenomenon also looks like it shows up in deciding whether to leave your children at home during a quick trip out. While a road accident may be much more likely than an accident alone at home, good luck explaining that to either the parents or the law. The desire to feel in control frequently seems to be very hard to reason against.
wcbeard10··on Replace CoffeeScript with ES6
Have you found a good framework that purescript supports in the vein of Angular or React? I had a look a while back but the support was a bit spotty for me.
wcbeard10··on Why the CDC and FDA Are Telling You Two Different Things About Flu Drugs
My perception is that the FDA's on the hook if they promote a drug that turns out not so safe/effective, and CDC's on the hook proportional to how much damage the flu wreaks. In which case I'd expect the FDA to be extremely conservative about promoting it, and the CDC to push anything with even a marginal effect, no matter other costs.
wcbeard10··on Show HN: Kronos Notebook – IPython as a Mac App
> It comes with its own Python interpreter and package database

Assuming it's similar for the IHaskell version, is it tricky integrating with cabal sandboxes (or for that matter, on the python side, virtualenv)?

wcbeard10··on I think I've solved the Haskell records problem
That was my intuition as well, but doesn't seem to explain why we can still use the syntax with modules (i.e., Set.map), unless the capitalized module name makes all the difference.
wcbeard10··on Travel firms sue creator of cheap airfare site
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8813138
wcbeard10··on The FBI Used the Web’s Favorite Hacking Tool to Unmask Tor Users
I can't think of a measure for "popular with criminals" that wouldn't also include the FBI's purported tool of choice.
wcbeard10··on Google is developing cancer and heart attack detector
Do all or most of the existing cancer detection tests involve radioactive measurements? I would hope there would be a less dangerous 'next step' to confirm before moving on to CT scans.
wcbeard10··on Hard Drive Reliability Update – Sep 2014
Here's a blog post giving a tutorial on survival analysis using a relatively recent (and IMO very compelling) python library. Could be what you're looking for.

http://camdp.com/blogs/lifelines-survival-analysis-python

wcbeard10··on All VC Funds Have Engaged in Some Arguably Questionable Behavior at Some Time
The `?share=1` parameter seems to let you view without hassling you to log in.

http://www.quora.com/What-startup-investors-have-really-bad-...

wcbeard10··on Atom: Hello Windows
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8008432
wcbeard10··on [dead]
Is there an obvious reason for drawing vectors from the Dirichlet distribution?
wcbeard10··on Comcast is turning your [Houston] Xfinity router into a public Wi-Fi hotspot
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7873030
wcbeard10··on All O'Reilly Ebooks 50% off today
If you're interested in python, my wife says good things about "Python for Data Analysis." Supposedly quite readable and practical.

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023784.do

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