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Cambridge professor about Lee Hsien Loong:

"No, he was truly outstanding: he was head and shoulders above the rest of the students. He was not only the first, but the gap. I think that he did computer science (after mathematics) mostly because his father didn’t want him to stay in pure mathematics. Loong was not only hardworking, conscientious and professional, but he was also very inventive. All the signs indicated that he would have been a world-class research mathematician."

"I’m sure his father never realized how exceptional Loong was. He thought Loong was very good. No, Loong was much better than that. When I tried to tell Lee Kuan Yew, “Look, your son is phenomenally good: you should encourage him to do mathematics,” then he implied that that was impossible, since as a top-flight professional mathematician Loong would leave Singapore for Princeton, Harvard or Cambridge, and that would send the wrong signal to the people in Singapore. And I have to agree that this was a very good point indeed."

http://therealsingapore.com/content/cambridge-professor-lee-...

It may be true that this particular sample is too small; I haven't looked at the experiment in detail. However, just pointing out that n<=20 per group isn't enough of an argument to justify this statement. Significance is about more than just the sample size. The idea that it's impossible to get significant statistical result with small samples is a common misconception.

Ask HN: Uniforms 11 years ago

I do. (The number of layers varies with the temperature.)

May I ask the opposite question?

Why do many people change outfits almost every day? Do they derive satisfaction from the process of choosing clothes? Or do they derive satisfaction from the fact that other people notice these changes?

As you point out, choosing and owning different outfits comes at a cost, and people who choose to do so must have a reason for this behaviour.

elgooG 11 years ago

Really? com.ycombinator.news seems much more logical and intuitive to me, just like 2015-04-01.

Or how about com/ycombinator/news?

The US (Great Plains Shelterbelt project), China (Great Green Wall, or Three-North Shelter Forest Program), and Russia (Siberia) are precisely the inspirations for this project.

Writing out long variable names while working on a mathematical model is like writing the same text with ten times the number of characters. It's neither elegant nor efficient.

Imagine you're playing around with variables and model configurations in complex mathematical terms, but one formula stretches over two pages and you always need to cross out and rewrite whole words.

Alexa's China sample appears to be unrepresentative, so the numbers are flawed.

Another indication: chinadaily.com.cn (English) is #23, just after one of the most popular Chinese web portals (sogou.com).

The Pico CMS website features an attractive description / value proposition: "Pico is a flat file CMS, this means there is no administration backend and database to deal with. You simply create .md files in the "content" folder and that becomes a page." Perhaps you can add a similar sentence to the Baun website as well?

The part about "Wilbarger Protocol" sounds like torture.

"When he was unable to regulate the information coming into his brain, I would perform a process called the Wilbarger Protocol. It was intimate. I would move a soft brush on Scooter’s arms, legs, neck, and back. Then he would put his hand in mine and I would grab his fingers one at a time, compressing the joints in toward his palm. Firm but gentle, confident but caring. I would watch his face, look for some tension to drop from it and then linger there, count to 10 in my head, and then move on to the next one."

It's definitely controversial if seen from an American perspective.

But it's much less controversial if seen from a German perspective. So perhaps you need to understand Thiel's German background first. Germany offers many successful alternatives to university.

Now combine it with Thiel's libertarian views: Apparently, Thiel tries to set up alternatives to college privately.

===

EDIT (for clarification):

I'm not saying that Germans would like this particular experiment. But they usually agree that university is just one out of multiple desirable options to gain a qualification.

In other words, I'm saying that thinking about alternatives to university is very German. This leads me to the idea that the motivation for this experiment may have its roots in Thiel's past.

Saying this as a German.

Found it: "They Live" by John Carpenter.

The idea is a bit different though. "Nada discovers the sunglasses are special. After putting on a pair, he sees the world in black and white and discovers it is not what it seems. Media and advertising hide constant subliminal totalitarian commands to obey and conform." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live)

Here you can see how the "sunglasses" work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8AMRbqY6w

[Added additional information]

Does anybody remember the name of the cult movie where all advertisement is blocked from the real world? It's pretty much the same idea. I remember seeing that movie many years ago.

Full German email:

"Liebe Flixbus Kunden,

unser Paymentmodul der Onlineplattformen wurde durch einen schwerwiegenden IT-Fehler unsererseits manipuliert und zur Transaktion von Unbekannten benutzt.

Scheinbar sind dabei auch eure Daten entwendet und versendet worden. Es handelt sich aber dabei um unrelevante IDs. Wir informieren euch jetzt, da das Ausmass doch grösser ist, als wir dachten und um hier Transparenz zu schaffen.

Es handelt sich hierbei nicht wie bisher verkündet um ein Problem des Paymentanbieters sondern um ein Problem in der Programmierung.

Wir haben das Problem aber jetzt behoben. Seit heute steht auch das neue Stornoformular zur Verfügung.

Wir werden allen Kunden die in irgendeiner Form von diesem bedauerlichen Fall betroffen sind in Form von Wertgutscheinen in Höhe von 100€ entgegenkommen. Diese gehen euch zu oder meldet euch dazu auf Facebook kurz. Wir entschuldigen uns nochmals für den bedauerlichen Vorfall und sagen euch eure Daten sind bei unserem amerikanischen Spezialanbieter Cloudflare nun sicher.

Mit freundlichem Gruss

Flixbus Geschäftsführung

Andre, Jochen, Daniel

Auch diesen FlixFall stehen wir durch."

For these kinds of services, the introduction of a payment can change supply and demand in very unexpected ways.

Example: There once was an experiment with blood donations, where a payment for the blood donation actually decreased the number of people who were willing to donate. Apparently, receiving a payment for an activity that seems charitable makes some people feel bad.

A similar effect might happen if Blind My Eyes introduced payments. (While this particular effect would reduce supply, this does not necessarily imply that the introduction of a payment would lead to a negative change in supply. It's just one factor.)

Learning to use facial expressions can be quite useful. It's similar to learning negotiation techniques and sales strategies. In this context, spending 15 minutes a day working on the ability to one's facial expression skills (Samsung app: even improve the daily performance in a "performance dashboard") is not necessarily a bad idea.

However, it should be remembered that this is primarily about imitation. It is not about "self-expression". People do not move their position on the autistic spectrum by using this app. They just improve their ability to use facial expressions in the way that is expected by the surrounding society.

Any stock trader that uses linear graphs will lose his shirt.

Can you show me a stock trading platform that uses log values by default?

Yes, log graphs are very useful when you're looking at developments of stock values and many other financial variables - predominantly over longer terms when the changes are high enough that the difference matters.