HN user
http://falsifiable.com
not adhering to the prompt guide is def a valid strong criticism. resampling i think less so for the demo just because fewer people look at k samples per model, so just taking literally the first one has the fewest of my own biases injected into it
hrm. yea you're right. the page on fal used to produce it was linked with the image, but maybe i made a mistake and sloppily saved wrong one. ill have to reroll to check
Shameless plug:
This (very) thin wrapper lets you write your PlantUML code in Jupyter cells.
To play with some ideas, nothing is more accessible than NetLogo: https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/
I'll be posting some things to HN soon. My writing style is very accessible, to anyone. I always shoot for an "explain it to your grandmother"-level of writing.
Also, my entire dissertation is Python/Cython/Jupyter with a prebuilt docker container, so, it's also low-friction to play with. But, complicated by dissertation rules for sharing pre-publication (i.e. "is this definitely your work, because it's on github and you accepted PRs?").
This is my field, too. I am a Ph.D. candidate in computational social science, working on a computational model of social belief systems.
I'm quite happy to see this on HN. Like many other disciplines, our field is blossoming with the rise of cheap, high performance computing!
If your involved in this field and on HN, please reach out to me at @generativist on twitter. I'm in the process of setting up a community for CSS work, and will be soliciting feedback soon!
This is a great point that I wish I wrote about.
I think this is actually the source of the "steep learning curve" problem. Once you've used it enough, it is an almost orthogonal part of your brain that does thats the VIM command-ing. It becomes more like, "to walk, put one foot in front of the other." You don't actually process that thought when walking.
But, until that point, it absolutely IS the same part of your brain. Until that point, there IS a PAINFUL contention between work brain and editor brain.
Buried in my footnote is the real gist is: learn your editor, deeply.
IntelliJ is a great tool, too.
Full quote, for context:
Being conservative, let’s say it makes you 5% more productive.
I admit, 5% is a subjective prior / fudge-factor. But, statistical white-lies communicate a promise which extends the invitation: try it, see if you're more productive.
I'd love to see some objective stats though!
Yes.
The had-I-learned-it-first concept is something I didn't mention, but do think is important. And, often it works in an inhibiting way. With an IDEA-like rich IDEs -- which I think is a great tool, esp with VIM bindings! -- you get such a boost from things like good contextual auto-complete, that you never feel the need to learn it more deeply.
Thanks!
I put VIM in the title because 1) it's got a recognizable identity to pull in readers and, 2) I use VIM. But, in a weird and almost recursive way, editor wars are kinda like language wars. If it gets you that 5% (or more) boost, great! But, the differences between them often washes out.
I posted this once regarding a related incident, but it's appropriate here too.
One day in college, a friend and I decided to pack a plastic bottle with dry ice and hot water. In our hung over state, we thought this would be fun to watch. I was in my apartment. It took all of five seconds to realize that I couldn't rip apart the bottle. So, if the force of this explosion was sufficient to do so, it was probably really fucking dangerous. I figured it was too late to take the cap off -- the bottle was already making weird sounds. So, I threw it in the bathroom tub, and shut the door. Two minutes went by, and I felt momentarily foolish. Almost as I thought "nothing is going to happen," it exploded. The force knocked my friend to the ground. Granted she was tiny, and it was partly from fear, but I felt the shock wave rattle my bones.
I lived in the more expensive apartment building on campus. No one even came to say, "what's going on." If they did, they would have seen the bent metal of the tub's faucet.
And, that was accidentally but very literally a bomb.
Ignoring the (fantastic) content, I think this is how Julia slowly wins users. I keep find myself doing parallel implementations like this.
Also, consider reading The Sciences of The Artificial. This is in it, with so much more.
It's very cool that you know exactly what is going to happen. Or, at least, you could simulate exactly what should happen. And, if there was some repository of contracts, you could simulate the effects of the system. Such higher-order possibilities are so opaque most of the time.
But, I'm not sure ambiguity is a bad thing. Or, at least, there is a dose-specific effect. A lot of ambiguity is bad, but so is none. The flexible Goldilocks Zone is the least fragile -- to society that is, not to law.
Thank you for this morning's diversion.
I just moved up from DC to NJ. It definitely modified by behavior. Down there, I didn't want to pay the five cent tax. (IIRC, I think the five cents went to Chesapeake Bay cleanup or something like that. It wasn't more money for the store.) Now that I am in NJ -- where there is no tax -- I still instinctually say, "no bag, thanks."
I think the article was OCR'd. There were a few other mistakes that were clearly misinterpreted characters. I think the 1 in the thousands place is actually a comma on the source.
I like this app. However, most of my work Latex based. If you had something like this for Sublime Text, I would buy it.
I gave this book out as a Christmas gift to a lot of people. I read it six months ago and it has dramatically improved my life.
This just got more interesting.
I certainly found what they did distasteful. Their non-apology makes me lose tremendous respect for a company whose product I sincerely like and frequently use. As other people mentioned, they come off as whiny children -- "but Sally did it first!"
At the same time, I recognize that they might have just pulled off something really smart. If they had came out and said, "hey, Google, you should do something about our competition, they cheat" as a blog post, it might have got some attention but most people would write it off as "yea, who doesn't use SEO." Instead, they generated a publicity storm; provoked Google; then, pointed out that, to be consistent, everybody should be punished according to the severity of the offenses. RapGenius being the least severe offender comes out on top, and they still have the best product.
I am more inclined to believe they just fucked up than they actually thought about things from this game-theoretic perspective. Misquoting Hanlon's razor, "never attribute to genius that which can be adequately be explained by luck." Moreover, I don't know how much the loss of my respect and that of people like me will cost them, but as a startup it could be expensive.
Regardless, this has been fascinating to watch.
I'm glad they stopped. I'm also glad they deleted this comment, although I would have been happier if they simply never made it. When I read it, I felt like I was watching a toddler who, after being caught cheating, complained "so did Sally!"
Just announce your _mea culpa_, and stop doing it. And, if you need to adopt strategies that do boost your ranks -- _which, given that RapGenius is a great service_, I don't think is long-term necessary -- avoid the patently obvious ones.
Although Amtrak (esp on the East Coast) could not be construed as high speed, I suspect they are having a problem with buses too. Previously, I used Amtrak without fail to get from NJ to DC and back. Now, I take BoltBus or MegaBus unless they are fully booked. The bus takes 1-2 hours longer but usually costs about 1/5 to 1/6 the cost of Amtrak. Plus, they both have fantastic customer service whereas Amtrak seems to not care at all about their customers. (Admittedly, I've had some bad experiences on Amtrak, but I don't think they are particularly unusual.)
I've been getting MRIs every four months for 9 years now. (I had a very rare type of cancer.) My admittedly anecdotal experience is that most places seem to be getting worse at administering them. I suspect they are being prescribed for diagnosis much more, and the techs are somewhat harried by the stricter schedules. GE's Adventure Series is certainly a good idea, but I think it's easy to forget how important it is for the techs to administer them well, and how an overworked problem may exist for them.
As for the noise (that other people were flippantly dismissing), it really can be jarring. Cover your ears with your hands, with your fingers pointed towards the back of your head at about at 45 degree upward angle. Then, repeatedly bang your head with your middle fingers while your ears are still covered. That's roughly the a quieter version of one of the more unsettling sounds.
I'm quite used to it -- to the point that I always ask the tech to tape my head in case I fall asleep and move -- but still. That sound is not just the rhythm backing a techno song; it's the sound of parts swirling around you with massive energy.
It maybe safe, but so are roller coasters. Yet, while you go on a roller coaster looking for a thrill, you enter an MRI machine with the very real fear that something could be very wrong with you. That's not going to make for a pleasant experience. And, it's not surprising that that underlying fear might be projected elsewhere.
Around freshman year of college -- yes, college -- my roomate got an order of Omaha steaks. They were packed in dry ice. I took the dry ice; packed it in a two liter bottle; put in hot water; and, put the cap on. I stood there for about 10 seconds before I realized that a) there was no reason to think the force would be directed out the top like my weird cartoon original conception implied and b) it would take a lot of force to rip apart the two liter bottle.
Immediately, I threw the bottle into our bathroom tub and me and the friend that was there with me stood about 10 feet outside the door. After two or three minutes, I started feeling silly. Nothing was going to happen. About 10 seconds later, it blew up. The metal part faucet in the bathtub was bent, and the shockwave had enough force to knock me and my friend down (although, it could have just been fear) and I couldn't hear for about two hours.
This was around 2003. Not one person came by my dorm to investigate. I think if it was now, I would have been arrested. Admittedly, I was stupid, but not maliciously so.
This was a great experience. It felt like a modern take on Principia Discordia. Thanks, _why.
I haven't downloaded this yet, but I certainly will. If it is accurate and reasonably precise (yea, what does that mean?), I'd like to have it running in the background, gathering data as I work, while also gathering statistics about my work. I, like most of the people here, am a productivity junky. I wonder if a heightened pulse could indicate mounting stress, which necessitates a break. Sure, I have other machinery that could indicate mounting stress -- like my mind -- but the quantitative, off-loaded metric shifts responsibility in a way that could be helpful. "I'm not really stressed," says me to my brain. "No, your heart rate is quite high," says my computer to me.
I'm not sure I'd end by signing "the people who designed the hardware, software and network infrastructure you're reading this on," but I do know the feeling.
It's especially poignant in relationships. I feel compelled to provide a justification for why I want to be alone, because people assume that "because I need time alone" needs further translation. Sometimes it does, but for me it is how my mind settles. For a long time, I tried to change that part of myself -- I was told it is a maladaptation. Now, I think it's just how I am, and I don't feel a justification is required.
I like quiet.
Yes. Which seems like a better investment: dedication to a platform that certainly will attract speculators and is underserved in general or dedication to a trading algorithm in an arena overpopulated by very smart people competing in a zero sum game -- against you? Both provide the potential for scalable, massive returns, yet in the quant realm, selling pickaxes is a much safer bet and is equally -- if not more -- lucrative. (In the contextually correct parlance, the sharpe ratio is much higher for selling Quantopian.)