Fede_V

17 ms·

121.
by Fede_V 10y ago
No. Physicists just take a lot more math classes (including statistics and data analysis) during their undergrad/graduate studies than biologists or psychologists do.
122.
by Fede_V 10y ago
Yeah research gate has some of the most awful dark patterns/invitation spam of any social networking site. Co-authors constantly inviting you to join, convincing you people that are not on the site are on the site, etc...
123.
Digging for Glory: the discovery of Australopithecus sediba(newyorker.com)
6 points by Fede_V 10y ago|0 comments
124.
by Fede_V 10y ago
Finite difference approximations to the derivative are not practical at all when doing deep learning. Derivative using backpropagations can be calculated at the same speed as the forward pass - while derivative approximated using finite di
125.
by Fede_V 10y ago
Oh, much simpler than that - simply that you can pose the problem you are trying to solve in a way that the derivative can be calculated. If you can, you can bring about the whole deep learning machinery to bear on it.
126.
by Fede_V 10y ago
I think most people are very bad at predicting the future, and I know that I'm very bad at it, so I won't try to make detailed predictions about the long term effect of AI since I would get it all spectacularly wrong. However, i
127.
by Fede_V 10y ago
While LeCunn and Ng are real world experts on AI and Deep Learning, the other two people in the article have very little technical understanding of deep learning research. The huge triumph of DL has been figuring out that as long as you can
128.
by Fede_V 10y ago
Excellent. I look forward to playing around with the datasets as soon as they are released to the public. Have you considered partnering with some differential privacy people and releasing the datasets to kaggle?
129.
by Fede_V 10y ago
This is a real problem, and it sucks. By offering money with strings attached (about bureaucracy, overhead, etc) you have an opportunity to shape how things are done though.
130.
by Fede_V 10y ago
It's such a huge topic - the modern starting point are papers by Galbraith and Tobin. Since then, there's been so much research/discussion it's hard to point to one thing in particular. If you want good starting points
131.
by Fede_V 10y ago
I think it's great YC is funding some interesting research. I'm a bit curious as to why they didn't partner with some established academics in this area (there's plenty of economists who have done excellent research here
132.
by Fede_V 10y ago
I would really like for this to be the case, but I kind of doubt it. Let's wait and see.
133.
by Fede_V 10y ago
Gladwell is a wonderfully gifted writer who has a fantastic talent for weaving engaging narratives. Unfortunately, when it comes to science, this is NOT a good thing. Scientific discoveries don't follow narratives: narratives are thin
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by Fede_V 10y ago
Julia aside, Keno, kudos for being an absolute class act and replying to everything so politely. For what it's worth, my impression of Julia has been overwhelmingly positive, and all the developers I've interacted with have been p
135.
by Fede_V 10y ago
While FB has released some excellent open source software in the past, I don't really find blog posts about closed source software to be that interesting. The optimist in me says that the reason this hasn't been open sourced is be
136.
by Fede_V 10y ago
Have you read Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre? One of the more interesting findings discussed in the book is that doctors were convinced they were personally not affected by drug company PR/goodies (3 day conferences in Bahamas, etc) but t
137.
by Fede_V 10y ago
The best part of the article: "Dr. Curtis Wright, who led the agency’s medical review of the drug, declined to comment for this article. Shortly after OxyContin’s approval, he left the FDA and, within two years, was working for Purdue
138.
by Fede_V 10y ago
The original business model of coursera/udacity was to offer the option to take most courses for free, but require people to pay for credentials. This is not obviously a bad idea: the quality of teaching at Harvard or Stanford is proba
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by Fede_V 10y ago
When people talk about big data, they usually discuss datasets with lots of observations (aka, rows). Not datasets with lots of features but few rows - those are far more common in fields like genetics or omic sciences in general.
140.
by Fede_V 10y ago
I prefer to get excellent service by being polite and courteous. I hate the idea that people are only entitled to a living wage when they work a service job if they are especially subservient.
141.
by Fede_V 10y ago
That's probably the most unfortunate thing about the entire situation. Well that, and the people working for Theranos who will face the backlash.
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by Fede_V 10y ago
The part about rate of improvement following an S-shape is interesting and I'd like to see it empirically researched, but the fact that the last exemplar of a given technology is always the most advanced is quasi tautological. Why wou
143.
by Fede_V 10y ago
I think this is largely a case of 'moloch' as described by Scott Alexander: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ In that long (but excellent essay) Scott points out that
144.
by Fede_V 10y ago
That's a fair point - I was also surprised that the essay appeared in firstthings. However, the essay is really good, and the author is spot on about a lot of his critiques.
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by Fede_V 10y ago
A better way to think of it I think is that RNA is both software and hardware.
146.
by Fede_V 10y ago
A lot of those molecules are bound up in cells, they are not freely diffusing in blood. Even those diffusing in blood are not uniformly distributed, blood is highly dishomogeneous.
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by Fede_V 10y ago
Are you trying to model metabolites as perfectly diffusing molecules with D^2 proportional to an idealized Stokes radius?
148.
by Fede_V 10y ago
Actually, yeah. The variance in the amount of quantities present in the blood draws by Theranos is too high to get useful measurements (without very many replicates, defeating its purpose) according to published research: http:/&#x2F
149.
by Fede_V 10y ago
C-API compatibility, I'm guessing. I agree it was of a strange choice though.
150.
by Fede_V 10y ago
Man, the shoe fell really, really quickly. Also - huge congratulations to the reporting team of the WSJ, that did an incredible job of unconvering this story back when Theranos was still considered a golden goose. John Carreyrou in partic

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