astrophysician

6 ms·

1.
by astrophysician 5y ago
I work for a data science consulting company and previously in advertising, so I can say that there are (1) a number of very real problems that cannot realistically be solved _without_ "AI" (though what does that term even mean th
2.
by astrophysician 5y ago
In my experience I’ve never found an instance where you would use Brier scores over cross entropy/Bernoulli/Binomial log likelihoods. Does anybody know a concrete example when you would prefer Brier??
3.
by astrophysician 6y ago
Yea, some people are disappointed; some of the more interesting and exciting moments in physics are when we find out we're wrong, but not always. E.g. I will never forget the time and place I heard about the preliminary detection of pr
4.
by astrophysician 6y ago
From a physicists standpoint, not seeing something unexpected is not a waste at all.
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by astrophysician 6y ago
I agree -- as ML becomes increasingly easy to be applied by non-experts or people without a heavy math/stats background, I've seen an increasing volume of arguments against the data science profession (someone the other day called
6.
by astrophysician 6y ago
> The link says: "We’re still learning how well COVID-19 vaccines keep people from spreading the disease", so don't make authoritative statements about post-vaccination spread unless you have a real source. You know what,
7.
by astrophysician 6y ago
I agree: in retrospect, in todays context, those statements are not good public health policy. And saying "they are not effective in preventing general public from catching coronavirus" may indeed be a false statement, even at the
8.
by astrophysician 6y ago
> You say this as if it's a fact, but as of 2 days ago, we still don't know the answer to that question. Unless you have a source I'm unaware of? https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines
9.
by astrophysician 6y ago
I mean I see the point, I think their comments made a lot more sense in the context of where things were back then, and they didn't consider how they would be viewed after the initial panic phase was over. > the result is eroded tr
10.
by astrophysician 6y ago
You should wear masks in public when you are vaccinated because while you're protected from severe symptoms, you can still carry the virus and transmit it to others. > The ultra risk aversion is what many people are souring on, espe
11.
by astrophysician 6y ago
Yea but....he's right? What is the controversy here? There was a huge concern about supply shortages and people hoarding PPE. Masks are the best thing the public can do at this point but they aren't perfect protection and the me
12.
by astrophysician 6y ago
Simply not true, starlink will have a real impact on research (see e.g. https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increa... for the impact on LSST) and will make some science impossible to do. Ironically, a
13.
by astrophysician 6y ago
I agree and have been doing some similar analysis on the backblaze dataset. I suppose you can use this for prediction but I'm personally just interested in post-hoc analysis and (1) getting better AFR estimates when failure counts are
14.
by astrophysician 6y ago
Unfortunately not my experience -- went to nearest ER for sudden and agonizing abdominal pain, got some basic pain meds, got a CAT scan to diagnose pneumonia, was sent home within a couple of hours (lots of waiting). Turned out the hospital
15.
by astrophysician 6y ago
I'm guessing just venting personal frustrations due to their own experiences, plus maybe poor hiring and guidance of data scientists in their own teams? I have definitely seen DS people in my experience that fit some of the description
16.
by astrophysician 6y ago
Just want to say that while the data science profession definitely includes a wide range of people and skillsets, a good data scientist should be practical and able to work with the available data in whatever state it's in. No good d
17.
by astrophysician 6y ago
> I think you're missing the central point, which is that computation is observer relative. Anything can be interpreted as a computational process. I see what you're saying, and maybe I am misunderstanding your point, but to me
18.
by astrophysician 6y ago
> I don't think you can say that life is built on computational processes unless you use a definition of "computation" that is so vague and all-encompassing that it becomes effectively meaningless. I mean, there's not
19.
by astrophysician 6y ago
> The burden of proof is on those claiming minds and computers are the same thing. I never understand this argument. IMHO the rest of your argument seems to obfuscate something rather simple... your brain is a physical object. The atoms
20.
by astrophysician 6y ago
because tolerating flu deaths doesn't completely overwhelm healthcare systems?
21.
by astrophysician 6y ago
In my opinion there aren't many deep learning applications that are fundamentally snake-oil, it's more that people who don't quite understand the limitations and advantages of particular methods that end up being (witting or
22.
by astrophysician 6y ago
Just to clarify: prophet implements a particular model with Stan as a backend, not Stan models generally.
23.
by astrophysician 6y ago
As the recipient of a $25,000 bill for an emergency visit to an out-of-network hospital that I have been fighting for two years (still ongoing), this is such an overdue blessing. FYI -- many individual states ban "balance billing"
24.
by astrophysician 6y ago
Unfortunately right now its `localhost` but once I finish a couple of posts (tomorrow? a year from now?) I'll put it online. Thanks for asking though :)
25.
by astrophysician 6y ago
As another former astrophysicist-turned-datascientist (though with only 2 years after the transition instead of Marcel's 7), this hits close to home, but my experience in both worlds I think is a bit different. If you are an astrophysi
26.
by astrophysician 6y ago
For the uninitiated: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/law-of-bandwidth/
27.
by astrophysician 6y ago
hmm..I see your point but I'm not sure I agree, saying 2/3 of people that otherwise would have died are no longer is tailored to the problem. E.g. if mortality rate from all covid infections went from 0.1% -> 0.001%, thats incr
28.
by astrophysician 6y ago
> The most common misconception by far, was that fat is converted to energy. The problem with this theory is that it violates the law of conservation of matter, which all chemical reactions obey. I mean what they're getting at must
29.
by astrophysician 6y ago
As a data scientist, this is terrifying. A questionnaire is asking things like "have you only held low-wage jobs" to determine if someone should be locked up? The model isn't completely open to the public? (how that is justif
30.
by astrophysician 6y ago
> This isn't even about stopping the trial early - this is about approving it conditionally before the trial is done and then waiting for the trial to end to really approve it I see -- yea totally agree, I thought they were committi

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