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571.
by ced 16y ago
There's a quote that goes "Your capacity to short a market is dwarfed by the market's ability to defy gravity". The housing bubble began in 2002. If you had shorted it as soon as it was 10% "too high", you would have had to wait 6 years bef
572.
by ced 16y ago
Don't worry. 100% of people who don't have children won't contribute to next generation's gene pool. Natural selection will "fix" the problem quickly enough.
573.
by ced 16y ago
This might be closer to the mark: Under the risk compensation theory, helmeted cyclists may be expected to ride less carefully; this is supported by evidence for other road safety interventions such as seat belts and anti-lock braking sys
574.
Illuminating the Future of Energy - David MacKay(nytimes.com)
1 points by ced 16y ago|0 comments
575.
by ced 16y ago
There's a bit of a conceptual problem with trying to measure entropy. That's because entropy is based on probabilities, and probabilities are subjective . What are "the" odds that my brother will pass his SAT exam? My brother can make th
576.
by ced 16y ago
I don't understand the logic of (5). If I'm the best player on a team, I wouldn't expect to be fired, so why should I care about the severance package?
577.
by ced 16y ago
The truth of the matter is that copyright law assumed a certain level of difficulty involved in the act of copying another work. I think you have it upside-down. Before the printing press, there were no copyrights. It was an honor for the
578.
by ced 16y ago
Your email is about to be sent to several hundred thousand people, who will have to spend at least 10 seconds reading it before they can decide if it is interesting. At least two man-weeks will be spent reading your email. Many of the re
579.
by ced 16y ago
Bill Gates never used his tremendous gifts for the greater good, only for the good of Microsoft. Wait, what? Are you arguing that his foundation is some kind of elaborate scam?
580.
by ced 16y ago
Three scenarios remain: [B,B], [B,G], [G,B], so the answer is 1/3. Maybe you were thinking that the order doesn't matter. In that case, what was the probability of getting a boy and a girl, in any order? 1/4 + 1/4 = 1/2. So that's still twi
581.
by ced 16y ago
These rules are useful heuristics, but a good graph has a purpose , and its parameters are chosen accordingly. So, while Tufte may favor a wide sunspot graph to emphasize the weak downward slope, my advisor (a solar scientist) would have s
582.
by ced 16y ago
With regards to GAs, it's good to keep in mind the comments from Russell and Norvig's AI book: "At present, it is not clear whether the appeal of genetic algorithms arises from their performance or from their aesthetically pleasing origins.
583.
by ced 16y ago
I love the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra but I wish it wasn't so obsessively focused on classical music. What's wrong with such a wish? It's not like I'm going to picket in front of YC's offices. Regardless, would you be willing to mov
584.
by ced 16y ago
I love HN, but sometimes I wish it wasn't so obsessively focused on tech and start-ups. We're missing out on so many great people! It's awesome that we have knowledgeable comments on web page design and computer security, but where are all
585.
by ced 16y ago
That's unlikely. How do Chinese people write a sentence on the computer? Old systems would have you write the letters, eg.: "shi", then display a long list of all the possible characters with that sound (for all 4 tones). Newer systems use
586.
by ced 16y ago
HN works best for discovery of interesting fields/material. That's why short pieces like the OP get up-voted: if someone hasn't looked at assembly before, they might learn a thing or two. The problem with what you submitted is that there'
587.
by ced 16y ago
Nasty. Is that common in the tech industry? I knew Microsoft was ruthless in business, but this is just shameful.
588.
by ced 16y ago
I wonder if we'll ever see the mafia holding such an archive, and asking for payment in exchange for a clean record.
589.
by ced 16y ago
Doesn't the Wayback Machine (archive.org) defeat such efforts?
590.
by ced 16y ago
It seems apt to me. What is it "loaded" with?
591.
by ced 16y ago
What prevents you from walking away without paying? (that's a genuine question, not a flippant remark)
592.
by ced 16y ago
Nice. What's the limit on what you can do with these RULES? Could you extend the language? Write a DSL? Implement a mini-prolog à la On Lisp?
593.
by ced 16y ago
Chaotic behavior is surprisingly simple to generate. The equation: x[n+1] = alpha * x[n] * (x[n] - 1) is chaotic for alpha > 3.56. In other words, if you run this Python code: def chaos(alpha): x = 0.5 # The "initial conditi
594.
by ced 16y ago
This discussion is even more interesting in the context of natural sciences, since no scientific law is ever proven. What were the odds, in 1850, that Newton's laws would be "disproved"? From Jaynes' The Logic of Science It depends entir
595.
by ced 16y ago
Counterexample: Neuroscience. But that's the only one I can find.
596.
by ced 16y ago
A lot of "applied statistics" is now performed under the headings of "machine learning" and "data mining". Both fields are thriving. Furthermore, Bayesian methods have come back to the fore in the past ~15 years. They are quite likely the f
597.
by ced 16y ago
I wonder, which compilers does Google use?
598.
by ced 16y ago
The question was intentionally vague. I'm looking for interesting threads of thought. Thanks for your post. libFirm is the only compiler which does not deconstruct SSA form I thought that continuation-passing-style compilers didn't use SS
599.
by ced 16y ago
Now while, LLVM may not do this, it's far from the only compiler on the block; especially in the non-open-source world. Non-open-source compilers don't get much press around here. Could you point out the most interesting ones?
600.
by ced 16y ago
Can you explain why? Neither their webpage nor Wikipedia goes much beyond "produces fast executables".

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