dbecker

48 ms·

451.
by dbecker 14y ago
In many ways, I love AWS. But the web page is possibly the least user-friendly page I visit with any frequency. Even after I am signed into AWS, there are "Sign Up Now" buttons everywhere. So, it's confusing whether or not I am signed in.
452.
by dbecker 14y ago
A lot of people get tired of their dissertation research, and I've heard others contemplate contrived reasons not to finish their PhD. This happens to be especially far-fetched... but it takes a "big" reason to justify to yourself that you
453.
by dbecker 14y ago
Even though I hear complaints about R's syntax, I don't know exactly what people dislike about it. In fact, I kind of like R's syntax. As an example, I like the ability to use expressions on the left side of an assignment (e.g. names(df) =
454.
by dbecker 14y ago
I've very briefly experimented with rpy2. It got the job done, but I thought it was tricky enough that I'd want a good reason to combine R and python. Otherwise, I'd try and do the whole project in one or the other (And I haven't used rpy
455.
by dbecker 14y ago
I've done a lot of work using both R and Python, and a little bit using Matlab (and SAS and Stata). Matlab is behind R and Python for both data cleaning and analysis. This is especially true if you have string variables and factor variable
456.
by dbecker 14y ago
Different people mean different things by the BA/DS distinction. But I've seen a team of 15 people with SAS experience try to get into machine learning applications, and they are making less progress than I would expect from a single good
457.
by dbecker 14y ago
People frequently talk about college as if you can only go when you are 18. If a budding entrepreneur skips college at 18, he can still go back later. Skipping college at 18 still may not be the right thing to do... but these conversations
458.
by dbecker 14y ago
I think ipython is widely appreciated in the scientific/numeric python community.
459.
by dbecker 14y ago
A 62% literacy rate doesn't mean it was unreasonable to have a literacy rate less than 100%.
460.
Microsoft takes on manufacturers' junkware. Sort of.(online.wsj.com)
2 points by dbecker 14y ago|0 comments
461.
by dbecker 14y ago
I've only flipped through this so far, which obviously isn't enough to fully grasp the argument. But you can find the researcher's reasoning explained in his slides at : http://sciencehouse.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/aaas122.pdf
462.
by dbecker 14y ago
I was unable to find original source material by the researcher (only finding the abstract for his presentation at http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2012/webprogram/Paper6155.html ) If anyone can find the author's slides or related article, I'd
463.
by dbecker 14y ago
Maybe it's fair to criticize the headline. But it's silly to criticize people's reading comprehension on the basis that they read the article rather than just the headline.
464.
by dbecker 14y ago
Life was hard 200 years ago. Taking the time to learn to read would have been a major hardship for some people, and many (most of whom could not afford books) may not have used the skill much. I think it was reasonable for some people not
465.
by dbecker 14y ago
The title was meant as an attention grabber, but the text does not suggest that NO ONE should learn to code. The text only disputes that EVERYONE should learn to code.
466.
by dbecker 14y ago
Even if you generally trust Linus more than Jeff, on this particular issue people are criticizing Jeff for being too harsh on beginners. Linus is consistently a harsher critic than Jeff.
467.
by dbecker 14y ago
Is this going to integrate with the broader python ecosystem? I'm specifically wondering about packages like pyTables, pandas and larry.
468.
by dbecker 14y ago
On behalf of people who might be operating the $150,000 bandsaw, I appreciate the responses that addressed the bigger picture safety issue.
469.
by dbecker 14y ago
You can pay $300/hour to a statistics consultant, and you would be lucky if the consultant gave you the quality of responses I frequently see for free on stats.stackexchange.com.
470.
by dbecker 14y ago
The problem is that the quality of participants/knowledge on the discussion sites simply isn't as good as SE. No knock on SE. Quite the opposite. But I frequently have questions that aren't SE style questions, and I wish I knew where to ta
471.
by dbecker 14y ago
I talked to a lot of people about almost this exact idea in late 2011. Though I didn't build it because I got involved in something else, everyone I talked to was very enthusiastic about the idea (e.g. ready to hand over a credit card). I
472.
by dbecker 14y ago
My apologies. I mistakenly lumped C extensions in as an inherent part of python. I was wrong.
473.
by dbecker 14y ago
This is incredibly interesting, and the people working on it are incredibly smart. But I think it's a slight oversell to call this a python 2.7 interpreter. For instance, most scientific computing code that runs in cpython 2.7 won't run on
474.
by dbecker 14y ago
The benefit is only lost if you want to store the sorted mylist. However, sorted() is useful if you want to create a list, sort it, use it, and throw it away... all in a single line. The blog gives an example where a file is read, sorted an
475.
by dbecker 14y ago
If I was sufficiently focused on productivity to follow this advice, I wouldn't spend so much time reading HackerNews.
476.
by dbecker 14y ago
They make it sound like a new development, but this has been the Chronicle of Higher Education's bread-and-butter topic for a long time. I somehow got on their mailing list during grad school, and I've received regular updates about the sup
477.
by dbecker 14y ago
Sure. The ipad may never be the right tool to write a novel or business report. That doesn't mean we shouldn't improve text editing so it's slightly less painful for email (and other applications that involve small amounts of text editing.)
478.
Why I'm not on the Julia bandwagon (yet)(wesmckinney.com)
7 points by dbecker 14y ago|0 comments
479.
by dbecker 14y ago
Until recently, I would have agreed that other fields are different. But I interviewed knowledge workers from a variety of fields (e.g. a variety of engineering fields, management consulting) about hiring for a project I was considering. I
480.
by dbecker 14y ago
As more employers look at your github repo, give coding tests, etc, the credits will be less important than the learning. Though certificates look good on a resume, that makes them tomorrow's solution to yesterday's problem.

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