ethan_g

7 ms·

31.
by ethan_g 10y ago
Commas are an exception to that. If you paste in "10,100", it will be interpreted as a number, and you lose the comma.
32.
by ethan_g 10y ago
This is true for small spreadsheets, and one reason why I love Excel for quick analyses. Debugging is nearly instant because you see the results as you go along. But it doesn't scale very well. --If you want to re-use a formula, you
33.
by ethan_g 10y ago
Java, for example. Yes, it's true Excel is used for a lot of big important things, but I'd agree with GP it's not very good at them. Moreover, I think most people who use Excel for big important things, would agree it's
34.
by ethan_g 10y ago
There's some truth to this, but "can be optimized" is not the same as "there exists a compiler that optimizes". Your statement gets repeated a lot (and similarly about the JVM: it has run-time information that compi
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by ethan_g 10y ago
Yes it is, note in particular that the randoms are normal, not uniform.
36.
by ethan_g 10y ago
Well, "need" is a strong word. The features are definitely helpful though. With large programs, there can be a really long distance between where something is created/modified and where it's used. If there's a bug
37.
by ethan_g 10y ago
To be clear, "we" is first person, plural. I take it your comment and gp to mean "I" by "first person" and not "we". Anyway, it's standard in scientific writing to use "we" instead of
38.
by ethan_g 10y ago
Apologies to rain on the parade, but this sort of argument is very well known and commonly used in number theory. Since these techniques don't lead to proofs, they may not get as much attention in standard math education, but they are
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by ethan_g 10y ago
Benford's law applies when the underlying distribution is approximately exponential. Because candidates with an exponentially small chance to win are not likely to run, it wouldn't make much sense for elections to have an exponen
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by ethan_g 10y ago
Building muscle can burn crazy calories though. It's quite common for normal men (I'm not talking about pro athletes, just ordinary guys) on strength training programs to add 500-1000 calories/day to their diet, and not gain