pash

55 ms·

361.
by pash 15y ago
> Your argument is too powerful. It proves engineering as a whole is impossible. No. It's an argument that we have no good way of estimating the damage caused by rare, spectacular failures in complex systems. But thanks for the down-v
362.
by pash 15y ago
As a counterpoint to all the comments like this: > It's baffling to me that so many people seem unwilling to accept the idea that maybe, perhaps, we've learned a few lessons about building safe nuclear reactors over the last 50 years.
363.
by pash 15y ago
Scikits.statsmodels [1] is the main statistical and econometric library for Python. It is usually used with pandas [2], which provides nice interfaces to your data, particularly for time-series. You can also call R functions with the rpy2 b
364.
by pash 15y ago
More interesting than the decision—in which Scalia so narrows the scope of the case (to whether attaching a device to a car constitutes a search) that it's pretty boring—are last November's oral arguments.[1a, 1b] In the oral arguments, the
365.
by pash 15y ago
The author's motivation is to make an anti-censorship statement, not to provide an easy means of sharing files: > [Piracy] has always existed and I believe it will always exist. ... Content providers and copyright holders should just a
366.
by pash 15y ago
Like many self-taught programmers without any formal education in computer science, I've always been a bit mystified by analysis of algorithms. Anything beyond counting the iterations of loops seems to turn into a morass of notation and obs
367.
by pash 15y ago
Since the linked article is almost wholly a quote and rehash of Julian Sanchez's article for Ars Technica [1], why not just read that? 1. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/internet-reg...
368.
by pash 15y ago
Yes, and of course economists do test their models empirically. But many economic models are inherently or practically untestable because the quantities they employ are inherently or practically unmeasurable. And even when you can measure
369.
by pash 15y ago
> That's why this study was done by physicists who tend to not have that particular issue with not completely understanding the system and interactions ... That's the important takeaway: a simple model is unexpectedly able to do that.
370.
by pash 15y ago
> ... but economists lack rigor, and would rather live in their "supply meets demand, actors are rational, and the market is in equilibrium" fantasy-land. No, that's not why economics is in the state it's in. The reason economics is f
371.
by pash 15y ago
Though a fun paper, Technology Review's write-up of it is worthless. At most, all you should take from reading this paper is that "cartels" potentially can emerge without coordination, not that they do or that they are likely to. Or that th
372.
by pash 15y ago
Meanwhile, the X > 0 dollars in salary your partner drew are still worth X > 0. That's the point.
373.
by pash 15y ago
The black-out page did its job in my case. Here's what I sent to my representatives: As one of your constituents, I want to make you aware of my strong opposition to SOPA, PIPA, and any bill that threatens to restrict or encumber the free
374.
by pash 15y ago
In the United States, there are no import duties on computers or on computer components.[1] But there are no duties on assembled computers or on computer components entering the United Kingdom either, so far as I can tell. Assembled compute
375.
by pash 15y ago
The only definitive way to find out the status of any patent is through litigation: "The [US] PTO grants most patent applications, then lets people fight over their validity later on. ... Almost half of patents litigated to judgement are in
376.
by pash 15y ago
You don't develop either. All you do is tell whoever wants to sell the phone that they must include a backdoor. That means the backdoor almost certainly gets implemented in vendor-specific code (whether their firmware, their add-ons, or the
377.
by pash 15y ago
The reason this is interesting is not so much that some companies have apparently provided backdoors so that governments can spy on their users. We already knew (or could reasonably surmise) that that was happening. No, the fun part is that
378.
Hacked memo leaked: Apple, Nokia, RIM supply backdoors for government?(blogs.computerworld.com)
286 points by pash 15y ago|53 comments
379.
by pash 15y ago
Yes, use sys.setrecursionlimit(n) to change the max recursion depth. Max supported stack depth of course varies by platform. In many cases, a better solution is to implement tail recursion, which can be done quite easily. See http://paulbu
380.
by pash 15y ago
The "jury of your peers" language, whose origin is the Magna Carta [1], is included in the constitutions of a number of states, so the concept directly pertains in many American jurisdictions. There is also a considerable body of federal ca
381.
by pash 15y ago
Here's a link that takes you to the full article: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=Amazon%2527s%...
382.
by pash 15y ago
Wrong. In the United States, firms cannot refuse to deal with you because of your race, gender, age, national origin, etc., but they can refuse your business for any other reason, whether you're in a protected class or not. In other words
383.
by pash 15y ago
Our admirably good-hearted Iranian despot was anticipated in his observation by Vilfredo Pareto, who in 1906 noticed that about 20% of Italians held 80% of Italy's wealth. Similar proportions have since been noticed in many societies around
384.
by pash 15y ago
The large majority of - ize /- ise verbs come from Greek words ending in - ιζειν [- izein ] (sometimes via Latin, in which they end in -izare). English adopted many of these words via the French, which lacks "Z" as a native letter, and so
385.
by pash 15y ago
Of course, both spellings are common in American English.
386.
by pash 15y ago
Those of you down-voting this comment should read up on conditional probabilities and Bayes's theorem. (Hint: there are only seven billion people alive, and very few of them have their chromosomes counted.)
387.
by pash 15y ago
> As the 44 chromosome man shows, this sort of change starts out pretty rare. Right now having this particular set of chromosomes is probably a 1 in 7 billion sort of thing. Guffaw.
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by pash 15y ago
You mean like China?
389.
by pash 15y ago
In my defense, that's a written-at-five-in-the-morning tone, not a condescending tone. I'm not sure what I was trying to write with the "I imagine the author himself fails (1)" bit, as I am sure Bauer is far beyond me on the subject, as I
390.
by pash 15y ago
One wonders whether most mathematicians and physicists reject the author's point of view because to accept it requires either (1) a deep understanding of set theory and its limitations or (2) an attitude towards truth that's rather more cav

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