rm999

46 ms·

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by rm999 12y ago
As someone who constantly struggles with the decision to save VS donate, I don't think the two are interchangeable. They seem interchangeable because most of the time they'll lead to the same endpoint, but I view savings as an ins
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by rm999 12y ago
The most impactful, important packages I use were all developed after 2005: ggplot2, plyr, glmnet, gbm, reshape, knitr. Out of curiosity, which ones are you referring to? edit: I may be using the word library imprecisely here, which may be
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by rm999 12y ago
The biggest boon for R was the rise of "data science". Data scientists have actually existed for decades, but they had different titles (quants, actuaries, quantitative researchers, etc) and came from fields that preferred enterpr
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by rm999 12y ago
Not true. Berkshire invests in dividend paying companies, and Buffet likes that these companies pay dividends. From Buffet's 2012 letter to investors: > Most companies pay consistent dividends, generally trying to increase them annu
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by rm999 12y ago
I used to work in the ad industry and deeply analyzed this stuff. There's a lot of unspoken secrets in the industry: 1. The majority of clicks go to flashy, annoying ads. 2. People who click on these ads rarely convert, i.e. sign up fo
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by rm999 12y ago
There's a subtle caveat here: true confidence is earned, not fabricated. If you try to bullshit your way through life you'll lose credibility and rarely be given the chance to get far. I think your advice is most valuable to peopl
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by rm999 12y ago
>IN YEARS to come we will look back at hotels that charged for Wi-Fi with a kind of incredulous nostalgia. But how far in the future will that be? I think more importantly, most people will stop caring if hotels provide wifi. I already r
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by rm999 12y ago
I don't think the Hubble Space Telescope has anything to do with that term. We use "observable" because the Universe is far larger than what we can ever physically see or interact with (there's a growing body of evidence
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by rm999 12y ago
Yep! Here are a few, I customize the questions a bit based on seniority and background. 1. In a 1-d gaussian with mean=0 and variance=1, what is p(x=0)? 2. If I give you a csv file with a header, how would you return a tsv file with columns
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by rm999 12y ago
I have a series of basic questions I include in any data science interview, and one is "please describe what the central limit theorem says in simple, high-level terms". It's absolutely amazing how many people who have great
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by rm999 12y ago
Sort of, but if you want the best quality TV it's hard to avoid "smart" TVs. From wirecutter: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-tv/ >Is there a best TV with no apps (or 3D)? >Not really. N
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by rm999 12y ago
Good article. The author is completely correct that people often underestimate the fragility of predictive models, and that summary analysis (I group this into a more general concept called "insights") are simpler and more robust.
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by rm999 12y ago
>Two studies in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association backed up this finding. Though they were funded by cereal companies, dietitians say they underscore the message - breakfast is important to weight loss. I'd be very ca
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by rm999 12y ago
Sure, the salaries may come down as more competent people enter the field (something that has been happening a lot more slowly than expected IMO), but calling data science a "fad" or saying it isn't a solid career trajectory
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by rm999 12y ago
More than 80% of the data scientists I've worked with who were born before 1978 have physics phds and went through that trajectory. Data scientists younger than that have a wider variety of degrees, often computer science and/or a
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by rm999 12y ago
Here's a patent they applied for a few years ago, with plenty of detail: https://www.google.com/patents/US20120093994?pg=PA1&dq=Hsieh... It goes into detail about how they use they tweak the raw ingredients,
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by rm999 12y ago
But only for indoor spraying: > WHO recommends DDT only for indoor residual spraying. Countries can use DDT for as long as necessary, in the quantity needed, provided that the guidelines and recommendations of WHO and the Stockholm Conve
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by rm999 12y ago
You make some good points, but you're missing some keys facts about why it was banned and why most people today don't really care that it's banned. This is a good read on the topic: http://www.worldwatch.org/n
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by rm999 12y ago
I'm referring fairly specifically of the context of the parent comment. These are the parts that I was replying to: >can you pay off a 6 figure debt to pursue a comparative literature degree? >If you pick a program that has high
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by rm999 12y ago
> As with any future-looking thing, it's all probabilities in the end. Actually, this was the exact opposite of my point and my own personal experience. On average, a medical degree would have paid out more than the option I went wi
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by rm999 12y ago
Education doesn't guarantee a higher salary - instead it opens up opportunities and raises each person's potential ceiling. This makes using averages and ROIs very difficult. I could have gone to med school (historically a very hi
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by rm999 12y ago
I know exactly where you are coming from: a few years ago I decided I was going to move to either SF or NYC from socal. I interviewed at a bunch of places and spent time socializing in both cities, e.g. going to parties, meeting friends of
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by rm999 12y ago
> pass by value only means code tends to end up as monolithic functions I've actually found R works very well as a functional language with very lean functions. It's perhaps worth noting that R doesn't copy a dataframe in
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by rm999 12y ago
They just tweeted this: >We did get hacked. Currently sanitising entire BrowserStack, so service will be down for a while. We're on top of it & will keep you posted https://twitter.com/browserstack/status&#x
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by rm999 12y ago
The sample size doesn't indicate how representative a sample is, the polling method does. In this case, it's almost certainly not representative - internet polls rarely are. But even a sample of 5000 wouldn't be representativ
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by rm999 12y ago
I agree and I disagree. I agree that it is disappointing New York waited so long to change its zoning laws to allow/encourage development - a huge, growing city like NYC needs more housing to remain affordable (ahem, San Francisco). Th
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by rm999 12y ago
There's a key point missing from this article: who gets respect where. Companies like Google are run by engineers while companies like Goldman are run by business people. This sounds obvious, but it has deep implications for how you ar
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by rm999 12y ago
I really dislike this - an article with unverified sources and no original content in the BBC, what I consider a very reliable, ethical news source. To me this is yet another example of the cheapening of modern journalism - quora has been &
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by rm999 12y ago
Effective "broad spectrum" sunscreens have been available in the USA for years. Perhaps there's a wider or better variety of UVA-blocking sunscreens outside the USA, but what you can get here is still effective and approved&#
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by rm999 12y ago
Completely agreed, and it's hitting a dangerous point where not enough companies are putting in the necessary investment. I studied quite a bit of both VLSI/chip design and economics in college, but I never fully understood what w

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