sfpotter

29 ms·

211.
by sfpotter 2y ago
I've also worked on designing new matrix decompositions, and I've never found the need for anything but `imshow`...
212.
by sfpotter 2y ago
I work on solving 3D problems: numerical methods for PDEs in R^3, computational geometry, computational mechanics, graphics, etc. Being able to make nice 3D plots is super important for this. I agree it's not always necessary, and wh
213.
by sfpotter 2y ago
Very cool effort. That said, and it's probably because of the kind of work that I do, but I have almost never found the four challenges to be any kind of a problem for me. Although I do think there is some kind of contradiction there.
214.
by sfpotter 2y ago
A general pitfall in numerical methods is settling on a bad old method without understanding what all your options are. It's easy to get stuck on suboptimal methods, especially if you don't look at more recent references and the l
215.
by sfpotter 2y ago
Another good approach can be to start by prototyping something in MATLAB, numpy/scipy, or Julia, and then consult their docs when whatever you're doing is falling short in some way. All of these computing environments have extensi
216.
by sfpotter 2y ago
There isn't a single authoritative reference. It really depends on what you're doing. Numerical analysis and scientific computing are huge fields. If you have a specific area you're interested in, I can probably point you in
217.
by sfpotter 2y ago
I would give Numerical Recipes a pass.
218.
by sfpotter 2y ago
And you, the unwary victim of cellular ennui, are quite literally bored to death.
219.
by sfpotter 2y ago
The irony being that the show is made by Apple... How many people are de facto severed by their 9-to-5 soulless tech job, come home and binge watch a TV show made by another soulless tech corp about being severed by a 9-to-5 soulless tech j
220.
by sfpotter 2y ago
I'm open to it but I don't know enough about the options, other than the Boehm GC. If people know of good GC-in-C++ options, I'd love to hear about them. In my area (numerical methods and computational geometry), I do not n
221.
by sfpotter 2y ago
I don't think I would recommend using Cython outside of writing Python bindings. In my experience, the community is too small and the documentation is too lacking. Even writing bindings, I spent an inordinate amount of time debugging i
222.
by sfpotter 2y ago
I started using it recently for a prototype of something I'll eventually rewrite in C++ at work. I really like it. Discarding the preprocessor and replacing it with a proper module system is huge. I got burnt by templates and horrifyin
223.
by sfpotter 2y ago
The way ozempic is currently marketed is as a weight loss drug. People can be overweight for many reasons. Impulse control might be one of them. Drunk driving is associated with low impulse control due to being drunk. Being drunk might be a
224.
by sfpotter 2y ago
??? They're going to be trying to get on a weight loss drug, not an "impulse control drug". And I don't see why you would assume there's little overlap between people who desperately want to lose weight and people w
225.
by sfpotter 2y ago
There's tons of very interesting and rewarding research to pursue. It's hard to see the forest for the trees because so much of the research pursued currently is neither interesting nor rewarding. You have to be brave, creative, a
226.
by sfpotter 2y ago
They are pretty advanced and pretty esoteric. They will be very difficult to get into without a solid graduate background in some of this stuff, or unless you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do some serious learning. The book &q
227.
by sfpotter 2y ago
In case the other responses to your question are a little difficult to parse, and to answer your question a little more directly: - Usually, you will only get analytic answers for simple questions about simple distributions. - For more comp
228.
by sfpotter 2y ago
Assuming the author isn't being disingenuous, what does this line actually bring to the table? If the article is thoughtful and nuanced, why not write with the maturity that a thoughtful and nuanced topic deserves? You can do it in a w
229.
by sfpotter 2y ago
But sometimes, when everyone is having fun, some very mean very bad people show up and say, “HEY! YOU CAN’T DO THAT! THAT’S HUMAN SUBJECTS RESEARCH! YOU NEED TO GET APPROVAL FROM AN INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD!” I can't stand this pre
230.
by sfpotter 2y ago
There's nothing wrong with l.
231.
by sfpotter 2y ago
Can't have stewardship without institutional knowledge and long-term employment.
232.
by sfpotter 2y ago
But this line of thinking is exactly what's wrong with Clean Code. Just seeing your function doing three independent things is not a signal that you should begin refactoring. I've worked on code bases with functions that were lo
233.
by sfpotter 2y ago
It's hard if you don't know how to do it... and lots of people don't know how to do it.
234.
by sfpotter 2y ago
Haven't read the article, don't need to read the article: this is so, SO, so painfully obvious! If someone needs this spelled out for them they shouldn't be making technical decisions of any kind. Sad that this needs to be sa
235.
by sfpotter 2y ago
NYT is a publicly traded company. Their first responsibility is to their shareholders, not "the truth".
236.
by sfpotter 2y ago
Basically where we are now, if not better off. The vast majority of people are satisfied with making a modest living, and none of these bets would have paid off if they weren't. The crux of the issue is how to create a stable arena i
237.
by sfpotter 2y ago
The main reason academic papers exist right now is simply because academics need to publish papers, in ever larger quantities. It's publish or perish, and it gets a little bit worse every year. The peer review system is a bit of a farc
238.
by sfpotter 2y ago
John McPhee's "The Curve of Binding Energy".
239.
by sfpotter 2y ago
For instance, maybe I want to define an array of these coefficients in C. I could do: print('double coef[] = {') for c in p.coef: print(f' {c:0.16g},') print('};') and copy-paste it
240.
by sfpotter 2y ago
Also pretty easy: import numpy as np p = np.polynomial.Chebyshev.interpolate(f, degree, domain=(xmin, xmax)) # insert your code to print out some C code Also strongly recommend some basic familiarity with the theory. Approximat

More ›