xaa

44 ms·

301.
by xaa 14y ago
I am in (biological) research, and this would be a godsend in the unlikely event it's true. There are a lot of *nix users in research, but paradoxically, MS Word is a virtual requirement for submitting grants and manuscripts, and MS Excel i
302.
by xaa 14y ago
ADHD is a real disease with real (and severe) symptoms. That said, I personally believe that responsible use of these stimulants by people without ADHD can be of net benefit to individuals and society. Prominent bioethicists have agreed [
303.
by xaa 14y ago
> Nobody expects new hardware for free, why software? Try Googling "Richard Stallman". Or simply reflect upon the fact that > 95% of the software used by the author of ST to create it was free to him.
304.
by xaa 14y ago
So that people feel less screwed about the fact that they are paying for the same product repeatedly.
305.
by xaa 14y ago
Wealth is relative. Instead of comparing today's middle class to today's rich (a comparison in which the middle class is unambiguously losing ground), the author would rather us compare the middle class of today to the middle class of yeste
306.
by xaa 14y ago
As a fellow bioinformatician I can agree that this looks quite useful. Although (since you mention R), I wonder why there's no love for R in Drake, given that R is perhaps the quintessential data processing language.
307.
by xaa 14y ago
Yes, there are lots of languages -- for example Go, Clojure, and even C++11 -- that are better languages in their own right and have also solved the concurrency problem well enough. Unfortunately, scientific programming is highly dependent
308.
by xaa 14y ago
Speaking as a scientist: the reason for me is that there are lots of breaking compatibility changes in exchange for very little benefit. The only improvements I would care about -- fixes to the bad GC and broken concurrency system -- weren'
309.
by xaa 14y ago
Python is significantly faster than Ruby, and the gap grows when you consider pypy. Also, simple historical reasons -- Python was first to the scene (if you exclude Perl), so it has more scientific libraries. Ruby seems to be preferred in d
310.
by xaa 14y ago
A true dictator could reserve life extension technology only for himself and his cronies. It would be the ultimate weapon for political control. I actually agree that the potential benefits outweigh the risks. But as with all transhumanist
311.
by xaa 14y ago
Yes. Although I am in favor of life extension, I worry about the consequences for politics if people like Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Il were to live for 500 years. Or for that matter, for tech if Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison lived that long.
312.
by xaa 14y ago
ESL is a good book, but it should be mentioned that it is a significantly more difficult read than the other suggestions. Not at all an introductory-level text on ML.
313.
by xaa 14y ago
Julia is a wonderful and elegantly designed language. Fast and a great type system. Intuitive. For several days, I was very excited about the prospect of moving my research to Julia. And then I discovered that it too has no reasonable share
314.
by xaa 14y ago
As someone who has dabbled in using Python for numerical computing in several small projects, I wonder: what would be the motivation for further investment in Python as a numerical platform, considering all Python's problems with concurrenc
315.
by xaa 14y ago
Nice. Sort of the computational equivalent of 'A model of Neuschwannstein Castle made out of spaghetti'.
316.
by xaa 14y ago
Ironically, though, FP is perhaps the worst programming paradigm for actually performing numerical computations.
317.
by xaa 14y ago
My feelings exactly. It's made worse by the fact that, out of all the academic departments out there, AI and NLP research has perhaps the greatest potential to transform society in so many ways. He leaves the field trying to create intellig
318.
by xaa 14y ago
Truth. Real scientists spend most of their time writing grants.
319.
by xaa 14y ago
rst2html and Makefiles. Sometimes Sphinx.
320.
by xaa 14y ago
This floored me: "The professionalisation of management has, some argue, been the single biggest factor behind the economic advancements of the past 100 years." Not electricity, rapid transportation, semiconductors/computers, telephones, th
321.
by xaa 14y ago
> How do you keep the weeds out of your garden? In real life, you pull the weeds or specifically target them with pesticide. A wall is too granular of a filter to keep weeds out. In software, the most successful filters -- such as e-mai
322.
by xaa 14y ago
It's interesting how relatively minor fabrications like these earned Lehrer complete ostracism, yet much huger distortions are told in the political arena daily and no one bats an eye. To pick a random example, "there is no evidence for cli
323.
by xaa 14y ago
I agree with all this, but consider that the type of math being tested on a standardized test is a subset of the skills you mention. You certainly can't perform complex word problems unless you can do the algebra or geometry calculations,
324.
by xaa 14y ago
TL;DR: The writer, a math teacher, is quitting (edit: his) job because of increased bureaucracy and standardized tests. Mostly, it seems, standardized tests. The problem is, math is the subject which is BEST served by standardized tests. Th
325.
by xaa 14y ago
Possibly the most relevant: "Source of Amazon is tell me best monitoring strategy is watch Netflix. If is up, they can able blame customer. If is down, they are fuck."
326.
by xaa 14y ago
We have independent verification that math works, because it is used every day in millions of companies to perform a variety of critical tasks. The targets of the Sokal Affair were on much shakier ground to begin with.
327.
by xaa 14y ago
> The great work of the SciPy community has enabled Python to be used for all of the things that Matlab, R, and Julia can do. As much as I hate R and love Python, this is not entirely true (unless you count rpy2 as part of "Python"). R
328.
by xaa 14y ago
Agree. And not just for my own posts. I see downvoted posts like parent's and think that it's no worse than several other comments on this page that aren't downvoted. Another example is the ubiquitous person who posts on some story complain
329.
by xaa 14y ago
How about the following: 1. Find a substance that is chemically tooth-like 2. Split it into predefined volumes (little cubes or spheres) 3. Add the beverage and saliva to the "tooth", wait a month, and measure the decrease in "tooth" volume
330.
by xaa 14y ago
Why are people running 32-bit OSes in 2012 again?

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