xixi77

28 ms·

211.
by xixi77 11y ago
Yeah -- although doesn't it actually pre-date Fortran 90? I wonder which direction the influence went :)
212.
by xixi77 11y ago
I'd say, if most of your job is analyzing the data yourself and trying to make sense of it, R wins hands down. Particularly if statistical graphics or advanced statistical methods may be needed, but it's still the case even if the
213.
by xixi77 11y ago
Hmm I am curious, how would you do data cleaning without doing data exploration first -- and in what way do you find Python superior to R for that purpose? Also I assume that by "something non-standard" you mean something other th
214.
by xixi77 11y ago
Definitely with you there. Even perl has more consistency. And thanks for the guide link! :)
215.
by xixi77 11y ago
Just curious, what in particular did you find obtuse? It's not like R does not have obtuse and baroque parts, it certainly does, and their obtus-ity is rather high, but IMO they are not parts of the language a casual user would likely
216.
by xixi77 11y ago
Absolutely; modern Fortran is great and is syntactically rather close to Matlab (and to an extent R as well). The main difficulty with Fortran is IMO the lack of an extensive standard library -- sure, you can find code out there to do almos
217.
by xixi77 11y ago
I blame the R documentation standards. They force a package author to produce a useless alphabetically-listed pdf, and many people just stop at that point. Without any standards at all, people would have at least produced a readme.txt, whic
218.
by xixi77 11y ago
Hmm what do you mean about the types being different? My experience was exactly the opposite -- first time I saw R syntax (actually, it was S-Plus back then...) , I thought it was the most intuitive and powerful system I've ever seen -
219.
by xixi77 11y ago
Really, syntax "nba.head(1)" is not any more "object-oriented" than "head(nba, 1)" -- it's just syntax, and the R statement is in fact an application of R's object system (there are several of them).
220.
by xixi77 11y ago
er, what is exactly a 9m^2 apartment?!
221.
by xixi77 11y ago
similar experience here. I agree that it's very nice, although we all probably have biases towards the way we grew up :)
222.
by xixi77 11y ago
all true -- scores are quantitative metrics though. And yes, rather imprecise and subjective, and a lot of information is lost at all stages. Is there a better way to compare things like a quality of life though? Hmm, perhaps something coul
223.
by xixi77 11y ago
Not sure -- one question is, why are all those people staying in Dhaka? I've never been there, but I would suspect that their income/standard of living, while quite horrible, might still be better compared to Bangladesh countrysid
224.
by xixi77 11y ago
Well, IMO there is a big difference between humans looking at algorithm-provided evidence (even if it's often rubber-stamping), and drones acting on that evidence directly.
225.
by xixi77 11y ago
I have, although indeed mostly in the summer :) I just don't really tolerate humidity particularly well.
226.
by xixi77 11y ago
That's a completely different argument though -- the way I read the article, this is about internal density of cities specifically. In particular, iirc the resource consumption of a person living in a dense city is shown to be smaller
227.
by xixi77 11y ago
what's a "qualitative metric"?
228.
by xixi77 11y ago
"now that the third world has been ravaged so much" -- have you actually read the article?
229.
by xixi77 11y ago
Is that more of a function of poverty, rather than density though? HK has a lot of density, yet if not for the shitty climate, would IMO have been the most desirable place to live on earth (yeah I know this is subjective, but there is no sh
230.
by xixi77 11y ago
You are right, and of course in most cases we won't know of such cases, so there is no way to judge how many there might be. On the other hand, robots would also complicate things for the not-honorable superiors -- for one, they'l
231.
by xixi77 11y ago
well reducing them by half wouldn't be a bad thing either :) although of course it's more complicated than that, I just wanted to point out that the direction of the effect is rather unclear at this point.
232.
by xixi77 11y ago
Or, differently phrased, achieving political objectives that would have otherwise not been feasible. It is not obvious to me that a side relatively more tolerant to own casualties should enjoy the political advantage. Also, do we discount c
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by xixi77 11y ago
Of course it has increased, there are many more drones out there. The hypothesis is whether drones would do more collateral damage compared to humans tasked with the same job. Also, to my knowledge all current drones are not closed systems,
234.
by xixi77 11y ago
"By example, there is a long and well documented history of human rights violations against civilian population from human armies, and those violations come as often as not from the high command's orders as for the volition of ind
235.
by xixi77 11y ago
IMO it's not obvious that autonomous robots would be worse at things like discriminating between civilian and military targets than humans -- particularly when said humans are in a life-or-death situation that requires quick decisions.
236.
by xixi77 11y ago
The "obvious thing" is an assumption of the person's preferences. It is entirely possible for a person's happiness/utility to depend on happiness/utility of other people, and it seems likely for such dependence
237.
by xixi77 11y ago
I personally believe it is a problem, having (mostly) been in that state and (sometimes) out of it, it is indeed quite a difference. When it happened for the first time (at age 33), it was like "oh my, so this is what all those peopl
238.
by xixi77 11y ago
Just noticing this -- and the 1st link is quite nice indeed, thanks, but how does it support your argument? Jump from family structures to "safe spaces" is a bit of a stretch imo -- but if we do it, I'd say it argues for us
239.
by xixi77 11y ago
She (and everyone here) talks about it being OK to criticize code but not OK to offend people personally, which seems like a rather reasonable concept -- but does anyone have actual examples of the latter, to put everything in context? I se
240.
by xixi77 11y ago
er, what does volume of traffic or harbor size have to do with efficiency? And a larger number of smaller ships in Rotterdam seems harder to process, so that would count in favor of LA. The ideal metric would be $ cost per container; we don

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