mdeck_

Sounds like a classic case of F.A.F.O.

> So in general I say that people emphasize too much how much they know and not how fast they're learning.

> That's good news for all of you people because you're in Stanford and that means you learn really, really fast. This is a great advantage for you. Now let me give you some examples. The first example is: you shouldn't be afraid to try new things even if you're completely clueless about the area you're going into. No need to be afraid about that. As long as you learn fast you'll catch up and you'll be fine.

Hmm… I think this kind of self-confidence was how the U.S. got 60,000 Americans killed in the Vietnam War.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest

The argument in this piece is a classic example of slippery slope-ism. The question of fair use, or of balancing between copyright maximalism and copyright minimalism, is a so-called line-drawing problem (given a spectrum of cases, deciding where the line of “ok” vs “not ok” should be). The article says that ANY decision in favor of the photographer/against Warhol would basically ruin fair use doctrine.

This proposition has barely a hint of truth in it. Especially considering how clever lawyers, SCOTUS justices included, can be in distinguishing one case from the next.

I’d hardly be worried.

I’m not sure how it could possibly be useful to anyone to hear that they shouldn’t be in the place where a nuclear explosion occurs.

> Between late 1978 and early 1981, drivers in the U.S. saw the price at the pump nearly double from 63 cents to $1.31 a gallon.

Not sure how that change would amount to NEARLY doubling...

Next perhaps they can get Wolf Blitzer to stop shouting literally every sentence that comes out of his mouth as if it is all “BREAKING NEWS.”

> I think if you have the luxury of assuming every token is a dictionary word, you can do much better by simply encoding each word as its index in the dictionary.

Then you have to store the dictionary.

The ultimate significance of the patents contained within the portfolio (how they will empower business plans, why they may be quite valuable) will not necessarily be apparent from simply looking at the technology described. And a potential buyer would always want to keep these hidden things (essentially its own business plans) secret.

Comparing ALL software developers to builders or veterinarians isn’t fair. Veterinarians are continually holding animals’ lives in their hands. Builders almost invariably build things that can fall on their head and kill them—so a license is needed. If you just want to build a doll house, though, no one is going to require a license.

Software developers sometimes work on critical infrastructure—and licensing there does make sense. But requiring a license for me to build a silly web app seems like a classic example of what people complain about when they complain about unnecessary government regulation.

Sounds like a modified/more complex version of the well-known RICE framework.

https://www.intercom.com/blog/rice-simple-prioritization-for...

Admittedly it seems less common, but... there certainly are some Smeds in Sweden (and the rest of Scandinavia). The names are not ALL sons/sens and geographic features... https://forebears.io/surnames/smed

> It sounds like you would need to be exceptionally careful that your meta-process didn't "find" some signal in pure noise (via re-using test sets and so on).

It sounds like you’re actually talking about ordinary levels of carefulness in this (ML) context.

This seems to be precisely what the article says.

> The attempt to use computers to assist in racial classification tasks has helped sharpen the issues because computers can't deal with fuzzy concepts. If you try to define an ethnic code that is logically complete, consistent, and determinable for every person using current technology, you find that you can't.

> There seems to be a silent conspiracy to deny the existence of mixed racial groups in the United States. Most such people have acquiesced to this conspiracy and don't even think of themselves in those terms. Instead, they go along with the idea that they are members of one of the races recognized by the government. In fact, they often identify with a traditional race that represents only a small fraction of their genetic heritage!

The plural of “memento mori” is “memento mori.”

Possibly attributable to the definition of “(going) dutch” as “splitting the bill”?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dutch

Planning to do sentiment analysis in the future on your own writing that you’re also planning to do in the future seems like using a cannon to kill a mosquito—way overA-powered and unlikely to yield nuanced results anyhow. Why not just add to your journal entries a few quantitative (incl. multiple choice) measures of how you felt each day? Then there’s need to deduce anything about how you probably felt—it’s right there in black and white, and with much more nuance.

The rest of your self-tracking sounds like a fun project.

What does the legal system (common law vs continental) have to do with the parent comment?

No honor among thieves? Color me shocked.

Um, a (1985) might be useful here.

The title here needs a (2017)

Needs a (2015) in the title.

Here I was expecting a deep analysis and explanation of why the engineering and businesses at play behind Captchas leads to such depressing images... instead I simply found a litany of the ways in which the images are depressing. Not quite as interesting.

I’m reminded of Artistotle’s 4 kinds of causes—or, here, you might say 4 kinds of “whys”

Some better footage:

https://twitter.com/dexcash/status/1419080071621619715?s=21 https://twitter.com/arnejrgen/status/1419248599624568832?s=2...

Blue LEDs and black lights show this effect very clearly. This is e.g. described much more succinctly in the top comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3c1qsg/why_do_b...

> 2 reasons: 1) You don't have the nearly as many short wavelength detecting blue cones as you do red and green in your fovea. 2) The angle of refraction is dependent on wavelength and short wavelengths get refracted more than relatively longer ones by your eye and therefore focus in front of your retina if you are myopic (nearsighted). The black lights are throwing off a ton of very short wavelength light and when coupled with the larger pupil you have in the dark it sets your eye up for a bunch of chromatic aberration. They should look clearer if you are hyperope or overcorrected in your myopic prescription, or if you view them at a closer distance.

Ok, but hardly shocking, given the zillions of dollars and person-hours spent on cancer research and related public health initiatives...

Perhaps the most interesting tidbits here are regarding the increases in mortality from particular cancers, which seem in most cases to be related to increasing numbers of diagnoses of the relevant cancer types.

Sure, the technology/design of these sails may be novel, but it feels a bit silly to be in awe of a new way to use sails to propel boats currently driven entirely by internal combustion engines. What will we think of next—a new way to use rivers to drive mills?

> The guy is a good writer and storyteller but he seemingly prioritizes good writing and story over telling the most honest story. That isn't an unusual trait among pop-non-fiction writers.

It’s not fair at all to cast Malcolm Gladwell as typical of pop nonfiction writers—there are tons of great and serious writers in the genre. It’s truly a shame that Malcolm Gladwell, an utter hack, has been consistently publishing garbage for decades and that he has such a wide audience.

That was the impetus for my sharing this story :)