jhales

Yes, I would find this very interesting. Doesn't matter if the indicator is now defunct.

um... the first thing I looked at: http://www.bitcoinstore.com/hp-folio-13-b2a32ut-13-3-quot-le...

vs. the first google hit: http://www.amazon.com/HP-Folio-B2A32UT-13-3-Inch-Ultrabook/d...

It would be nice if there were some concrete examples advertised of newegg/amazon etc. being undercut.

Reminds me Einstein arguing God doesn't play dice.

(Not claiming Chomsky is wrong,just a similar figure making a similar claim.)

Surely you are not so innumerate to think that your vote has a discernible impact whether voting for a major party or a third party.

Can some one explain what the benefit of this over using something like imageMagick? Is there a hidden cost to imageMagick that I am missing?

no, it's a common misunderstanding of the lifespan metric. mberning is pointing out that the 'maximum' lifespan hasn't really changed. The change has primarily come from infant mortality so one possibility is once infant mortality is eliminated we would no longer see gains in life span.

I'm doing a math PhD and I feel ambivalent about this statement even for myself.

In Devlin's article, doing math is conflated with a formal education in it. He should know better as he has previously endorsed heavy criticism of the latter: http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_03_08.html

"...our present system of mathematics education is precisely this kind of nightmare. In fact, if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done— I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education." (pg. 2 of Lockhart's article)

me too. I got through at first, but now nothing but that.

I'm not quite sure I understand the value added over "!ls" etc on iPython. Is this module primarily for use on the vanilla interpreter?

Yea I felt the same way. I found this app to visualize how long it takes the law of large numbers to take affect with a die:

http://www.math.usu.edu/~schneit/CTIS/LawOfAverages/

I get what you are saying, one has to read between the lines a little, but if you read carefully I think that is what is implied:

"Albert Einstein called her the most “significant” and “creative” female mathematician of all time, and others of her contemporaries were inclined to drop the modification by sex."

If you drop the female from that sentence then it reads "most significant and creative mathematician of all time."

Another point that, which I think you pointed out as well, was that this is a misquote of Einstein. The original statement included the clause 'since the education of women...' which would make the dropping of gender much more reasonable.

No doubt she is a very signifigant figure, but (Although you do qualify your statement later) I have to disagree with:

"If anything, the article probably understates her importance ..."

In the second paragraph of the first page the author subtly suggests that she is the greatest mathematician as well as the greatest physcicist (at least a bunch of her contemporaries, who are smarter than you, the reader, thought so).

Also, in my personal experience, she is quite well known.

I would add to your list of her accomplishments: I've been told that she was one of the first to push for Homology to be treated as groups and not simply just betti numbers.

In real life, the financiers Lloyd Blankfein represents are not simply "defectors." I would argue that they contribute (or at least could). However, a less contraversial point, especially in light of the recent crash, is that they cause a whole lot of destruction, e.g. they function as "jokers" as well.

Good point, my mistake :)

I just saw Norvig give this talk. The quote cuts off before he offers his explanation: the 1.5 means 'trust this data set more.' For whatever reason (e.g. bigger sample size) the probabilities from that set tend to be more accurate.

It's not some sort of deep mystical counter example. It's a clever tweak that comes from the observation that empirical observations are not uniformly reliable.

Possible, but if this were true, one would expect denials from anonymous mouthpieces as well.

There is actually already a lot of free market arbtration. It is just in the civil sector. Business tend to like them for their speed. David Freedman's "Machinery of Freedom" is a nice introduction to anarcho-capitalism which free market courts are a part of.