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mr_pink

89 karma · joined June 22, 2016

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mr_pink··on Show HN: Unplugg: An automated Forecasting API for timeseries data
> I do think the confidence intervals/prediction intervals should be accessible and should probably be adjustable (e.g. 99%, 95%, 80%).

Definitely, this is arguably the most important feature.

mr_pink··on On Loneliness
It's all smoke and mirrors, we're just a hologram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
mr_pink··on On Loneliness
Eh, could say the same about anything. Replace self with Love, God, Satan, etc.
mr_pink··on Why does e to pi i equal -1? (2015) [video]
Oh yeah, forgot about that. Well, then Russian terms are as stupid.
mr_pink··on Why does e to pi i equal -1? (2015) [video]
Well I was answering the question about why is C considered numbers - it's a field, hence elements of C behave exactly like numbers. Moreover, it's an 'algebraic closure' of R, hence a more natural choice for "all numbers", and it's a maximal one at that (i.e. quaternions and such are no longer fields and don't really behave like numbers, while C still does).

Edit: FWIW, I consider the terminology of 'real' vs 'imaginary' completely stupid and misleading. This terminology didn't really make it to other languages, e.g. in Russian it's 'material' vs 'complex' numbers, but they don't use the term 'imaginary'.

mr_pink··on Why does e to pi i equal -1? (2015) [video]
C (complex numbers) is a field, just like R (real numbers). It's an algebraically closed field, unlike R, so in some sense it's actually the most natural set to call "numbers".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraically_closed_field

mr_pink··on The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow
> Do you truly believe that specific DP book caused that effect?

Yes, definitely. People used to cite the GOF book left and right while over-engineering crappy CRUD apps.

mr_pink··on The Algorithms Behind Probabilistic Programming
> sugggests a new programming paradigm, which it is not

No, you're just dismissing it without understanding it first. Which seems super common on this forum.

mr_pink··on The Algorithms Behind Probabilistic Programming
Analytically differentiable (being able to derive a formula for the derivative) is not the same thing at all as analytic functions of complex analysis (which are infinitely differentiable, etc). If anything, the term "analytic function" seems more of a misnomer to me, but "analytically differentiable" is used in its proper sense in the article.
mr_pink··on Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
> I take it you don't live in NYC.

I do.

> Nobody I know pays more than $3k/m for their apartment.

Few people I know pay under. We live in parallel dimensions I guess.

> In my case, I chose to go for a non-luxury apartment for $1.8k/m.

I don't know what NYC you live in, but this is non-existent AFAIK. I know someone who went all the way to Rego Park (this is really far from Manhattan) to rent a 1BR for $2.5k.

mr_pink··on Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
OK, it all depends on what the cash flow looks like :) You're leaving out that one very important piece of the puzzle...

Also, the average apartment in Manhattan (if you do rent without roommates) is pretty close to your cited figure for total monthly expenses. Which means you either lucked out, or seriously compromised on your living arrangements.

mr_pink··on Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
> Maybe not, but you certainly don't need to be "eating garbage dumped by grocery stores".

Nice strawman :) I was specifically talking about the situation conditional on saving the 100k in 18 months, my comment was a response to the comment above it.

Separate point: your figures seem very low. I thought SF is roughly equivalent to NYC in terms of cost of living. In which case 300/mo is a zero off as an estimate for all food expenses.

mr_pink··on Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
Well, good for you. I don't think your situation was "average" really, but kudos on the savings :) Coming from a guy in NYC whose monthly expenditures are through the roof...
mr_pink··on Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
Paycheck calculator shows me that $120K [1] in CA leaves you with $6,220 after-tax monthly income. If you really made about as much, and managed to save ~$5.5K a month, then you spent only ~$660 a month, which is just impossible, sorry. Even if you're sharing a 1BR with several roommates, which, by the way, is not really an option for many.

[1] Googling "average software engineer salary california" shows figures ranging from 107k to 135k, 120k seems to be more or less the median of Google's figures.

Edit: added footnote

mr_pink··on Does It Make Sense for Programmers to Move to the Bay Area?
> It takes about 2 years to save up $100K on a typical Bay Area engineer's salary

Have you actually done this? Know anyone who has? This seems completely implausible, outside of some extreme frugal lifestyle cases (I'm talking "eating garbage dumped by grocery stores" level frugal)...

mr_pink··on Computer Science courses with video lectures
Yeah, you can't do half of these without understanding Calculus.
mr_pink··on Computer Science courses with video lectures
Hmm, this says more about the current state of the "PhD in CS" institution and the hiring practices at 'Big 4'...
mr_pink··on Ask HN: What is your favorite internet rabbit hole?
Discovering new human and bot algorithmic artists on twitter by searching for #generated:

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23generated&src=typd

mr_pink··on Why Red Means Red in Almost Every Language (2015)
Similarly, Russian has two blues: goluboy (like the sky) and siniy (like the sea). Nobody, not even a child, would confuse the two, or consider them the same color. Even blue eyes are differentiated into these two categories, just like English speakers differentiate between blue and green eyes.
mr_pink··on Numerai – A hedge fund built by a global community of anonymous data scientists
What expected "rules of math" does it not follow?
mr_pink··on The American chess champion challenging Iran’s hijab fetish
> In large part it's a symbol for fear of a religion, Islam.

Weird reaction to an article about a non-Muslim woman who does not want to subject herself to medieval oppressive practices (let's not kid ourselves what Hijabs and Burqas really are) in order to participate in an international sports competition.

mr_pink··on The American chess champion challenging Iran’s hijab fetish
Iran is different. People trying to justify them with anecdotes like yours miss the point. What Iran is doing is ridiculous: there are minorities in Iran who are not Muslim, who've lived there for millennia even before Islam was a thing, who are now forced to wear a Hijab every day. How is that in any way justifiable is beyond me...

Edit: I can't respond to the post below, for whatever reason. Minorities in question would be Assyrians and Armenians, for example, who are Christians and who absolutely have to cover their heads everywhere they go: http://forum.hyeclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2144

mr_pink··on 90 Cents of Every 'Pay-For-Performance' Dollar for CEOs Are Paid for Luck
This is laughably incorrect, that's not how the world works at all
mr_pink··on I stopped contributing to stackoverflow, but it's not declining
Yes, sir, you're definitely part of the problem. No other way to put it :)
mr_pink··on Super Mario 64 – 1996 Developer Interviews
Holy crap, Super Mario 64 is 20 years old now. I've never felt my age more than I do right now...
mr_pink··on Dam Project Threatens to Submerge Thousands of Years of Turkish History
Hate to be that guy, but saying "thousands of years of Turkish history" is exactly as ignorant as saying "thousands of years of American history"
mr_pink··on Find a new city
> I think a lot of coastal elites have no idea what they're talking about when they speak about the extreme danger of being different in middle-America.

Here's a counterargument (counter-anecdote, really): I'm different in other ways (foreigner), I found living in middle-America a nightmarish experience of prejudice and outright hate. Being cat-called once is child's play compared to living in the mid-west while foreign.

mr_pink··on How China is rewriting the book on human origins
Not only that, another 'large mammal' in the room is the 'founder effects' that happen on every level (i.e. family, community, regional, ethnic) and their behavioral implications, that were common-sense non-taboo topics of discussion up to early modern times.