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passer_byer

142 karma · joined February 21, 2018

curious about open source development tr dot betancourt at comcast dot net
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passer_byer··on My data scientist doesn’t know how to properly start an EC2 instance
While this a useful post to help those tasked with managing infrastructure, your title suggests a Jack-of-all-trades approach. Stikes me asking a data scientist to deploy EC2 instances is a waste of valuable skills.

It is preferable for a data scientist to spend her valuable skills on understanding the problem domain, adapting data to modeling the problem and interpreting results. With the shortage of qualified data scientist this seems to be analogous to asking a commerical airline pilot to be able to carry out a jet engine overhaul.

passer_byer··on Corporate buzzwords are how workers pretend to be adults
>As per my last email

As a native English speaker, if I encounter this phrase I take it to suggest I am not paying attention.

passer_byer··on The Seven-Year Auto Loan (2019)
Alternatively, there are individuals who live month to month and having tired of beaters and decide this looks affordable. While clearly a false economy, some individuals may have other motives, like status seeking.

This doesn't mean they are rock-headed. Like all of us, they could have a blind-spot where a decisions made may not be in our long term economic interests.

passer_byer··on Ask HN: What are some interesting employment benefits to offer?
Flexible family leave policies that include paternal leave for birth or adoption. Six months maternity leave with a guarantee she can return to the same job or a different one with the same pay.

Two weeks paid time off for those who have reserve duty commitments. And the best one I ever saw was a commitment by the CEO of a privately run $2B/yr software firm was a commitment to have a job waiting for those on reserve when they returned from active duty deployment.

passer_byer··on IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
What competitive technology are you thinking here? IBM z-series mainframe carry enormous amounts of transaction workloads today. They are deeply embedded in most of the Fortune 1000 companies. Hitachi was the only real competitor left standing and they dumped their mainframe business in 2017 since they were unable to get traction outside of Japan.

In the early 90's, there were efforts by customers to get rid of their mainframes which put IBM on the ropes then, until Lou Gerstner took over as CEO and stabilized the business. It's not like these transaction workloads can be easily ported elsewhere since some of them go back as far as the early 1970's. Those customers able to ditch their mainframes did so a while back. The rest of these systems will remain due to risks and costs of migrating to a suitable alternative. It's not a huge revenue stream for IBM, but a very profitable one.

passer_byer··on Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
I can see where you might feel this way. I recommend giving it another try and come at from two considerations. The first is observing their experimental designs. They are very clever and well described. The second is the extent to which these experiments have been replicated with consistent results using populations with a range of socioeconomic and cultural differences.

Given the consistency of these experimental outcomes, may help to explain his authoritative tone. After all, he won a Nobel prize in economics which is completely outside his domain expertise.

If that is not enough to entice you to give it another go, consider the book, The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis. Lewis, in his highly researched and using detailed anecdotes describes how Kahnemans and Tversky collaboration initially began as a collaboration around understanding the decision making process in circumstances where there is a high degree of uncertainty and acquiring additional information is not feasible. The Khanamen/Tversky collaboration is described as a deep collaboration where neither man claims credit for their respective contributions. Only both minds together could have produced their research findings.

Lewis also describes how many reviewers of his book, Moneyball, expressed the many parallels between Kahnemans/Tversky's research and themes covered in Moneyball. Lewis was not familiar with this research when he wrote Moneyball. It was not until others pointed out these parallels that Lewis decided he should engage with Kahneman to write The Undoing Project.

passer_byer··on Ask HN: Anyone built a cabin before? Advice?
Yes, unless you have prior experiences, it is that hard. I agree with the others here who recommend you build an on-site tool/storage shed as practice. And no, it's not just about building foundations, floors, walls etc. You will need to consider how to rough-in for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, etc. as part of the build. Your wall-framing techniques have to take into consideration things like openings for doors, windows, and even how you will hang sheetrock.

Your biggest hurdle is probably going to be the permitting/inspection processes, assuming you want a legally habitual dwelling.

passer_byer··on Boeing Fought Lion Air on Proposed Max Simulator Training Requirement
The term for this is regulatory capture. That is why staff at the FAA share in the culpability of these tragic events.
passer_byer··on Ask HN: Are There Generalized Transpilers?
Thanks for that. There is no open source SAS parser. There are commercial versions, but that is why I ask about a generalized approach, so as not to build a bespoke parser.

There are a couple of Python libraries for converting SAS datasets into dataframes which I plan to use.

Converting the existing program logic is the main challenge.

passer_byer··on Ask HN: Where are some low budget and good CS College?
In the U.S. we have what is referred to as land grant colleges. They are publicly funded and they began in the late 19th century as technical colleges focused on improving agricultural methods.

As an example, North Carolina State University has a very strong CS program. In addition, they have developed under graduate and graduate level courses in data analysis/statistics. Combining a CS degree with exposure to courses which apply these methods is good value for the money.

Consider moving to the state you are interested in, establish residency for one year. That way, you pay in-state tuition fees rather than out-of state fees which are typically 3x or 4x.

Good luck!

passer_byer··on CERN migrates to open-source technologies
...or the person gets promoted.

I previously worked for an enterprise analytics software provider whose success hinged on low-cost license agreements to schools and universities. Once the company became more successful commercially, it took the same tact--substantially raising these fees in search of profitability. Today, the firm is under serious pressure from open source analytical libraries. The point being, what looks to be optimal in the short run may not be optimal in the long run, as future consequences could be anticipated but short term revenue growth was too tempting.

passer_byer··on The World’s Emptiest Airport Is a Red Flag
The first chapter of the book, Debt, the First 5,000 years by David Graeber, articulates how Western, multi-lateral institutions such as the IMF, in effect, set debt traps for developing countries.

https://libcom.org/files/__Debt__The_First_5_000_Years.pdf (pdf)

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