physicslover

I would like to see an interactive loop to fsi. Seems like you could use websockets for this.

I read chapters of it a few years back, too, but forgotten the details. All in all, I was pretty convinced of the soundness of the approach at the time.

My recollection is that this framework of causal inference allows one to ask questions about a probabilistic model that one can then try and measure to test causality.

These questions are interventions or assertions (the do operators) that something happened.

So one would start out with a Graphical Model like in the smoking example which defines a probability model, and then make do assertions on the model for various candidate causes and see what that would imply about the change in probabilities and then design an experiment to measure them and confirm them.

I think the original idea of elimination of the collection of all private or personal information by all companies is a bit extreme.

From what we have learned, these programs are quite broad involving everyone from banking institutions to ISPs and telecoms.

Should banks do their business without knowing anything a about you, same for credit reporting agencies?

Maybe, but that would be quite a shift from the way things are done today.

Also, I thought it was common knowledge that some type of digital surveillance has been going on for some time.

My recollection is that the FBI was able to gain access to ISPs and use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software) to track emails.

If an individual is concerned with privacy they should probably take matters into their own hands and use encryption, cash, bitcoin and other tools to protect their identity and leave as little private information online as possible.

Lanier sounds like the anti-Kurzweil. Like others, I find his vision of the future too pessimistic and his proposed solution not workable.

He rightly raises concerns about how our roles/jobs/lives will change in the future.

But, I am much more bullish with developments like decentralized currencies, micro loans and other new banking models, advances in clean energy technology, and possibly even remote space colonies in the not too far distant future.

In this future, I imagine more opportunities for individuals.

Have to agree with the above. The problem with relational databases isn't the relational model, per se, but the complexity and cost of maintaining a relational database.

Typically, they require specialized database administrators whose primary job is to tune the database and keep it running.

Many businesses, even of moderate size, reach point where they will need to purchase expensive hardware (million dollar RamSans and expensive servers) to optimize the performance of their database because partitioning databases is challenging.

So the overhead of running an Oracle or Sql Server database is quite high.

There is huge room for improvement with these traditional database products. If someone made a good cloud database that supported the same feature set but with lower administration and maintenance costs then that might be a better option.

Interesting take that gets to the heart of the matter but my interpretation is different.

Like you say, the genius of Apple and Jobs is an incredible focus on the simplicity and intuitiveness of their products. I have seen two year old kids able to use ipads. This was their innovation and it has won them millions (billions?) of loyal fans.

This was so radically different than the prevailing ethos in the tech industry at the time that their supporters feel they should be protected or rewarded for changing the industry.

However, there is a problem in granting protection for these types of innovations, in that we are setting a dangerous precedent for patents and innovation. The individual user interface elements that make up the iPhone, by themselves, are all relatively obvious. Swiping to turn a page is the natural evolution of the book. Movies like Minority Report suggest the range of gestures we can imagine given the appropriate technology. It's quite a stretch to suggest that something so similar to what we have done all our lives should be protected by law and in effect create a protected monoply and prevent others from using these ideas in their products.

Instead those that admire Apple and what they have done should continue to do what they have been doing, buy their products.

As someone who has owned multiple ipads, ipods, iphones, and mac books, I know how compelling their products are and the loyalty it breeds in their users. Therefore, I think it is unlikely that many will step back and think whether this really is the best result for our industry.

The part that hit home for me was his description of the Prof's frustration with the speed at which he was implementing the enhancement to Klee and the fact that most grad students are not as smart as their advisors.

Most grad students are exhilarated to work with a brilliant researcher but it can crushing when one learns his or her own limitations.

Like the author says, probably 1 in 100 are the equal of their advisor and capable of becoming a professor at a comparable university.

Spencer's comments are generally accurate. I might quibble with some of them or say that they vary from team to team. For instance, I have used R, Python, Java, and Sawzall in my work at Google and have had freedom to choose technologies on some of my projects with input from team members.

It is true that most of the larger production systems like the Search Engine are mainly written in C++ and Java and that functional programming isn't widespread, yet.

But you are free to take on a 20% project to show the value of other ideas.

I would also challenge technology cons #2, #10, and #11. I think a lot of Google Engineers do tackle fundamental problems.

As someone else mentioned, I find the signal to noise ratio to be much higher on G+ than facebook or twitter. I mainly use these tools for two purposes, keeping in touch with friends and following interesting people and topics.

Facebook wins for the former as most of my friends still aren't on G+ or twitter, however, most of the activity is uninteresting checkins and the like.

With twitter, I have followed people I am interested in for topical content, but I mostly see personal tweets and find myself quickly scrolling through them for an occasional interesting link. Also, the interaction is next to zero except for retweets. I don't think the medium lends itself to much more than light banter.

In contrast, on plus, the topical content is more informative often with interesting comments.

At my last company I had 20 days vacation and about to transition to 25 days. However, work was so busy that I had to plan and request my vacations 3-6 mos in advance. I now have less vacation but more freedom to take it when i want.

If one really wants to maximize free time contract work is where its at.

I used the .net stack for 8 years. But, I wouldn't use the platform for a startup or my own projects. I don't want to be locked into the Windows platform. Mainly, because of licensing fees and just a general preference for the Linux shell and its scripting environment.

The open source community isn't very strong so there aren't as many options for a lot of things, and the community has relied on Microsoft to provide most of the tools and libraries.

Also, while C# is a nice language, I don't find it that different that it compels me to use it over other options available elsewhere. Personally, I find F# to be a much more compelling product.

I don't believe this is true for doctors, although, I could be wrong but I think HMO's get around the restriction. The bottom line is that lawyers are a protected guild with rules like the one mentioned above that artificially inflate the value of their services.

My naive understanding is that only lawyers can own and operate a law firm. In other words one can't form the equivalent of an HMO and hire a bunch of lawyers and pay them a salary and offer legal counsel to individuals.

I believe this is mandated by bar associations on ethical grounds, though I find it absurd. This artificially inflates the cost of legal services.

I agree, Diego. I now find a few articles a day on the front page interesting, whereas before this seemed much higher.

It seems that hacker news may be getting too popular for it's own good. At which point, you start getting submissions from people who are more interested in promoting themselves or some agenda and finding ways to game the ranking system to get content on the front page.

From my point of view there are three basic mathematical skills, logical reasoning, spatial reasoning and visualization, and calculation ability which is related to memory.

I agree that to excel in sciences you will need more than spatial reasoning alone.

Also, spatial intelligence has many dimensions. For instance, I cannot visualalize something complex like a human face but have little problem rotating simple shapes or moving chess pieces in my head, which makes me think my spatial reasoning is stronger than my spatial memory or pure visualization ability.