387 karma · joined January 28, 2015
This might not answer your question directly, but it is perhaps useful to know that the probabilistic programming approach can also be applied in non-probabilistic (non-statistical) ways. I developed a ranked programming language, which is like a probabilistic programming language without probabilities. Instead, you state how your program normally behaves and how it may exceptionally behave. Conceptually it's very similar to probabilistic programming, but the underlying uncertainty formalism is replaced with ranking theory, which works with integer-valued degrees of surprise.
You can find an implementation of this idea (based on Scheme/Racket) here:
https://github.com/tjitze/ranked-programming
For more detailed information check the paper linked to on that page.
Ranked programming is like probabilistic programming but you don't use probabilities. Instead, you state how your program normally behaves and how it may exceptionally behave. Conceptually it's very similar to probabilistic programming, but the underlying uncertainty formalism is replaced with ranking theory.
You can find an implementation of this idea (based on Scheme/Racket) here:
https://github.com/tjitze/ranked-programming
For more detailed information check the paper linked to on that page.
No. It's just poor reasoning with a click-baity headline.
What we see here is that there are some very dubious twitter accounts with some interactions. But are these meaningful interactions? Did any of the content reach and influence the supposed target audience? Are the communities shown in the Gephi graph real communities? These communities and their interactions could just as well be fake. When I was working on exactly this, I noticed that fake communities (i.e. sets of fake accounts all retweeting each other) are quite common.
Just look at the specific accounts mentioned (Pascal66616113 and 1Happeningnow). They have only 2 and 51 followers, respectively, and right now it's 4 and 72.
I think it's very important to detect malicious political accounts on social media and be aware of their impact. This article mentions two examples of such accounts, but doesn't prove anything about impact. The conclusion that France is losing an information war here doesn't follow.
As I understand it, the Electron was a bit of a commercial failure. However this caused remaining stock to be dumped (at least in the Netherlands) at rock bottom prices. My primary school teacher was a big fan of them, and installed a couple of them at our primary school. I got to borrow one for a summer break (1990?). My first forays into Basic programming, as well as trying to understand German, since that was the language in which the accompanying Basic manual was written.
I also don’t think it is necessarily about respect or admiration. In day to day interactions, people just prefer to use the most efficient means available to understand and be understood. Like using English instead of a clumsy beginners level of Spanish.
There's another "solution" to this paradox: if we assert something we are guided by a set of "conversational principles". For example, asserting "X implies Y" if we know that X is false is inappropriate. If X is false, "not-X" would be the appropriate assertion.
According to this theory, there's nothing wrong with the truth-functional meaning of "X implies Y". We just need to take into account what is implied by asserting "X implies Y", rather than e.g. "not-X", or "X and Y".
Same with disjunction: "X or Y" is true if we know that X is true. However, if we assert "X or Y", it is implied that we're not certain that X is true, otherwise we would have used "X", which is the simplest way to convey what that fact.
This is known as Grice's Pragmatic Defence of Truth-Functionality.
According to this theory, there's nothing wrong with the truth-functional meaning of "X implies Y". We just need to take into account what is implied by asserting "X implies Y", rather than e.g. "not-X", or "X and Y".
Same with disjunction: "X or Y" is true if we know that X is true. However, if we assert "X or Y", it is implied that we're not certain that X is true, otherwise we would have used "X", which is the simplest way to convey what that fact.
This is known as Grice's Pragmatic Defence of Truth-Functionality.
Indeed, the observation that some Unix utilities have their roots in the seventies misses the point in this regard. I'd say this is a testament to the success of the unix approach or whatever you want to call it. It's not really about computer science.
As an early millennial I'd never ran into this 17th century marvel called slide rule. When I asked the instructor how it works (rather than how to use it) he answered along the lines of "don't ask, it just does".
Ah yes, I remember changing those jumpers to get that display show the correct speed, after overclocking my "CyrixInstead" 486.
[1] https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...