The best way to learn is to do it. Choose a "game" and try to solve it with some different approaches. I say "game" with quotes because the game you pick should definitely not be a game which a normal adult would choose to play, but something very young children would play, or a heavily simplified variant of a full game. Something like Tic-Tac-Toe or RPS.
RPS seems trivial, but it's actually a very interesting game to study. It's an easy-to-understand example of how a Nash equilibrium strategy doesn't always produce an optimal outcome. The equilibrium strategy is to choose between the three moves at random, but you can't naively use the strategy because it offers no way of taking advantage of weak opponents, such as an opponent that favors a particular move or a pattern of moves. Computer RPS tournaments will always include a variety of bots that are predictably weak in various ways, to separate out the good bots that are capable of using these weaknesses.
Another simple game you could experiment with is Leduc Poker. Leduc Poker is another matrix game, and it's simple enough that you can easily compute the Nash equilibrium (which, remember, is not necessarily optimal, but it's a good starting point) or iterate over the entire game tree. You could also use a similar subset of poker to experiment with more advanced techniques - e.g. minimax and alphabeta pruning, or maybe Monte Carlo Tree Search (I can't guarantee that MCTS would work for poker, I'm not sure it's ever been done, but it might be interesting to try.)
There is no statistically significant difference in educational outcomes between private and public schools after you account for classroom composition. The hypothesized reason private schools offer superior educational outcomes is because less class time is wasted on disruptions and disciplinary actions (Dronkers and Robert, 2008.)
The great thing about data work is that it helps you eliminate confounding variables, until all you're left with is the real answer: parents who don't give a shit, who are a product of the media-manufactured anti-intellectual social serfdom that punishes academics outside of the top income quintile.
You still aren't getting it. Repeating yourself won't make it true, dude. Charges haven't been filed because Gibson is still under investigation. Period. Gibson won't be charged until the investigation is finished. Period. The lengths of investigations vary, but this is hardly unusual. Period. (Where did you get three years? It hasn't even been two! Check your math! Gibson was first raided in Nov 2009, which was 22 months ago!)
You do not need to charge someone with a crime in order to seize their property, you only need probable cause and a search warrant. Law enforcement officers are allowed to confiscate your property if they believe it is evidence of a crime, instrumental to a crime, or if it is the proceeds of a crime. You only need to charge a person with a crime if you are arresting them. These are facts.
For example, suppose my car is used to smuggle drugs. The police have every right to confiscate my property without charging me, because my car is evidence of a crime. The police may not be able to prove that I was the one driving it - maybe it was stolen - and the police need to examine the car in order to find out.
Yes, sometimes if your property is seized you will never get it back. That sucks, but it does not change the above facts.
Of course they weren't - Honduran law is not United States law! You can't charge them with poaching and smuggling because they were only guilty of those things in Honduras. Those criminal acts were used to justify a ruling under the Lacey Act, which is the only American law these people violated. Read the judgment, it's all right there.
I'm a Canadian, by the way. If you'd like to engage in partisan dick-waving that's your decision, but I'd really like nothing to do with it.
Look, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say it's not just the government picking on small business owners.
Look up the actual court case, United States v. McNab.
The video you posted talks about them using plastic bags (haha, how ridiculous, right?) What the video doesn't talk about is the fact that they also caught egg-bearing lobsters, undersized lobsters, did not report their catch to the Honduran authorities, and transferred their catch at sea without going through a Honduran port or having their catch inspected by Honduran authorities - all of which are actually against Honduran law, and the Honduran government filed affidavits affirming that these were violations of the Honduran law.
McNab et al tried to appeal their case on the basis that the Honduran laws may have been unconstitutional, but their appeal was denied after the Honduran government again testified that the laws were valid.
Every time someone brings up some case like this, it's always a lot more complicated than they make it sound. No, this case wasn't about plastic bags or bleeding heart libertarianism or whatever... this case was about a guy who went into business with bad people and got burned.
It's silly to point out that they used a "SWAT raid." No-knock armed raids are SOP for American law enforcement now. I definitely don't approve of these methods, but Gibson is not being singled out for it.
No charges have been filed because they are still collecting evidence (i.e. the seized property.) Is this really so hard to understand? Investigations can take a long time. For example, Casey Anthony was arrested in July 2008, but her trial didn't start until May 2011 - and that case was relatively simple compared to something that involves interstate and international trade, the laws of other countries, foreign organized crime, and a shrewd businessman who is evidently very good at controlling the discourse on his business practices.
How about answering this question: what legal authority does the US DOJ have to enforce FOREIGN laws upon US citizens at all, let alone foreign laws where the foreign country doesn't even see a law being broken?
The US DOJ has been granted this legal authority by an act of congress (the Lacey Act.) Furthermore, the US has always claimed some degree universal jurisdiction, which permits them to prosecute both US citizens and foreign nationals for breaking laws outside of the country.
No, the government found that Gibson was importing rough ebony shipped as finished fingerboards (the shipment also wasn't addressed to Gibson, it was deliberately bounced around between warehouses and subsidiaries in order to hide its real destination.) The paperwork IS fraudulent, period.
It takes years to build a substantive case, especially when it involves businesses. The court case has not been "delayed." The investigation is still on-going, as this latest raid demonstrated.
You'd have to be damn gullible to believe a suspected criminal when they say shit like "I'm innocent, you've got the wrong man!" and "It's a liberal conspiracy!"
This investigation started in 2009 because they were importing raw ebony under a fraudulent manifest, which is illegal whether the wood itself is legal to import or not. This is not just some case of big government picking on the innocent businessman.
Modern libertarians may not be anarchist, but they are minarchist. Libertarians would essentially limit the government's participation in the economy to protecting the right to own property, which is the absolute minimum needed in order to have a free market.
(Note: all attempts to implement libertarian policies in the real world have caused on-going economic or social disaster. e.g. the sale of council estates in the UK, the privatization of crown corporations in Canada, the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and financial deregulation in the US, private healthcare in the US, Rogernomics in New Zealand, Social Darwinism and eugenics everywhere.)
I've only seen a few low-level areas, both in vanilla and in Cataclysm (I've never been entertained enough to subscribe for longer than 1 month for as long as the game has been out.)
Some of what they've changed is nice. Blizzard has really improved their ability to develop quests, and many of them now involve vehicles or other gimmicks, which makes the low-level game a lot less monotonous. They've also removed a lot of 'redundant' quests, while still rewarding you the same amount of experience for completing each region (for example, the Barrens has fewer than half as many quests and is literally half the size, but you'll still be around level 22 by the time you finish it.) You should really like these changes, if you're an established player who wants to have fun while leveling an alt, or if you're a brand new player who has high-level friends waiting to dump equipment on you.
Most of what they've changed is terrible. Blizzard has a well-deserved reputation for good art and music, so some of the changes are just unforgivable. High-resolution assets are mixed with classic low-resolution assets. Some new textures have missing gloss maps, making them look flat. The timeless artistic style of vanilla has been replaced with noisy designs and dull textures that reek of being outsourced; I can't describe the changes to Orgrimmar as anything other than a display of abject incompetence, both in terms of art and gameplay, but generally speaking any area with a lot of goblin technology is aesthetically unappealing. The new music is all terrible and inappropriate, by far the worst I've ever heard in a Blizzard game, and the artists were too lazy and stupid to get music transitions working correctly so you will often hear random parts of the vanilla soundtrack mixed in with the new.
If you roll an orc or a troll, you are now treated to a poop joke within the first hour of gameplay. How appropriate. The saving grace of this steaming turd of a MMORPG is the fact that the game is now easy and short so you don't have to stay subscribed for very long.
The vote is tied up by the boomers? Hahaha. I hate to destroy your fantasy, but the boomers aren't the ones propping up the Conservative party. Do you think it's a coincidence that Alberta, the Conservative stronghold, has the lowest median age of any of the major provinces? Do you think it's a coincidence that Alberta's many young, successful professionals, businessmen and tradespeople are voting for Conservative candidates?
It doesn't even make any sense if you think about it. An aging and retiring population has a lot to gain by supporting the NDP. On the other hand, the NDP has absolutely nothing to offer someone who has a significant source of income.
You're just miserable that you didn't get your way, so you're trying to blame it on those stupid boomers and their backwards thinking, right?
By the way, jobs still fall of trees for young people. It was YOUR choice to get a BA in Fuck All instead of researching whether or not employers will care. People with talent, qualifications and social skills are just as busy today as they were in 2007.
Under the old campaign finance rules, each political party is funded by the Canadian government based on the number of votes they receive. The NDP is not a "real" party, it's a scam; they ran parachute candidates in as many ridings as possible so Jack Layton could collect a $200,000+ annual salary for leading the NDP in addition to his and his wife's salaries as MPs.
You can call Stephen Harper "extreme right-wing" if you want, but that doesn't change the fact that Canada is politically broken on the left-wing, and a lot of that damage is being caused by the new crop of mid-20s Facebook-addicted special snowflakes with no educations, no work ethics, no marketable skills and a complete dependency on mommy, daddy and the welfare state for personal solvency.
A MSc doesn't really involve any specialized instruction. Master's degrees and PhDs train you to be a researcher; graduate school does give you advanced knowledge of a field, but this is largely self-guided and incidental to the process of making a significant contribution of original research.
I don't know what the situation is like for engineering, but in CS I don't think a graduate degree is a wise investment unless you intend to enter academia. There are very few companies that deliberately hire people with advanced degrees, and they exclusively hire for research positions. Most other employers will shy away from you, either because they think you'll demand a higher salary, or because they think you'll quit as soon as a research or tenure-track position opens up. So, no, I don't think the master's degree is the new bachelor's degree.
(Personal anecdote: I had to fire a terminal MSc from a developer position back in May. Good researcher, good recommendations, but terrible engineer. YMMV.)
The world's top scientists would have an EB-1 or EB-2. H-1B is a temporary (non-immigrant) work visa for people in specialty occupations, and it only requires an undergraduate degree.
There is definitely a cultural aspect to this problem. Consider the 2011 Intel STS, for example: 60% of the finalists were children whose parents entered on an H-1B visa, even though former and present H-1B holders make up less than 1% of the US population (source.) These children are American citizens, and educated in American schools, but for some reason being born to non-American parents gives them a significant advantage in STEM subjects even when controlling for their parents' education and socioeconomic status.
The sample size is sufficient
on
3D Hurts Your Eyes
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· Score: 4, Informative
Yes, the sample size is "statistically valid." You can show a statistically significant result using any sample size; using a smaller sample simply means you need stronger evidence to show the same significance. There are some specious statistics in the paper, but this criticism is plainly false.
That's true, I think, for undergraduates. Everything I've heard is that European schools are far more rigorous and challenging. The catch is that Europe doesn't suffer as badly from grade inflation, so when it's time to get a career employers will be unfavorably comparing your 2.7 to an equivalent American undergrad's 4.3.
This isn't true for graduate studies. At the graduate level nobody cares where you went to school, they care who your advisor is. Top-tier American universities are able to attract the most successful PIs in many fields (and therefore the most desirable advisors) which is why you see so many great foreign students choosing American universities.
Slashdot Mirror
The best way to learn is to do it. Choose a "game" and try to solve it with some different approaches. I say "game" with quotes because the game you pick should definitely not be a game which a normal adult would choose to play, but something very young children would play, or a heavily simplified variant of a full game. Something like Tic-Tac-Toe or RPS.
RPS seems trivial, but it's actually a very interesting game to study. It's an easy-to-understand example of how a Nash equilibrium strategy doesn't always produce an optimal outcome. The equilibrium strategy is to choose between the three moves at random, but you can't naively use the strategy because it offers no way of taking advantage of weak opponents, such as an opponent that favors a particular move or a pattern of moves. Computer RPS tournaments will always include a variety of bots that are predictably weak in various ways, to separate out the good bots that are capable of using these weaknesses.
Another simple game you could experiment with is Leduc Poker. Leduc Poker is another matrix game, and it's simple enough that you can easily compute the Nash equilibrium (which, remember, is not necessarily optimal, but it's a good starting point) or iterate over the entire game tree. You could also use a similar subset of poker to experiment with more advanced techniques - e.g. minimax and alphabeta pruning, or maybe Monte Carlo Tree Search (I can't guarantee that MCTS would work for poker, I'm not sure it's ever been done, but it might be interesting to try.)
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There is no statistically significant difference in educational outcomes between private and public schools after you account for classroom composition. The hypothesized reason private schools offer superior educational outcomes is because less class time is wasted on disruptions and disciplinary actions (Dronkers and Robert, 2008.)
The great thing about data work is that it helps you eliminate confounding variables, until all you're left with is the real answer: parents who don't give a shit, who are a product of the media-manufactured anti-intellectual social serfdom that punishes academics outside of the top income quintile.
You still aren't getting it. Repeating yourself won't make it true, dude. Charges haven't been filed because Gibson is still under investigation. Period. Gibson won't be charged until the investigation is finished. Period. The lengths of investigations vary, but this is hardly unusual. Period. (Where did you get three years? It hasn't even been two! Check your math! Gibson was first raided in Nov 2009, which was 22 months ago!)
You do not need to charge someone with a crime in order to seize their property, you only need probable cause and a search warrant. Law enforcement officers are allowed to confiscate your property if they believe it is evidence of a crime, instrumental to a crime, or if it is the proceeds of a crime. You only need to charge a person with a crime if you are arresting them. These are facts.
For example, suppose my car is used to smuggle drugs. The police have every right to confiscate my property without charging me, because my car is evidence of a crime. The police may not be able to prove that I was the one driving it - maybe it was stolen - and the police need to examine the car in order to find out.
Yes, sometimes if your property is seized you will never get it back. That sucks, but it does not change the above facts.
The video is propaganda. Look up the actual court case.
Yet, none of those charges were filed.
Of course they weren't - Honduran law is not United States law! You can't charge them with poaching and smuggling because they were only guilty of those things in Honduras. Those criminal acts were used to justify a ruling under the Lacey Act, which is the only American law these people violated. Read the judgment, it's all right there.
I'm a Canadian, by the way. If you'd like to engage in partisan dick-waving that's your decision, but I'd really like nothing to do with it.
Here's just one example of Lacey Act injustice that put an innocent man in jail for 8 years!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHvJ6ld_Mic
Look, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say it's not just the government picking on small business owners.
Look up the actual court case, United States v. McNab.
The video you posted talks about them using plastic bags (haha, how ridiculous, right?) What the video doesn't talk about is the fact that they also caught egg-bearing lobsters, undersized lobsters, did not report their catch to the Honduran authorities, and transferred their catch at sea without going through a Honduran port or having their catch inspected by Honduran authorities - all of which are actually against Honduran law, and the Honduran government filed affidavits affirming that these were violations of the Honduran law.
McNab et al tried to appeal their case on the basis that the Honduran laws may have been unconstitutional, but their appeal was denied after the Honduran government again testified that the laws were valid.
Every time someone brings up some case like this, it's always a lot more complicated than they make it sound. No, this case wasn't about plastic bags or bleeding heart libertarianism or whatever... this case was about a guy who went into business with bad people and got burned.
It's silly to point out that they used a "SWAT raid." No-knock armed raids are SOP for American law enforcement now. I definitely don't approve of these methods, but Gibson is not being singled out for it.
No charges have been filed because they are still collecting evidence (i.e. the seized property.) Is this really so hard to understand? Investigations can take a long time. For example, Casey Anthony was arrested in July 2008, but her trial didn't start until May 2011 - and that case was relatively simple compared to something that involves interstate and international trade, the laws of other countries, foreign organized crime, and a shrewd businessman who is evidently very good at controlling the discourse on his business practices.
How about answering this question: what legal authority does the US DOJ have to enforce FOREIGN laws upon US citizens at all, let alone foreign laws where the foreign country doesn't even see a law being broken?
The US DOJ has been granted this legal authority by an act of congress (the Lacey Act.) Furthermore, the US has always claimed some degree universal jurisdiction, which permits them to prosecute both US citizens and foreign nationals for breaking laws outside of the country.
No, the government found that Gibson was importing rough ebony shipped as finished fingerboards (the shipment also wasn't addressed to Gibson, it was deliberately bounced around between warehouses and subsidiaries in order to hide its real destination.) The paperwork IS fraudulent, period.
It takes years to build a substantive case, especially when it involves businesses. The court case has not been "delayed." The investigation is still on-going, as this latest raid demonstrated.
You'd have to be damn gullible to believe a suspected criminal when they say shit like "I'm innocent, you've got the wrong man!" and "It's a liberal conspiracy!"
This investigation started in 2009 because they were importing raw ebony under a fraudulent manifest, which is illegal whether the wood itself is legal to import or not. This is not just some case of big government picking on the innocent businessman.
Gibson is an "enemy of the state" because they illegally import wood under 16 USC 3372. Hurrrrrrrr.
Modern libertarians may not be anarchist, but they are minarchist. Libertarians would essentially limit the government's participation in the economy to protecting the right to own property, which is the absolute minimum needed in order to have a free market.
(Note: all attempts to implement libertarian policies in the real world have caused on-going economic or social disaster. e.g. the sale of council estates in the UK, the privatization of crown corporations in Canada, the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and financial deregulation in the US, private healthcare in the US, Rogernomics in New Zealand, Social Darwinism and eugenics everywhere.)
I've only seen a few low-level areas, both in vanilla and in Cataclysm (I've never been entertained enough to subscribe for longer than 1 month for as long as the game has been out.)
Some of what they've changed is nice. Blizzard has really improved their ability to develop quests, and many of them now involve vehicles or other gimmicks, which makes the low-level game a lot less monotonous. They've also removed a lot of 'redundant' quests, while still rewarding you the same amount of experience for completing each region (for example, the Barrens has fewer than half as many quests and is literally half the size, but you'll still be around level 22 by the time you finish it.) You should really like these changes, if you're an established player who wants to have fun while leveling an alt, or if you're a brand new player who has high-level friends waiting to dump equipment on you.
Most of what they've changed is terrible. Blizzard has a well-deserved reputation for good art and music, so some of the changes are just unforgivable. High-resolution assets are mixed with classic low-resolution assets. Some new textures have missing gloss maps, making them look flat. The timeless artistic style of vanilla has been replaced with noisy designs and dull textures that reek of being outsourced; I can't describe the changes to Orgrimmar as anything other than a display of abject incompetence, both in terms of art and gameplay, but generally speaking any area with a lot of goblin technology is aesthetically unappealing. The new music is all terrible and inappropriate, by far the worst I've ever heard in a Blizzard game, and the artists were too lazy and stupid to get music transitions working correctly so you will often hear random parts of the vanilla soundtrack mixed in with the new.
If you roll an orc or a troll, you are now treated to a poop joke within the first hour of gameplay. How appropriate. The saving grace of this steaming turd of a MMORPG is the fact that the game is now easy and short so you don't have to stay subscribed for very long.
The vote is tied up by the boomers? Hahaha. I hate to destroy your fantasy, but the boomers aren't the ones propping up the Conservative party. Do you think it's a coincidence that Alberta, the Conservative stronghold, has the lowest median age of any of the major provinces? Do you think it's a coincidence that Alberta's many young, successful professionals, businessmen and tradespeople are voting for Conservative candidates?
It doesn't even make any sense if you think about it. An aging and retiring population has a lot to gain by supporting the NDP. On the other hand, the NDP has absolutely nothing to offer someone who has a significant source of income.
You're just miserable that you didn't get your way, so you're trying to blame it on those stupid boomers and their backwards thinking, right?
By the way, jobs still fall of trees for young people. It was YOUR choice to get a BA in Fuck All instead of researching whether or not employers will care. People with talent, qualifications and social skills are just as busy today as they were in 2007.
Under the old campaign finance rules, each political party is funded by the Canadian government based on the number of votes they receive. The NDP is not a "real" party, it's a scam; they ran parachute candidates in as many ridings as possible so Jack Layton could collect a $200,000+ annual salary for leading the NDP in addition to his and his wife's salaries as MPs.
You can call Stephen Harper "extreme right-wing" if you want, but that doesn't change the fact that Canada is politically broken on the left-wing, and a lot of that damage is being caused by the new crop of mid-20s Facebook-addicted special snowflakes with no educations, no work ethics, no marketable skills and a complete dependency on mommy, daddy and the welfare state for personal solvency.
Huh?
A MSc doesn't really involve any specialized instruction. Master's degrees and PhDs train you to be a researcher; graduate school does give you advanced knowledge of a field, but this is largely self-guided and incidental to the process of making a significant contribution of original research.
I don't know what the situation is like for engineering, but in CS I don't think a graduate degree is a wise investment unless you intend to enter academia. There are very few companies that deliberately hire people with advanced degrees, and they exclusively hire for research positions. Most other employers will shy away from you, either because they think you'll demand a higher salary, or because they think you'll quit as soon as a research or tenure-track position opens up. So, no, I don't think the master's degree is the new bachelor's degree.
(Personal anecdote: I had to fire a terminal MSc from a developer position back in May. Good researcher, good recommendations, but terrible engineer. YMMV.)
The world's top scientists would have an EB-1 or EB-2. H-1B is a temporary (non-immigrant) work visa for people in specialty occupations, and it only requires an undergraduate degree.
There is definitely a cultural aspect to this problem. Consider the 2011 Intel STS, for example: 60% of the finalists were children whose parents entered on an H-1B visa, even though former and present H-1B holders make up less than 1% of the US population (source.) These children are American citizens, and educated in American schools, but for some reason being born to non-American parents gives them a significant advantage in STEM subjects even when controlling for their parents' education and socioeconomic status.
I don't think that's necessary, but the people who think his post is insightful should read this blog post: http://zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html
Yes, the sample size is "statistically valid." You can show a statistically significant result using any sample size; using a smaller sample simply means you need stronger evidence to show the same significance. There are some specious statistics in the paper, but this criticism is plainly false.
Seconded. A masonry saw is definitely the tool he should be using.
That's true, I think, for undergraduates. Everything I've heard is that European schools are far more rigorous and challenging. The catch is that Europe doesn't suffer as badly from grade inflation, so when it's time to get a career employers will be unfavorably comparing your 2.7 to an equivalent American undergrad's 4.3.
This isn't true for graduate studies. At the graduate level nobody cares where you went to school, they care who your advisor is. Top-tier American universities are able to attract the most successful PIs in many fields (and therefore the most desirable advisors) which is why you see so many great foreign students choosing American universities.
Academic prestige is based on research performance, not the quality of education.