Coding academies are nonsense, but there's also something refreshingly honest about them.
A lot of people go into a university-level computer science or software engineering course expecting to be taught a programming language that employers want right now. That's not the job of a university, hence coding academies. Their mere existence brings some deep myths about the software business, including some myths still held by some in the business.
...most of which have optimisation functions which are incompressible and hence do not fit on current computers...
[...] every possible algorithm (that does not repeat a previous move) takes exactly the same amount of time to find the global minimum.
The NFL theorem relies on all problems being equally likely. In practice, there are many known classes of problem where known algorithms do close-enough-to-optimal on problems which turn up in practice, and also can tell if they were given a problem which they can't do well on.
Incidentally, the proviso that it "does not repeat a previous move" is an interesting one. The proof of correctness of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm (to pick one example) relies on the fact that the transition probability for its proposals is symmetric (that is, Q(x|y) = Q(y|x)).
I'm not American, but that sounds right to me. It would be in the insurer's best interests to incentivise preventative medicine (which probably could save a huge percentage of the US health bill), but for some reason they've decided that it's more lucrative not to pay for health care.
Actually, now that I look at this, none of the modern examples are US citizens. However, perhaps that's part of the point. Non-terrorist, non-criminal, non-citizens can have their lives made intolerable for no reason other than being in the wrong ethnic group.
As for being upset about this or that spying program, I'm looking for some place where the spying program was used in a manner to harm a US citizen who was not actually a criminal or a terrorist. I'm coming up short on that one.
Having said that, there are plenty of examples of realharm to non-criminals, but we don't know how much can be attributed to the wholesale spying program as such.
There is a problem with the Copyright Holders wanting to have their cake and eat it. The might license a show to be shown in the UK but not say in Spain. If you are in Spain then these copyright holders don't want you to see the show. End of story.
I find it hard to understand why "are games art?" strikes anyone as enough of a question to even be asked.
You'd think so, but right now there is a small but vocal subset of gamers who are resisting anything which resembles cultural criticism of games and the game industry, but cultural criticism is one of the prices you pay for using the label "art".
I kinda' want to get back to the mode where the crime comes before the investigation, you know?
I broadly agree, but with one important proviso. It's an axiom of modern policing that the best time to stop a criminal is before the crime happens. But the best time to do that is before they become a criminal.
If you know of some community where there is a risk of young people entering a life of crime, what is the right thing to do? You don't wait for them to commit a crime and then nab them; that creates unnecessary victims. You could avoid creating the victim by entrapping them. That gets you a headline, but it also runs the risk of creating a criminal where there was none.
Surely the right thing to do is divert them away from a life of crime? Maybe work with the community to help turn disaffected and disenfranchised young people into productive members of society?
If this was any other kind of crime (e.g. think of most criminal gangs), we would instantly know that was the right thing to do.
If you were heading off into the woods and could only afford one; bear repellent or rabbit repellent, which one would you choose?
Where I live, we don't have bears (apart from drop bears, for which there is no repellent). But assuming that you're talking about the American woods, I would choose insect repellant. Statistically, the most likely creature to kill you in the American woods are insects (e.g. hornets, yellow jackets).
Yes, we are still talking about terrorism here. Spending trillions on combatting the scariest-looking group rather than the actually-most-dangerous group is not security, it is theatre.
Far be it from me to defend the GP, but this question has been settled for millennia, and as such, its use as a "gotcha" point is laughably out of date.
Jews and Christians agree that if you are a Gentile, you are not subject to the laws of Moses. Instead, you are subject to the Noachide Laws (and presumably if you are a Christian, you also follow the commandments of Jesus, but that's a separate issue). This has been mainstream Jewish thinking since the Talmud, and was also affirmed in Christianity at the Council of Jerusalem (see Acts 15 for details).
I don't know if the Noachide Laws were ever affirmed in Islam, but AFAIK everything is covered in Islamic jurisprudence. I presume it's similar story for Bahá'í. Apart from the possible prohibition against black pudding (and that's only a "possible" prohibition), there's nothing in them that's controversial for any brand of Abrahamic monotheist.
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I hire $5/hr coders to get the boring/cheap stuff out of the way when starting a project.
I'm cool with hiring people to do the tedious stuff for you, but $5/hr isn't even minimum wage. You, sir or madam, are part of the problem.
Certainly there's a place for "professional development"-type courses, as long as everyone understands that it's not a qualification.
At least the moderators got the joke.
Masonry and carpentry is an apprenticeship. I wish that more people in the software business realised that software is too.
Coding academies are nonsense, but there's also something refreshingly honest about them.
A lot of people go into a university-level computer science or software engineering course expecting to be taught a programming language that employers want right now. That's not the job of a university, hence coding academies. Their mere existence brings some deep myths about the software business, including some myths still held by some in the business.
That makes more sense. I figured it couldn't be that simple...
The NFL theorem relies on all problems being equally likely. In practice, there are many known classes of problem where known algorithms do close-enough-to-optimal on problems which turn up in practice, and also can tell if they were given a problem which they can't do well on.
Incidentally, the proviso that it "does not repeat a previous move" is an interesting one. The proof of correctness of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm (to pick one example) relies on the fact that the transition probability for its proposals is symmetric (that is, Q(x|y) = Q(y|x)).
Math is hard.
Or, more accurately, math is believed to be hard.
Sure, but they weren't exactly out there to write scientific journals.
Nice side-effect, though.
And on the other hand, moving the whole office somewhere else would make the already-high wages worth more.
I'm not American, but that sounds right to me. It would be in the insurer's best interests to incentivise preventative medicine (which probably could save a huge percentage of the US health bill), but for some reason they've decided that it's more lucrative not to pay for health care.
Actually, now that I look at this, none of the modern examples are US citizens. However, perhaps that's part of the point. Non-terrorist, non-criminal, non-citizens can have their lives made intolerable for no reason other than being in the wrong ethnic group.
"Entirely"? How does this make sense?
Outlawing (or curtailing) recourse when someone harms you is the most anti-libertarian thing there is.
As for being upset about this or that spying program, I'm looking for some place where the spying program was used in a manner to harm a US citizen who was not actually a criminal or a terrorist. I'm coming up short on that one.
That's unsurprising, since there's usually a few decades of lead time before you find out about these things.
Having said that, there are plenty of examples of real harm to non-criminals, but we don't know how much can be attributed to the wholesale spying program as such.
There is a problem with the Copyright Holders wanting to have their cake and eat it.
The might license a show to be shown in the UK but not say in Spain. If you are in Spain then these copyright holders don't want you to see the show. End of story.
How can this possibly apply to, say, Radio 4?
After it crashed, it was technically just junk. Or, according to the Shire of Esperance, litter.
I don't want to derail this thread, but it's fair to say that different people have different motives.
It's as relevant today as it was on the day (12 November 2001) that it was published.
So basically, you're advocating bowdlerisation.
...I wonder what size living room the Kinect was designed for.
I find it hard to understand why "are games art?" strikes anyone as enough of a question to even be asked.
You'd think so, but right now there is a small but vocal subset of gamers who are resisting anything which resembles cultural criticism of games and the game industry, but cultural criticism is one of the prices you pay for using the label "art".
I kinda' want to get back to the mode where the crime comes before the investigation, you know?
I broadly agree, but with one important proviso. It's an axiom of modern policing that the best time to stop a criminal is before the crime happens. But the best time to do that is before they become a criminal.
If you know of some community where there is a risk of young people entering a life of crime, what is the right thing to do? You don't wait for them to commit a crime and then nab them; that creates unnecessary victims. You could avoid creating the victim by entrapping them. That gets you a headline, but it also runs the risk of creating a criminal where there was none.
Surely the right thing to do is divert them away from a life of crime? Maybe work with the community to help turn disaffected and disenfranchised young people into productive members of society?
If this was any other kind of crime (e.g. think of most criminal gangs), we would instantly know that was the right thing to do.
If you were heading off into the woods and could only afford one; bear repellent or rabbit repellent, which one would you choose?
Where I live, we don't have bears (apart from drop bears, for which there is no repellent). But assuming that you're talking about the American woods, I would choose insect repellant. Statistically, the most likely creature to kill you in the American woods are insects (e.g. hornets, yellow jackets).
Yes, we are still talking about terrorism here. Spending trillions on combatting the scariest-looking group rather than the actually-most-dangerous group is not security, it is theatre.
Far be it from me to defend the GP, but this question has been settled for millennia, and as such, its use as a "gotcha" point is laughably out of date.
Jews and Christians agree that if you are a Gentile, you are not subject to the laws of Moses. Instead, you are subject to the Noachide Laws (and presumably if you are a Christian, you also follow the commandments of Jesus, but that's a separate issue). This has been mainstream Jewish thinking since the Talmud, and was also affirmed in Christianity at the Council of Jerusalem (see Acts 15 for details).
I don't know if the Noachide Laws were ever affirmed in Islam, but AFAIK everything is covered in Islamic jurisprudence. I presume it's similar story for Bahá'í. Apart from the possible prohibition against black pudding (and that's only a "possible" prohibition), there's nothing in them that's controversial for any brand of Abrahamic monotheist.
That's it, I'm flying Airbus from now on.