rlwolfcastle · HackerTrans

rlwolfcastle

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12 yıl öncediscuss

I hope you have unsoldered your microphone also.

12 yıl öncediscuss

Strangely, the name of the submitters company is "Additive Analytics"

12 yıl öncediscuss

Ignoring that some of the variables don't match up properly (the arrays: card and Card), it seems like the explanation of the first flaw may also be flawed.

Flaw #1: An Off-by-One Error

The algorithm above tries to iterate over each card in the deck, swapping each card with another randomly chosen card in the deck. However—every programmer has made this mistake before—there's an off-by-one error. The function random(n) returns a number between 0 and (n-1), not between 1 and n as the programmer intends. As a result, the algorithm will never swap the 52nd card with itself; the 52nd card can never end up in the 52nd place. So that is the first reason the "random" card shuffling isn't really random.

The comment refers to the Pascal code:

  random_number := random(51)+1;

If the programmer really thought that random was between 1 and n then the random_number variable would be a number between 2 and 52 (1+1 to 51+1). It seems like, instead, a better explanation is that they may have thought random(n) produced a random number between 0 and n, hence the need to increment by one. Another explanation is they just messed up the slicing using 51 instead of 52.

The point being that in the writer's explanation of the flaw they actually make the same mistake.

Funnily enough googling "pascal random" points to a stackoverflow article where the best answer makes the same error.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4965863/how-to-get-a-ran...

12 yıl öncediscuss

With increasing population, it is incredibly simple.

Choose one:

  1. Live further away
  2. Increase number of people per living abode
  3. Increase number of living abodes per space

Numbers one and two are personal choice, number three is political.

12 yıl öncediscuss

The debugger hasn't been born yet.

13 yıl öncediscuss

The port change is a cosmetic difference that does not alter the security of your box one iota. All it currently does is reduce the number of unauthorized attempted logins.

If your box is more vulnerable on port 22 than port 22221 then your problems run orders of magnitude deeper than which port your ssh server runs on.

13 yıl öncediscuss

What they need is military grade math Ph.Ds

13 yıl öncediscuss

There is also no evidence that the quantities and ratios of nutrients in the formula are anywhere near complete or optimal.

The easiest way to illustrate how this can be a problem is to compare the difference between growing cells in minimal media versus complex media, where they grow much faster.

Soylent is basically a crude minimal media for humans. The proper comparison for soylent will be against someone who is eating a complete diet, not someone who is skipping meals or eating poorly.

13 yıl öncediscuss

Why are you assuming that humans have a craving for the "innate satisfaction of eating?"

If you remove that artificial restriction then something like soylent makes a lot more sense.

13 yıl öncediscuss

Personally, I think soylent, as a daily meal replacement, is a horrible idea but, like a lot of things, it will find it's place.

I'm not sure I understand what point you are trying to make above. The argument (as I read it) is that we studied nutrition 70 years ago, Rob isn't a nutritionist, and there is something else you prefer to soylent so it's irrational and no one should use it? That may be an esoteric argument against soylent and Rob but not the idea of soylent.

If you could theoretically develop a solution that you only needed to drink once a day to get all of the nutrients your body needs and feel satiated, why wouldn't you drink that? You could then spend your time doing other things that are more important to you. While for some people they may prefer preparing and cooking food, which is fine, it's not a substantive argument against soylent for those who view eating differently.

The value people get from eating seems a lot fuzzier and humanistic than soylent, which, to me, seems incredibly robotic and rational.

13 yıl öncediscuss

You should remind him that biology is not computing.

13 yıl öncediscuss

Defined Human Minimal Media.

It's an interesting question, just what nutrients does the human body need in order to sustain itself? We have a good definition of what individual cells need but not a lot of data for how the body copes long term with just those nutrients. My guess is that will power will lose out in the end.

13 yıl öncediscuss

Is that 100 mg total or 100 mg per serve?

13 yıl öncediscuss

There is one difference between gold and bitcoin. When you break the encryption on gold, it is still gold.

13 yıl öncediscuss

Bodek ... is famous among traders for having broken the Street's omertà and complained to the Securities Exchange Commission in 2011 -- after his own HFT firm, Trading Machines, crashed and burned

More disgruntled trader than whistleblower?

13 yıl öncediscuss

The stimulation of hunger, the researchers announced in the March issue of Nature Neuroscience, causes mice to take in information more quickly, and to retain it better — basically, it makes them smarter. And that’s very likely to be true for humans as well.

I am a little sceptical of the claim in the last sentence.

13 yıl öncediscuss

Reproducibility seems like it could be a problem.

13 yıl öncediscuss

1. Get it to work

2. Test that it works

3. Optimize (if needed)

If your file is small enough and is a trivial percentage of the overall run time, who cares how it is read?

13 yıl öncediscuss

There have been criticisms of the study’s design and the few attempts that have been made to replicate the results have been mixed.

It's tempting to read too much into these types of results when they are not reproducible.

13 yıl öncediscuss

So I guess, maybe, Eric doesn't have a high enough security clearance to know what is really being done then?