lomendil's comments

lomendil | 12 years ago | on: So You Think You Have a Power Law

I love Clauset, Shalizi, and Newman for keeping up this fight. Even if you agree with them, you still have to include a linear regression in your paper to satisfy reviewers.

I was surprised to see this on HN, though. I guess everyone is trying to use power laws in one way or another.

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: Andrew Ng and the Quest for the New AI

I just saw Jeff Hawkins give a talk and it was quite interesting. I was a bit worried, however, that he is basing his theory of intelligence on the human neocortex, while claiming to go after general principles.

This is guaranteed not to be terribly general, considering the many bits of matter on this planet that exhibit intelligence without a neocortex. By many, I mean ones that hugely outnumber humans.

So very interesting stuff, but not the answer that I think he wants it to be.

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: Turn your browser into a notepad with one line

For vim, I just open an unnamed buffer (:new). I think this is exactly the same as the scratch buffer in emacs.

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: The "Clockwise/Spiral Rule" in C

I can't imagine using this for real. Perception is so much more parallel than that. If I see

  char *(*fp)(int)

I see that it matches the pattern

  returntype *(*function)(args)

It's the "* (* )()" that one sees all at once, and that signifies "this is a function pointer".

This actually reminds me of some research where kids are asked to trace the direction of interlocked gears. They start by looking at each one, but soon they move to more general strategies. Edit - this is the one, in case anyone is curious: Dixon, J. A., & Bangert, A. S. (2002). The prehistory of discovery: precursors of representational change in solving gear system problems. Developmental Psychology, 38(6), 918.

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: How do we read code?

I think that decade is now. Brains work nothing like computers. Well, as much as they do like plumbing systems ;)

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: How do we read code?

Eye tracker hardware is tricky and therefore usually expensive, but on the software side there are good tools. I've used VisionEgg[0] with an Eyelink II system and found it quite easy to deal with.

[0] http://www.visionegg.org/

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: Programming is not a craft

I remember seeing a shift in CS student populations, say around 1999, from people who already had a self-developed interest in computing to people who wanted to learn programming as a trade to make money. The first group had probably taught themselves programming and had already been tinkering with system internals and hardware. They were programming because they were drawn to it for whatever reasons.

I think the author of this piece is from the latter group. To that group, software as craft just doesn't fit into their world. Whereas I think the first group has an understanding that beauty on the inside of a program shows on the outside too, especially over time.

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: $ whois facebook.com

If this is about weird/vulgar statements with FACEBOOK.COM in the name, they exist for just about every big domain. Whois queries return results for subdomain matches.

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: Neuroscience: Under Attack

fMRI: Modern day phrenology

lomendil | 13 years ago | on: An Intuitive Guide to Linear Algebra

I found "Linear Algebra Done Right" to be a much more intuitive introduction to the subject. It doesn't get to determinants until the end.

http://linear.axler.net/

After going through that course I finally understood things like eigenvectors, null spaces, and projections. Now I see them everywhere (unless you think that's a curse)