minimize_me's comments

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: A Practical Intro to Data Science

Depends on the analysis lifecycle I think - I hate using Matlab for writing any sort of large experimental framework in, especially if it has to interact with other systems, but for quick and dirty experiments, plotting, or parallelizing totally independent for-loops eg. for a grid-search over some model hyper-parameters, it's great (the latter is literally changing "for" to "parfor". After you fork out for the Parallel Computing Toolbox of course.) But then a lot of code in research is written in the style of use-code-for-a-week->get a graph->curve is higher than their curve?->publication.

When I need to write something more substantive and reusable though, Python forever.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: The Disposable Academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time (2010)

Well, I meant the software engineer job market...

I don't think mechanical engineers get any perks anyway.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: The Disposable Academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time (2010)

I do sometimes wonder if this "PhD is a waste of time" is being pushed so heavily to get a glut of the best computer science grads, who would otherwise consider a PhD, onto the engineer job market. A cute little trick to drive down the salaries a bit, cut back on the perks...

I mean, people posting links like this, on this board, don't really have English lit grads in mind, do they?

Not that I disagree with the sentiment entirely, but it seems to be getting a lot of mileage the past few months.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: Bacteria in the Intestines May Help Tip the Bathroom Scale, Studies Show

And also that weight isn't the variable you should be optimizing, but rather body composition.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

Zimbabwe. Or South Africa.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

You could pop over to Zim to see what's wrong with that statement.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: Why American Eggs Would Be Illegal In A British Supermarket, And Vice Versa

Wiping things out full-stop is difficult - look at myxomatosis application in Australia.

"Deadly [to rabbits] disease kills rabbits. It's completely expected, not amazing at all."

And yet, rabbits have regained a significant foothold in Australia, despite myx absolutely decimating the population in the 50s. It's not just about micro-scale effectiveness, it's about effective timing and implementation. Same goes for AIDs meds in Africa, or forest fires.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: Hackathons are bad for you

This line of logic could be used as a justification for doing anything. "Meth is bad for you? So is going outside, cos pollution or something."

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: Simple Charters: Instant Private Flights

The 3rd slide (coin-based histogram) has a disingenuous scale...is the vertical axis exponential or something?!

[edit] Looking further down, it turns out that all their graphs are horrific.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: Ask HN: How can I outsource DevOps?

http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/About+Opscode+Chef

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens

Sounds a lot like federal drug law enforcement coupled with mandatory minimums.

minimize_me | 13 years ago | on: Show HN: Mince pie tracker

http://isitchristmas.com/