monkeyjoe's comments

monkeyjoe | 1 year ago | on: The number of exceptional people: Fewer than 85 per 1M across key traits

How does this pass as science?? There is no actual data on people. They simulated from a multivariate normal and then reported the frequency of observations where all three dimensions were one or more standard deviations above the mean. This has no bearing on the actual number of exceptional people, the results follow only from the assumed correlations and the assumption of normality (which is probably wrong).

monkeyjoe | 1 year ago | on: The CAP theorem of Clustering: Why Every Algorithm Must Sacrifice Something

I think there is hidden gold in the linked research paper. In the second to last paragraph, it says if you are willing to discard the trivial partition (each point on its own) from Richness, then you *can* have Scale-Invariance and Refinement-Consistency as well. To me this suggests an optimal (in some sense) class of algorithms, perhaps to be chosen from based on computational complexity, cross-validation, etc.

monkeyjoe | 2 years ago | on: About math limitations

> Rational numbers are numbers that we can have in our hand while irrational numbers are ones which we can never have. It is important to have a setup that respects that difference.

Do you mean physically? Basic shapes like circles, squares and triangles allow us to hold irrational numbers in our hands as distances. Children playing with blocks can sense that root 2 does not conform nicely with other (rational) distances.

monkeyjoe | 2 years ago | on: Mobile phone calls linked with increased risk of high blood pressure

This study would be a lot more credible if they asked about cell phone use on follow up and then differenced everyone against their prior reporting, to determine if *changes* in cell phone use (and other control factors that might change over time) increased risk of hypertension. Still not perfect because of the long time lag to follow up, but much better. Either they didn’t know to do this or they did but then didn’t find the desired results… either way, not a good look.

monkeyjoe | 4 years ago | on: FCC Call Authentication Trust Anchor Final Rule (Jan 2022)

OP here.

I've seen much recent discussion on HN about robocalls not being resolved by the new STIR/SHAKEN protocol arising from the TRACED Act. I found this on https://regulations.gov and thought it would be of interest.

The big US providers have implemented the STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication framework as of mid-2021 but there was a 2-year extension to mid-2023 for small providers. The implementation appears to have been ineffective at stopping robocalls because of origination via the exempt small providers. The FCC has now passed a rule that a subset of small providers (those most likely to be originating illegal robocalls) must be in compliance by mid-2022.

TLDR - if this works there should finally be a dropoff in robocalls this summer.

monkeyjoe | 4 years ago | on: Start Self Hosting

Sure, but my old Google cloud apps on python 2.7 will one day get rug-pulled and forced to upgrade. It can only stay working forever if the platform doesn't change underneath it.

monkeyjoe | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: Solving problems by mapping to other problems that we know how to solve

Got a reference for this?

My understanding is Nash equilibrium exists in any game with finite states, regardless of perfect or imperfect information.

The bit about announcing your strategy holds by definition - the equilibrium is defined such that no player can improve, thus it doesn't matter if the other player's strategy is known. Also, I don't think there's a requirement that Nash strategies be reachable by iteration.

monkeyjoe | 4 years ago | on: Arxiv.org reaches a milestone and a reckoning

I think it's because the publisher retains copyright. There is a limit on how "done" the manuscript can be and still be shared for free online. Some universities have started to fight back against this by limiting the scope of copyright restrictions that publishers can impose.
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