WingNews logo WingNews GitHub [2]

proemeth's comments

proemeth | 13 years ago | on: Swedish Exchange paralyzed by buy order for "-6 stocks"

"Sweden's gross domestic product, by comparison, amounted in 2011 to more than 3500 billion."

The irony.

Looks like a typo, it should be around 500bn$. 3500 would be Germany. Proof that "fat finger" human mistakes can do as much damage as algos gone wild.

proemeth | 15 years ago | on: Deliberate Practice: How Education Fails to Produce Expertise

I am not sure custom curricula are a good idea. Education is more about how it's learnt and less about what is learnt. Beware of technology's cognitive biases too, see how TV is transforming education into entertainment. Computers have their own biases, just see the difference between today's teenagers and teenagers from 15 years ago.

proemeth | 15 years ago | on: On the evidence of a single coin toss

This is a bayesian problem, depending on the a priori probability given to a "special dice" pri,

P = 2 * pri / (1+pri)

(Which is > to the probability before tossing)

proemeth | 15 years ago | on: What Do Real Thugs Think of The Wire?

One thing that can be both a quality and a problem, is that The Wire is very demanding. A lot of what happens is implicit or not directly seen on camera. Also, episodes are not as self-contained as, for instance Mad Men, where you can watch one stand-alone, without needing too much background on who's who, and what happened before.

proemeth | 16 years ago | on: Teal and Orange - Hollywood, Please Stop the Madness

Yes, but instead of manipulating them separately, they apply one same filter to all the film, even frames with now face in it. Which means some frames have no contrast in them (screenshot Wolfman #2), others make irrelevant objects stand out (Hot Tub #2). Great article.

proemeth | 16 years ago | on: Programming is the new literacy

Digital literacy (how to use technology/computers) maybe, programming literacy I am more sceptical. The use of computers and basic tools is more vital than programming for the average person. Most employers require it, soon it will be necessary to buy basic services (plane ticket, concert ticket).

proemeth | 16 years ago | on: Philip K. Dick on Blade Runner

The Martian Chronicles is SF, maybe not Hard SF, but SF. That's where the limit between SF and fantastic is blury, but in that regard Dick is sometimes more fantasy, or not so science (consider Time Out of Joint for instance, probable inspiration for the Truman Show).

proemeth | 16 years ago | on: Philip K. Dick on Blade Runner

What i found most insightful is the "monotous death" he says SF is at risk of settling into. All the brilliant SF's reputation is overshadowed by the pulp works with tasteless covers, and people tend to think of SF as children's books, not serious (if you compare it to "classic" litterature). We need more works like Bradbury's, that are in themselves brilliant litterature (look at the prose in Fahrenheit 451!) as well as SF.
page 1
more