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stitchy | 11 years ago | on: Simple genetic models for autism spectrum disorder

"Our model makes two very strong predictions. The first is that the rate of de novo mutations in affected children from multiplex families will be barely above that of an unaffected control population. On this point, the literature presently has conflicting reports [3,6,22]. The samples needed to resolve this question properly, namely blood derived DNAs from multiplex families, has either not yet been collected or sequenced. The second prediction made by our model is that there will be a high rate of transmission of strong alleles in multiplex families, typically from the mother, and in the same genes targeted by de novo mutation in simplex autism. While there is some indirect support for a female carrier effect based on half-sibs [23], a genetic study of transmission based on the targets of de novo mutation is only now possible [21]."

This seems like a succinct summary for the paper. Or at least, it's the part that stuck out to me.

stitchy | 12 years ago | on: Just go home

Interesting choice in wording (emphasis mine:)

"I no longer have to sit at my desk pretending to complete tasks, as the only person I am cheating is myself."

stitchy | 12 years ago | on: Why I Dislike EC2

I wish that the author had actually included a benchmark with nice pretty graphs. The list of example hardware is nice, but doesn't tell me nearly as much as a couple of benchmarks would. Blanket statements such as "EC2's price-to-performance ratio is horrible" don't really do much to convince me. Yeah, the author is probably correct. But to what extent is he correct?

stitchy | 13 years ago | on: Why Did The Media Keep The Recent Peaceful Icelandic Revolution Quiet?

Actually, I do recall stories about revolution in Iceland. Which is why I was so surprised to see this article use the word "peaceful" revolution. I recall riots in Iceland making a big stir back in 2009. Indeed, after a quick Google search I found this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Icelandic_financial_crisis....

Snippet from the Wikipedia article:

"On 20 January 2009, the protests intensified into riots. Between 1,000 and 2,000 people clashed with riot police, who used pepper spray and batons, around the building of the parliament (Althing), with at least 20 people being arrested and 20 more needing medical attention for exposure to pepper spray.[3][11] Demonstrators banged pots and honked horns to disrupt the year's first meeting of Prime Minister Geir Haarde and the Althing. Some broke windows of the parliament house, threw skyr and snowballs at the building, and threw smoke bombs into its backyard.[2][3][12] The use of pots and pans saw the local press refer to the event as the 'Kitchenware Revolution'.[13]"

[2] ^ a b Gunnarsson, Valur (21 January 2009). "Icelandic lawmakers return to work amid protests". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 31 January 2009. Retrieved 22 January 2009.

[3] ^ a b c "Iceland protesters demand government step down". Reuters. 20 January 2009. Archived from the original on 3 February 2009. Retrieved 22 January 2009.

[12] ^ "Icelanders held over angry demo". BBC. 21 January 2009. Archived from the original on 24 January 2009. Retrieved 22 January 2009

[13] ^ Ian Parker, Letter from Reykjavík, "Lost," The New Yorker, 9 March 2009, p. 39.

stitchy | 13 years ago | on: Starbucks, Google and Amazon: the tax crash of Monday afternoon

As I read the article, I kept wanting to write "citation" in the margins for nearly every assertion that the author made. He is clearly passionate about the subject. I applaud the attempt to hold multi-national companies responsible for their actions. However, this read more like opinion and gut feeling than a well researched article. I want to know what the law says. Exactly what laws are being broken? What is the wording? Justify the statement that "each of the companies made such a mess of this event" with quotes and counter quotes. Don't just tell me your opinion.

stitchy | 13 years ago | on: Java's Cover (April 2001)

Sure, if you have the choice. But that's were the Hacker News startup culture and the enterprise development culture diverge. In a small startup you can dictate the tools. In an enterprise company you may not have any say in the matter. You can either complain endlessly about it (and boy howdy are people willing to complain endlessly) or you can do your job to the best of your ability with the tools available.

I understand where you're coming from though. I just think that you need to know a lot of context about the developer in question before you dismiss him/her over their tool choices. You need to know why they used those tools and how well they learned them.

But what it really comes down to is how fast the developer can learn something new. I'm fairly confident that I understand enough about programming language concepts to be up and running with a new language in a few days. I might not know the API (if one is provided) but I will probably be able to contribute to the team pretty quickly.

stitchy | 13 years ago | on: Java's Cover (April 2001)

I was going to say almost exactly the same thing. The items that he listed are certainly detrimental from a startup perspective, but for a big company I think that they are actually arguments in favor of Java. Unfortunately for Paul Graham, and his prediction, the big companies have had more say in adoption than the startups. I agree with you. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. But, it wouldn't necessarily have been obvious at the time.

Personally, I dislike the language wars. I think that a good developer should be able to write good software with the tools available. Arguing the opposite always smacked of the "silver bullet" to me.

stitchy | 13 years ago | on: Fred Wilson says venture capital funds have gotten too big

I'm curious why Fred Wilson would proclaim to the world that investing in his VC firm isn't going to give you the return that you're looking for these days. Is there a short term gain for him that I'm not seeing? Or is Wilson genuinely trying to change an industries path with a few words of wisdom? I'm not suggesting that his advice is bad. It seems to make sense to me.

stitchy | 13 years ago | on: Hacker News is 44% 18-24 year olds, 77% male

I'm interested in what type of articles the 18-24 year olds submit/read versus other age groups. For instance, I'm in the 25-34 age range, and I almost never care about the JavaScript, CoffeeScript, or other client-side language articles. I tend to read the software methodology, software tool tips/tricks, and gee-wiz-look-how-fast-tech-is-moving articles.

stitchy | 13 years ago | on: Spring Dependency Injection Styles – Why I love Java based configuration

"So if you like constructor injection you have two options: component scanning or XML."

I only half agree that this is a limitation. I use as little component scanning as possible. I think it's better to scan for the configuration classes (hopefully there aren't many) and explicitly define the rest. I like this for two reasons, first for speed and second because everything is defined in a fairly central place. I can't tell you how many times I've been surprised by annotation based configuration.

Personally I like Spring's Java Configuration over Guice's. It's more flexible for my needs. Although I suppose that an argument could be made that that's the problem: configuration over convention.

I'm glad you mentioned the Guice style @inject is available with Spring now. I wasn't aware of that.

stitchy | 14 years ago | on: The Cab Ride I'll Never Forget

I like this quote from Penn Jillete on the subject of the afterlife: "I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day."

stitchy | 14 years ago | on: The Cab Ride I'll Never Forget

I'm an Atheist, but I often find beauty in religious artwork, writing, or music. In fact, I find myself listening to Christian music fairly often. It's very difficult to divorce yourself from all things religious. We're constantly surrounded by it (next Christmas time, try putting yourself in the mindset of an Atheist.) As an Atheist I can either become embittered by that fact, or I can find value in it despite core differences. I choose the latter option. That said, I take issue with many religious concepts, hence the Atheism.

stitchy | 14 years ago | on: OO is not Computing, Newer is not More modern

I'm interested in what alternatives that the author has for the Object Oriented "zealots." I'm assuming that his alternative is a functional language. Personally, I think that functional languages are great, but I don't think that's any reason to flame Java/C++/C#. These are great tools. They were created for specific reasons, and they can certainly be used in efficient ways. Of course, they can also be horribly abused. I don't think that it's fair to say that any particular language is the end-all be-all for development. You have to pick the right tool for the job.

stitchy | 14 years ago | on: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

I agree with you. But now that you mention it, it seems like utility vehicles get used more often. Rich toys often stay in the garage with the other rich toys.

stitchy | 14 years ago | on: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

The comments here seem to fall into two unrelated categories: "Tesla isn't telling customers the whole story" and "What did people expect to happen when they left their car unplugged for months?"

Both are valid points. Why are you arguing? The points don't seem mutually exclusive to me. Tesla has a lot going for it. They make innovative cars, and I would love to own one. That doesn't make the company's PR responses any less defensive and cagey. The response for this particular issue is a big turn off for me. I would definitely prefer that they didn't contradict themselves within the first three paragraphs.

I get it. Owners of Tesla cars need to charge their cars or they will be out $40,000. That makes sense to me. Batteries don't last forever. My Mother however doesn't care how the car works. She just wants it to work. She'll do the maintenance that you ask her to do, but she's not going to know why. So, she won't know why she can't leave the car at the airport for a month.

That's why it's important for Tesla to say, "yes this is an important issue that is part of maintaining your car." Not, "A single blogger is spreading a rumor about electric vehicles becoming inoperable." If my Mother read that last sentence, she might say to herself, "oh, I guess that blogger was just lying," and move on without reading the whole article, now assuming that it's not possible to "brick" her car.

I also lay some blame at Michael Degusta's feet. I don't think that it was appropriate for him to title his article "'It’s A Brick' – Tesla Motors’ Devastating Design Problem." I don't see this as a design problem. It works. The potential for bricking your car is just something you'll have to watch out for, just like not changing your oil is something you need to watch out for.

I think that Tesla was just reacting against the accusation that they had a design flaw. As long as they make sure that all of their customers know of the issue, it's not a design flaw. At that point it's maintenance. That's where I think that Tesla failed today. They skimped on their responsibility of informing the customer of important facts, so that they could come out smelling like roses.

P.S. Incidentally, if I were to take a trip to my mountain home in Italy for half a year, roughly how much would I expect to pay in electricity to keep my Tesla vehicle charged? Does it draw a constant amount of power for the entire time that I'm away?

stitchy | 14 years ago | on: Why I Hate Android

Fair enough. I still think that the FCC would have sided with Verizon even if Google hadn't.
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