tkt's comments

tkt | 4 years ago | on: SproutLife – Evolving version of Conway’s Game of Life

As it seems like you’re seeing, what evolves depends a lot on what you’re selecting for and the environment they’re ‘growing’ in. This is another paper with more details. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7123229/pdf/978... My favorite stories are the ones where the organisms evolved to be able to detect when they were in the test environment and only performed the high-cost, selected-for behavior there.

tkt | 4 years ago | on: SproutLife – Evolving version of Conway’s Game of Life

This is a neat project! Another interesting project with self-replicating and evolving computer programs is Avida, developed in Charles Ofria’s lab. http://avida.devosoft.org/ It’s been used to research evolutionary processes in collaboration with Richard Lenski who leads the long term E. coli evolution experiment. e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01568

There’s also an Avida-ED version designed for classroom use.

tkt | 5 years ago | on: Launch HN: Daybreak Health (YC S20) – Online counseling designed for teens

Thanks, this is a vital service, especially now when many teens are struggling and virtual is the only option. Designing specifically for virtual may be an advantage over therapists who usually work in person, but are now trying to do the same thing online, but may see challenges in adapting their approach. I didn't see this on your FAQ. Can your counselors prescribe medications, or make referrals if they think it may be needed?

tkt | 8 years ago | on: Changing the Ungit license from MIT to Faircode

It is interesting and important to think about ways to support open source project contributors, especially when the projects are being used in commercial organizations. It would have been better to see this license change idea through an RFC before a change though, and with an attorney’s advice. If he does really want this to be an experiment it would have been good for him to have a better background on the types of license models available and an attorney’s help with license language changes and implications.

tkt | 8 years ago | on: Teaching Pandas and Jupyter to Northwestern journalism students

For installation of Jupyter, Anaconda works well across all platforms, even most slightly older OSes.

http://jupyter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/install.html

It does work better for people to install Jupyter with Anaconda, rather than use virtual environments, because there's not the overhead of also having to learn about virtual environments. People tend to think of them as just associated with the class and don't use them as much for their own work outside of the workshop or course.

tkt | 8 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to not bring emotion from work back home?

Also, not on Stoicism, but "10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story" is a book by Dan Harris, a news correspondent, bringing philosophical approaches to everyday life.

tkt | 8 years ago | on: GitHub Open Source Survey 2017

A lot of great information here that can be used to think about the viability and sustainability of open source projects.

tkt | 8 years ago | on: Paul Buchheit on Lessons Learned from Investing in 200 Startups

> Paul: The best startups come from personal experience. It was something you or someone you know needed.

I've seen this comment before. It emphasizes the need for more founders with diverse backgrounds. More types of problems solved and more opportunities to reach new markets.

tkt | 8 years ago | on: R in Ecology

That's why programs like Data Carpentry and Software Carpentry, mentioned in the article, are so important. http://www.datacarpentry.org. Most universities actually don't have good opportunities for active researchers (graduate students, postdocs, professors, research staff) to learn programming or effective data skills. But, researchers are really looking to learn the skills. https://www.embl-abr.org.au/news/braembl-community-survey-re... DC and SWC help fill that gap by teaching two-day hands-on workshops that meet researchers where they are to give them the skills and perspectives to get out of spreadsheets and into R and Python.

tkt | 9 years ago | on: Reasons blog posts can be of higher scientific quality than journal articles

Titus Brown also a blog post on this earlier this year "The top 10 reasons why blog posts are better than scientific papers" http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/2017-top-ten-reasons-blog-posts.... and it generated similar discussion.

There are a few elements they emphasize.

One is what the blog format enables that traditional publishing doesn't support. Those are things like having real-time feedback and comments, being able to version and making the blog post interactive, rather than a static document. Another element to the format is a lack of gatekeepers, so it can be quickly disseminated and disseminated by anyone, so there aren't barriers to participation in the scientific discourse.

Another is norms and expectations. In blogging, it is more the norm that data and code are open. Open is still possible in traditional publishing; it just isn't yet the norm. A new format however, enables new norms and it's easier to set them from the start, than try to revise existing ones.

Finally, there's the element of 'correctness'. Going through peer review and being in a traditional journal certainly doesn't ensure that the paper is correct. You can just look at retractions to see that http://retractionwatch.com/2011/08/11/is-it-time-for-a-retra.... However it would be interesting to see more evidence around whether the blog format does ultimately lead to more 'correct' conclusions, on the whole, and not just for the posts that lead to a lot of discussion.

tkt | 9 years ago | on: What happens when children don’t have the internet for a whole day

Alternative title "teenagers can't be alone for 8 hours without technology". The issue is being alone with their thoughts. The fact that such a significant number had severe anxiety without access to easy distractions seems problematic. Self-reflection, deeper thinking or ability to focus on a task are important skills.

tkt | 9 years ago | on: Announcing the Journal of Open Source Software

This journal also is also encouraging and rewarding good software development practices, such as documentation, licensing, having the code in version control and testing. These practices are sadly not common in scientific software, partly because there is little academic reward.
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