andy_wrote

6 ms·

1.
by andy_wrote 6y ago
I've recently started going through Axler carefully and doing the problems, a quarantine activity I guess, and have been enjoying it. I actually learned about this book on an older HN post. It does have plenty of matrices. The main thi
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by andy_wrote 6y ago
The asset value underlying an ETF can be negative, but then the owner of the ETF will just have a worthless piece of paper. The ETF managers will have a problem on their hands regarding the negative amount, though. In contrast, a futures co
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by andy_wrote 6y ago
I'm not recommending USO or oil itself as an investment, and I agree that you will be paying money to the ETF manager if you get involved in it. But I don't agree that USO is _more_ dangerous for a casual trader to trade than oil
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by andy_wrote 6y ago
There are ETFs that track oil futures (basically like a stock, but backed by oil instead of a company). It's been a while since I've looked at any of this, but I think USO is still the most prominent. There are plenty of things to
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by andy_wrote 6y ago
I don't know that this is regional so much as colloquial vs. formal. In the US people recognize that the subjunctive is technically correct and use it in formal writing. But it's very common to violate this rule in speech, so much
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by andy_wrote 6y ago
Based on my experience learning Czech (not native at all, just interested): - it's typically listed as a separate letter when writing out the alphabet - but in practice it's typed out as "c h" and not as a single charact
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by andy_wrote 7y ago
Since last Friday I've been making my Zoom virtual background a daily rotation of artwork. It's been a fun and educational experience for me (I'm no art expert, just a casual fan of museums) and I think my friends and co-work
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by andy_wrote 7y ago
I think the part that you have correctly included that people forget or elide is that it's the probability under a specific null hypothesis. So it's a function of what you have chosen for that - normal distributions, a certain par
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by andy_wrote 7y ago
Maybe For Better or For Worse? Most prominent example of a daily comic strip I can remember where characters age in real time.
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by andy_wrote 7y ago
Watterson highlighted that arc in his 10th anniversary collection (which is a really wonderful collection of essays and explanations side by side with strips). It happened relatively early into the comic strip's life and IIRC he regard
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
There are a lot of crossword constructors who publish/sell their puzzles independently on the Internet, and often they create both puz and pdf files. Some sources of free ones: - Brendan Emmett Quigley: https://www.brendanem
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
It would be interesting to see how realistic a cat thinks these are, maybe by measuring brain activity or reactions. It's possible that a cat may not be fooled by cats we think look real, or perhaps more interestingly, that a cat is fo
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
> Spend 50% of the writing time actually writing, the rest tweaking, reading and illustrating. Details are important. I find this true not just of blog posts, but any time I've done formal writing at all. There is an immense gulf in
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
I haven't made the donation yet for 2018, but I make donations every year right at year's end to at least these two charities: - Doctors Without Borders - Direct Relief Global health problems is where I'm most interested in d
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
Some good ones I read this year: - _SPQR_, by Mary Beard. Engaging book surveying the history of ancient Rome, mostly Republic and early Empire if I recall correctly. - _To Explain The World_, by Steven Weinberg. History of physics from the
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
Yes! Although I was an econ major I did the same thing, I dipped my toes into pure math and took some real analysis and abstract algebra. I really found these challenging at times. But the ideas and modes of thinking I gained from these cla
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
Yeah, I'd be very interested to learn about anything about the sensitivities of ridership to other external variables in general. Looking at the article's linked presentation [1] and the MTA's most recent financial plan [2] i
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
I don't know anything about the Israel-Intel deal and have not decided personally how I feel about HQ2 in NYC. But I upvoted your comment because it emphasizes looking at other historical deals, and not just the projections and analysi
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
I really like your last point "whatever the computer is telling is true from the computer point of view". In a surprising number of coding interviews that I've conducted, I've seen a candidate write an incorrect solution
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
I like that Victor Hugo's 19th century version of "deleting apps from your phone" is "deleting your clothes". I have found that an easy, milder nudge, for either computer or mobile device, is to remain logged off of
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
In what may be a case of Baader-Meinhof, I just came across the term "Whiggish" for the first time, reading Steven Weinberg's _To Explain the World_ (pretty good so far). He also has a dig at Kuhn, recounting a time when they
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
This one https://apps.ankiweb.net/ or this one? https://www.ankiapp.com/ If there is much of a difference?
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
I'm in the middle of auditing the Scala track on Courersa. The first course was great. I agree that Odersky is a very good lecturer, organized and easy to follow. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in Scala. The second course w
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by andy_wrote 8y ago
I like the idea of having a centralized exchange for buyers (readers) and sellers (writers). I would actually prefer it to be variable-fee rather than flat-fee, with buyers paying per article, and the exchange truly playing the role of an _
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by andy_wrote 9y ago
I have sometimes looked at old cinema and wondered, "Why did they make so many Westerns?" I figure that in some decades people will be looking at our time and asking, "Why did they make so many superhero movies?"
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by andy_wrote 9y ago
Awesome! I did notice when doing the Spanish tree that I recognized a lot of words just from seeing them around the city, especially from ads and public service announcements on the subway.
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by andy_wrote 9y ago
I've done the Duolingo Spanish tree, and my feeling was the same as the author's regarding "% fluency," which I thought was kind of a joke. Especially for speaking and listening, there's really no substitute for imm
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by andy_wrote 9y ago
I think I understand what you're trying to get at, but I don't think describing a p-value in terms of "pure noise" is quite right. The null hypothesis may well carry with it all sorts of specific assumptions: independenc
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by andy_wrote 9y ago
It seems like it can be construed as a cash handout to owners of BTC, not a spinoff. At least there seems to be disagreement elsewhere on this thread, and from Levine's article. I don't think refusing to require shorts to deliver
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by andy_wrote 9y ago
I'm not knowledgeable about BTC; this is the part that confused me. If you short a stock, and it distributes dividends or stock or ponies, as Levine says, you have to return that to the borrower. I'm not sure if this is law or jus

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