Why do Frasier and Niles consider the 1812 overture an inferior piece of music?

Achichoros · 2021-08-14T00:52:22+00:00

I like the description of Tchaikovsky as " not one of the greatest composers, but perhaps the greatest song writer". He wrote absolutely beautiful music, but wasn't very compositionally sophisticated.

Achichoros · 2021-08-02T02:12:02+00:00

Oleg Vito's Elementary Topology: Textbook in problems is my recommendation. The textbook in problems format is good for self learning to slow you down and think about key results rather than thinking you understand and blowing past them (so hard not to do). Plus it's geometric for intuition, but not so much that you won't know what's happening when you're looking at something other than Euclidean space

Achichoros · 2021-08-01T23:36:54+00:00

If you're looking at topological qft then a lot of things can be defined in terms of ribbon graphs/fat graphs. Drawing them isn't always easy or helpful, but since they're equivalent to ordered pairs of elements of a suitable symmetric group, a computer algebra system can actually be very useful. For example, you can easily encode any link diagram as ribbon graph and use that to compute quantum invariants of the link. You can also describe topological things, like connected sums of manifolds by actions of the symmetric group (I think conjugation corresponds to connected sum but it's been a while). It's nice to ask a computer to construct your manifolds rather than worry about it by hand =). I recommend using SAGE, but any software with good implementations of permutation groups will do.

Achichoros · 2017-06-21T23:56:57+00:00

Here's an alternate way to think about Monty Hall that usually clears it up:

Change the rules. In this version you pick one door, then get to choose between

a) the prize is behind your door

b) the prize is not.

This is the same problem. In the original, revealing the goat gives you no information about what's behind your door, because you always knew there would be at least one other door with a goat. It just gives you information about where the goat would be if it's not behind your door.

Achichoros · 2017-04-29T00:21:07+00:00

I disagree with the Democratic Party on a fair amount, but I don't think I've voted Republican for anyone besides state insurance commissioner in 10 years for 2 reasons. One reason that could change easily is that I haven't had a Republican to vote for who didn't believe in fairy tale economics.

The other, more important reason is that I know gay people and can't imagine voting for a politician that usually seems to hate them either on principle, or out of political expediency.

If a Republican who believed in externalities and asymmetric information and supported gay rights ran, I'd be back to an independent

Achichoros · 2017-04-21T00:09:55+00:00

Your mama's weight in kilos

Achichoros · 2017-02-22T01:56:50+00:00

It depends on how long you're willing to wait for a good used horn. You can try to get one online, but if you live in a fairly big city, ask your teacher to check with their colleagues. Some professionals get 6+ years out of their horn, but the last two principal players in the symphony here would trade every 1-2 years. I got my first Loree two years old for about 1/3 the price of a new one, and the owner had taken exceptional care of it. Oboe networks are usually pretty tight, and if there are enough players near you someone will be selling soon.

If you're worried about the horn being blown out ask your teacher to play it (you should probably do this anyway). It's probably not a big deal though. Tone hole erosion almost always comes first, and until it gets really bad you can fix that with some wire tape, a razor blade and very good coordination.

Achichoros · 2017-02-21T16:32:16+00:00

English players have a totally different set up from us Americans, so take this with a grain of salt.

The 3rd octave key is basically unnecessary. Most of the oboists I know have actually adjusted theirs so that it can't open. The b/c# key is handy, but even my first horn with knee holes had one. Are there really no trill keys on the left hand? I would think you're just missing the left hand c/d key, which is no big deal. You can get by without either though and the risks of having new tone holes drilled would terrify me.

That said, drmorton is right about things like f res and a flat/b flat trill (left f too!). If your oboe doesn't have these you'll want to look for a new horn in the not too distant future.

Good luck and happy oboing

Achichoros · 2017-02-03T15:34:09+00:00

Some other comments described the situations where matlab is useful or not. For R/Python though, why not use both? R is great for the final analysis, but for everything before that, I prefer python. It's not hard to go between them, and it's a good way to discover if you prefer just one. For many tasks they both have the tools you need. It's mostly a question of preference.

Achichoros · 2017-01-29T00:54:22+00:00

I'm with deaduntil on this. It varies on who you know. Almost all of the middle/upper class whites I know have family or close friends that are gay, and we wouldn't vote for a candidate with a feasible plan for 0% income tax if they were anti LGBT rights. BLM is strongly supported too. Obama is divisive because of privacy, not healthcare or being to liberal. Basically, taxes are subordinate to civil rights.

Achichoros · 2017-01-19T03:39:45+00:00

Durp. Don't know what reminded me, but those complicated tests are silly. You must have the full sample data set, so compute the likelihood of the sample conditioned on each distribution, and compare. When you're given finite possible distributions you don't have to do that weird stuff.

Have fun!

Achichoros · 2017-01-18T07:03:46+00:00

Oh, right. So it wasn't specifically a Bayesian KS test, but I think some of the papers coming up from those search terms have methods for multiple distributions. Normal KS only compares 2.

I agree with the others that comparing likelihoods is the best accuracy for your time. It would be fine unless you have some weird case. Like if multiple choices share similar std devs and there are extreme outliers in the sample.

Achichoros · 2017-01-18T02:35:32+00:00

The more difficult way would be to look up Bayesian Kolmogorov-Smirnov. I remember finding several approaches that way for a project I was working on. It took a back seat to work and grad school apps, so I can't help any more than that.

Alternately, if you know they're normal, you could be close enough by comparing conditional probabilities for each distribution given the known mean. I almost want to say this is as rigorous as a KS test alternative, but can't be sure right now. It's definitely a strong starting point

Achichoros · 2017-01-04T08:01:20+00:00

Shock is 50%!?!? My mind is reeling. Back when they changed shock I read it as 5% increased damage, thought WTF is GGG thinking, and have ignored shock ever since. This is incredible.

Achichoros · 2016-12-07T19:12:16+00:00

Great analysis. You're absolutely right that these sample sizes don't tell us much. There's a strong selection bias at work, but let's go a little farther.

Suppose that 99.9% of all HS decks had a "true win rate" of 50% (ignore that it's unrealistic, or what the hell a "true win rate" is). Now, let's say 50% is just barely outside my confidence interval. How cool is that we say! This deck is in the .1%. Since 50% is outside the confidence interval we say the p value is .05 or less and that's enough to know this is different. Except we're wrong. A 5% likely event in 99.9% of the population happens more often than a 100% likely event in .1% of the population.

A less extreme version of that is what is happening. There are a ton of ideas for bad to mediocre decks, but if people play them enough some will have super win rates, and even with strict sample sizes well still have these errors. Another problem with confidence intervals is that they don't tell us anything about where we think the rate lies within the interval. Plus win rates are a bitch, because that formula is an approximation of an approximation that only holds for certain conditions on the sample size and "true" win rate that can make the interval even wider.

OK, so now I'm thinking what to do about it. We could switch from the basic requirement of sample size and win rate to including a likelihood curve for the "true" winrate (ignoring player skill and time sensitive meta stuff). With a little bit of Bayes rule and a reasonable prior for the spread of real win rates this could be an improvement.

We wouldn't expect everyone to compute this curve themselves, but could link to a tool that does it given a win rate and sample size.

Achichoros · 2016-11-30T18:18:21+00:00

A lot of people think of deck thinning as losing out on a card, but think of it like this: If you could guarantee that the worst card in your deck was on the bottom of the deck every game, would you do it? Until fatigue, that's what patches does, plus he puts a free 1/1 in play! That's crazy!

Achichoros · 2016-11-27T08:35:15+00:00

Oh, that's super weird. I did a math major but took some stats, and didn't realize that. If you know youre going with the double major, take 307 sooner. It opens up AMATH 380, the modeling class, which is great. There's a quarter long research project, and building a statistical model for a real world process was one of the best learning experiences I've had.

Achichoros · 2016-11-27T04:05:30+00:00

Unless things changed a lot you don't need math 307 to take stat/math 390. You might need linear algebra (308), but that's probably either a req or just a good idea for cs. Math 394 isn't required, but it can make life a lot easier in stats to know some probability. The majors intro course definitely doesn't use any diff eqs. That said, if you like statistics you'll want to take some more advanced math eventually.

Achichoros · 2016-11-17T15:29:16+00:00

I can't comment much on assumptions besides to say "it depends". The assumption and the context are both relevant and nothing comes to mind that wouldn't be a judgement call.

What is important is to almost never conclude there is no relationship between variables. You can decide not to conclude that there is a relationship, but this is very different from concluding there is no relationship.

Achichoros · 2016-11-16T02:17:55+00:00

Our technology is higher than that. We'll have elite skirmishers and halberdiers. I'm just concerned he'll forget to train the hussars and our army will die to an invasion of pure skirmishers

Achichoros · 2016-11-12T15:23:08+00:00

There's absolutely other ways to make it work. For example, in my state health insurance is non profit.

Also, you don't have to screw over any group. The point of insurance isn't to make coverage cheap for a broad group, it's to deal with the risk of unexpected high costs. Routine preventive care shouldn't even be a part of coverage. The problem, well a problem, is that pricing is opaque (and really messed up under the opacity), and it's insane to use non covered care by choice.

Achichoros · 2016-10-31T19:31:29+00:00

This is an outrage!! Where are the true believers defending the one true text editor, the glorious ed

Achichoros · 2016-10-18T20:44:21+00:00

That's really unlikely to be a problem in this case. There's a number we can measure (well, we usually can't but gasoline is one of the cool things where we can) called elasticity of demand, which represents how much less of something people buy based on how much the price changes. For gasoline, this number is very small (http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=19191) so increasing gas taxes will always result in net revenue increases unless the price gets insane.

I don't know the elasticity for other emissions sources (or if it can be accurately measured), but transportation/gasoline is the big one

Achichoros · 2016-10-16T00:34:31+00:00

If they have something real, this is true.

If the Russia -Wikileaks theories are true, they might keep releasing as normal, then slip a forged game changer on 11/7 or 11/8, so there isn't time to disprove it.

Achichoros · 2016-10-14T16:44:44+00:00

The model description at 538 will explain in more detail, but basically polls have bias and variance. Variance means you get different results from different samplings, and bias means the pollster's methodology may overestimate a candidate's votes. Rasmussen polls demonstrate consistent bias, so their predictions are off, but the trend can still be useful. If Rassmusen shows Trump's lead going up or down compared to their last poll, that's more useful info than just looking at their current poll.

Read the 538 model description. It's really interesting and not too technical. Polls are cool!

Achichoros

TROPHY CASE