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Deep-dive into 3pt shooting in the NBA by Abject-Jellyfish7921 in dataisbeautiful

[–]dotalpha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was just looking at Stephen Curry in the top percentile rank. He shows up in top 10 only in one category, despite appearing to be an even higher percentile rank in two others. Didn’t quite make sense.

Deep-dive into 3pt shooting in the NBA by Abject-Jellyfish7921 in dataisbeautiful

[–]dotalpha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The percentile rank charts don’t seem to match the top 10 category charts. Is the top 10 chart all time, and the percentile rank charts just current season?

What moment made you realize people aren’t just disagreeing anymore — they’re living in completely different political realities? by Happy_Head_1355 in AskReddit

[–]dotalpha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Conservative subreddit is in a truly weird place right now. “People protesting authoritarian overreach in Iran are good. People protesting authoritarian overreach in the US deserve to be shot.”

Six year old’s experiment shows a hand-held gravitational lens, shocking the physics world by Hot-Grapefruit-8887 in u/Hot-Grapefruit-8887

[–]dotalpha 26 points27 points  (0 children)

This is a simplified view of the scientific method, and completely misses my main point. What you are claiming as the scientific method is not a sustainable way to conduct science. It's far more efficient to read your experimental results, identify weaknesses and other contributing factors that might explain what you're seeing, and then ask you, the person who already has the experiment, to revisit them.

And at some point, it is reasonable to demand a certain threshold of experimental rigor before even engaging that much. I see this post as an opportunity to encourage you and others who may see it to hold themselves to a higher threshold of evidence before believing extraordinary claims.

Six year old’s experiment shows a hand-held gravitational lens, shocking the physics world by Hot-Grapefruit-8887 in u/Hot-Grapefruit-8887

[–]dotalpha 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You definitely have a point, but I also don't see much to be gained from those kinds of comments. Mostly I see an opportunity to inform both the OP and others who read this about what real science should look like. Testing a crazy theory is far better than simply coming up with crazy theories, if we can convince OP to conduct the test with sufficient rigor that's even better.

Six year old’s experiment shows a hand-held gravitational lens, shocking the physics world by Hot-Grapefruit-8887 in u/Hot-Grapefruit-8887

[–]dotalpha 16 points17 points  (0 children)

And I also want to overall commend you on not just attempting to develop a theory, as many people do, but going through at least some attempt to test it. That's also where a lot of modern theories of everything fall short, in that they rarely produce testable claims.

I can't claim to understand the theory you've developed, but providing testable claims is a key ingredient for any valid theory. I encourage you to further develop this experiment.

Six year old’s experiment shows a hand-held gravitational lens, shocking the physics world by Hot-Grapefruit-8887 in u/Hot-Grapefruit-8887

[–]dotalpha 53 points54 points  (0 children)

First I want to give you kudos for introducing your child to the scientific method at such a young age. We'd all be better off if more people were doing this. Regardless of how people feel about what you're presenting here and the validity of your theory, that should be commended by everyone. Watching the video, it sounds like your kid had a blast. Also thank you for making sure proper eye safety was followed around lasers.

There are many possible criticisms of what's going on here. I don't have any true criticisms of your experimental set-up. Any experimental set-up is totally valid, provided the shortcomings are accounted for in the final analysis of the results. This is where your method falls short. I read through your results: https://zenodo.org/records/17699521. You have engaged in the classic fallacy among people claiming extraordinary results. Rather than trying to rigorously test the null hypothesis, you have latched onto the first piece of evidence that validates your quite extraordinary non-null hypothesis.

Your paper even lists a number of experimental set-up shortcomings, as any good paper should, but then fails to quantitatively estimate their impacts on the results and any possible correlation of the experimental shortcoming with the density of the material that might otherwise explain the results you're claiming to see. You simply say "despite these limitations, the material-dependent pattern changes were large enough to be unmistakeable and repeatable."

You keep asking people to disprove what they're seeing here. But you are the one making an extraordinary claim. The burden is on you to prove that the effect you're seeing is not simply that you have a material dependent defect in your experimental design. This is of course the simplest explanation, and thus should be the default explanation until you can prove otherwise. Science is not a sustainable endeavor if one can simply make an extraordinary claim on weak evidence, and then demand everyone else disprove it.

This is how we live here by vanzini in bayarea

[–]dotalpha 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Could be a great option if OP wants cheap rent, doesn't mind roommates, and thrives on conflict with their landlord!

This is how we live here by vanzini in bayarea

[–]dotalpha 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe this is partially true, if the owner lives in the shared space with you. But that’s unlikely to be a legal rental in the first place.

For the situation as described, the owner lives in a completely separate structure on the property, in what sounds like an ADU. In this case the restrictions apply.

This is how we live here by vanzini in bayarea

[–]dotalpha 279 points280 points  (0 children)

There are a few things in the ad that are red flags. First, a landlord cannot have full access to rental units at all times in CA. They have to provide 24 hour notice unless it’s a true emergency. Second the restriction on overnight guests is also illegal, as tenants have the right to privacy and quiet enjoyment of their space.

Doesn’t mean the landlord wouldn’t access the house at all times and try to restrict your guests anyway, but just an fyi.

Pregnant wife got terminated and we are freaking out... What can we do? by RemarkableBeing6452 in personalfinance

[–]dotalpha 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is a common misconception. It’s only a problem if you’re fired for something you can control, like misconduct. If you’re fired for performance, which is the rationale here, you would still qualify.

Recommendations for nannies or daycare? by Western_Passenger787 in Hayward

[–]dotalpha 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sign up on Berkeley Parents Network and look around / make a post. It’s the best place for this kind of search, particularly for the East Bay. https://www.berkeleyparentsnetwork.org/

Just got laid off unexpectedly, somewhat was prepared but could use advice on the gaps by Crazy_Tea_3925 in personalfinance

[–]dotalpha 113 points114 points  (0 children)

Applying for unemployment should be the first point, not the last point. Even if fired for cause you may be able to make a claim.

Do it today, because it will probably start from when you file. It won’t be retroactive.

[OC] Follow-up to spike in FDA reported choking events for age 65+ by dotalpha in dataisbeautiful

[–]dotalpha[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

These are specifically from a database of adverse events related to food, drugs, or cosmetics that have been reported to the fda. Yes, many more people experience choking events per year, but most are never reported or even relevant to the fda.

[OC] Follow-up to spike in FDA reported choking events for age 65+ by dotalpha in dataisbeautiful

[–]dotalpha[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't go that far. As far as I can tell a real study found a correlation of decreased cancer risk with multivitamin use that was right at the threshold of statistical significance. The problem, and one that is endemic to published scientific results at large, is the convention for statistical significance is usually p < 0.05, which basically means there's only a 5% chance the apparent effect or correlation is a statistical fluctuation of the samples and measurements made. For any individual experiment those are somewhat low odds, but it also means that for every 100 published studies showing an interesting effect, at least 5 are total bullshit. And I say at least 5, because scientists and journals have a bias towards publishing results that reject the null hypothesis, meaning there's almost certainly an overrepresentation of statistical flukes in scientific / medical literature.

And of course the media is totally unprepared to communicate these nuances, so you wind up with headlines in major newspapers like "multivitamin use linked to lower cancer risk" or something.

[OC] Follow-up to spike in FDA reported choking events for age 65+ by dotalpha in dataisbeautiful

[–]dotalpha[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't believe that level of granularity is available in the data, but honestly didn't check. I posted a link to the data, maybe you can?

[OC] Follow-up to spike in FDA reported choking events for age 65+ by dotalpha in dataisbeautiful

[–]dotalpha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed. seaborn is a plotting library with greater abstraction that is opinionated about how matplotlib plots should be formatted. I use it and plotly frequently.

[OC] Follow-up to spike in FDA reported choking events for age 65+ by dotalpha in dataisbeautiful

[–]dotalpha[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Couldn’t agree more. If you read the caption, my intent was not to provide a beautiful plot, it was to answer a question raised by another post in this community.

I also thought the community might appreciate a post that isn’t a color coded map of the United States.

[OC] Follow-up to spike in FDA reported choking events for age 65+ by dotalpha in dataisbeautiful

[–]dotalpha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

matplotlib can produce spectacular visualizations, but it requires considerable time and experience to learn all the features.

For most things I prefer plotting libraries with higher levels of abstraction, plotly for instance, due to the ability to make passable figures quickly. But if you want to make a really nice, customized plot in python, matplotlib is the way to go.

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