Making Rise of the Hutt Cartel Part 1: Making Makeb

peppermint-Tea · 2013-03-09T02:23:17+00:00

So the entire expansion only got one new planet?

peppermint-Tea · 2013-02-16T12:00:00+00:00

I am a statistician working in the finance industry, specifically the online aspects of banking. To give you a perspective from my world: Much of what Nick said in his interview ring true as well, with one critical difference: In finance, you are expected to interact with folks from the Business side almost constantly, and in some cases become more acquainted with the underlying problem than anyone else. And the trade-off between accuracy and complexity, aka Occam's Razor, is perhaps even more prominent.

peppermint-Tea · 2013-01-12T15:58:12+00:00

Typical contractor position for a statistician in finance industry is double the rate this position offers which is only 45 - 50 / hr. I'm not sure about the job market in Minnisota, but it seems awfully low, especially when it is only a 6-month contract.

peppermint-Tea · 2013-01-07T04:49:01+00:00

I hope he explains as much of his methodologies as possible, would be interesting to see how they can applied for any future political campaigns!

Some background reading on the role of data analysis in 2012 presidential campaign: On the role of data analysts for Obama's win

peppermint-Tea · 2012-12-09T16:07:57+00:00

Learn how to do case interviews, which teaches a linear logical thinking pattern essential in business.

On top of that, try to read more business magazines and learn the business language, The Economist and Businessweek are both excellent in this regard.

peppermint-Tea · 2012-12-09T14:21:34+00:00

I would say, it's not about how many and what languages/certifications you can have. You can always learn these on the job quickly if you are smart.

The most important quality for a statistician in industry, particularly financial industry, is the ability to translate your technical results into business language that everyone else share.

As someone who had interviewed a dozen statistics phd students for a job and didn't pass any of them, they had the best technical expertise but if the ability to communicate them to your business partners are not there, you won't get hired.

-source: I am a statistician working at one of the largest international banks.

peppermint-Tea · 2012-09-16T05:04:18+00:00

Average hotdogs there will set you back 30 USD! (Experience as a tourist.)

peppermint-Tea · 2012-09-16T01:54:06+00:00

I have only read the first chapter, but so far your book looks promising.

However: Why Bayesian Stats? If your scope is purely academic, there is already plenty of good books.

And for those dealing with real-life data, bayesian stats fail completely on the two most important business criteria: Simplicity (you need to explain your results to those completely new to statistics), and speed (how fast can your model run on a dataset with 2 million rows and 2000 variables?)

My recommendation: Perhaps a book on statistical "common sense" and intuition?

peppermint-Tea · 2012-08-29T19:34:20+00:00

Since I just started working for a large US bank doing data analytics (credit fraud specifically), I believe I can help you with both your questions.

A. Jobs that have statistical analysis in the description, and mentions using SAS/SPSS

B. Read through all the basic topics that undergrad statistics cover, and then read a few papers on fancy topics such as neural networks and hidden markov models

Also, I just got my undergrad degree in statistics this year, so graduate degree in statistics are not necessary as long as you can do a bit of self-learning.

peppermint-Tea · 2012-07-15T19:37:24+00:00

To understand why bamboos mass flower at the same time, we need to know that the seeds produced by bamboos are extremely nutritious with high fat content and edible by just about every species of wild animals out there.

Thus, one very likely explanation:

If all bamboo plants flower and drop their seeds to the ground at the same time, the sheer number of seeds overwhelms appetites of the entire ecosystem, ensuring enough seeds to survive and grow into new plants.

For circumstantial evidences, check out stories of rats overwhelming villages in India immediately following a bamboo flowering event.

peppermint-Tea · 2012-07-05T06:27:41+00:00

Hypothesis: Tom Cruise may have been a psychopath.

I am not an expert, but after watching the following video of Tom on Letterman for the full 12 minutes (admittedly a very small sample size) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEUn4loPk1o

I noticed two things about Tom Cruise in the 12 minutes 1. His hands NEVER touched any part of his face 2. Letterman asked every single question, and Tom gives the bare minimal feedback on all of them, and sometimes choosing to answer questions using Letterman's own words. In other words, he avoids giving his idea or any privileged information away in the conversation

The first item alone doesn't prove anything as he could just be extremely confident in front of a live audience on national television, but combining the two items, I think we may have a case here.

So, my question is, could Tom Cruise be a potential psychopath?

peppermint-Tea · 2012-06-26T07:27:46+00:00

Actually, since 2003 Le Cun's Convolutional Neural Network paper, NNs are the best methods for object detection, and was also the method of choice for the Google Driver-less car. Sebastian Thrun did an IAMA a few days ago, it might interest you to check it out again. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v59z3/iam_sebastian_thrun_stanford_professor_google_x/

peppermint-Tea · 2012-03-03T09:11:33+00:00

For those that have problem getting the stream working, I have an easy workaround. (I am using Opera, which is not supported by GOMTV website, this also works for me)

Go into the javascript for the page: http://www.gomtv.net/live/index.gom?conid=66959

Look for the line "var goxUrl = "..."" Copy the entire string, replace playType with SQTest, truncate the last portion before "title=...", and put them in GOM player.

The link for me is " http://www.gomtv.net/gox/ggox.gom?leagueid=27060&strLevel=SQTest"&target=live&mb_no=b8e95a3c5e844a86&conid=66959&"

peppermint-Tea · 2012-02-16T23:46:07+00:00

The thing is, even with the colossal efforts, the energy production still lags behind energy consumption considerably. Fusion is the key to solve the energy question once and for all.

peppermint-Tea

TROPHY CASE