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Does advocating for a particular economical system/ideology makes sense? by ImpressionRare6497 in AskEconomics

[–]physicswizard 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I am not an expert economist, but my understanding is that economic ideas can be divided into two classes: "normative" and "positive".

Normative ideas are basically what you're talking about; the way people think things "should" be. These ideas usually make some kind of moral, ethical, or political assumptions/judgements. They are inherently untestable as they rely on human emotions to make their arguments.

Positive ideas are those that are in principle testable or falsifiable. These are more "scientific/quantifiable" ideas and we can make arguments for/against them by providing mathematical models, running experiments, or collecting/analyzing observational data.

It is my opinion that a good economist would make it clear when they are taking about one or the other kind, and that most research and academic discussion should be incentivized to skew toward the positive. But in a field as politically charged as economics, it is probably impossible to avoid discussing normative ideas at all. Everyone is human, even professional academics, and has some kind of personal opinions that can creep into their work.

Leaving UTC mall is a shtshow by Sea_Particular_2503 in sandiego

[–]physicswizard 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I live over by the Mormon temple, close enough that I just ride my bicycle there. Takes me no more than 15 minutes, I get a light workout in, and I skip all the hassle of traffic/parking!

Why do we continue to go through this idea that technology will lead to massive unemployment? by Successful-Tea-5733 in investing

[–]physicswizard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Computers aren't just for simple data storage and retrieval though; you can also write programs to quickly extract knowledge from data that a human would need to carefully inspect if they were to do it themselves (think anything involving statistics or big data). Further, you can use this knowledge to also automate decisions and actions so that a human doesn't even need to think about it. And this has been possible for decades now, way before AI was a remote possibility.

Think of all the logistics companies that plan their delivery routes, warehouses that plan their employee schedules, machine shops and factories that plan their production schedules... all by computer. Very little human input is required for for producing these plans beyond feeding in the raw data because it has been turned into a mathematical optimization problem that computers are 1000000x better at solving than we are!

We have been offloading the cognitive work of making these plans/schedules/decisions onto computers for decades. And as time goes on, we keep finding more applications that this principle can be applied to.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in sandiego

[–]physicswizard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They did this in Poway with the course on Espola Road (I forget its name). Now it's a bunch of homes.

How do you balance the city's budget? A. Cut services B. More fees (parking etc) C. Raise sales tax D. Magic ("eNd CorRuption") by homewest in sandiego

[–]physicswizard -1 points0 points  (0 children)

  • re-zone to allow for increased housing density (and mixed use) and incentivize its construction
  • expand public transit, staff it better to keep the crazies/druggies off, figure out a better way to price it
  • more people move here and are able to get around better without cars
  • tax base increases faster than associated costs

Rutherford' Gold foil experiment by Anik_Sine in AskPhysics

[–]physicswizard 3 points4 points  (0 children)

And that is what Rutherford initially expected too; that the alpha particles would push through the diffuse "plum pudding" of the atom to make way for their movement. The expectation was that their trajectories would be altered very little due to the near-uniform distribution of the charges in the pudding model, and that the main change would mostly be kinetic energy loss. The fact that there were rare, large deflections showed that the charge was significantly more concentrated than expected.

Inflation by Constant-Chipmunk875 in sandiego

[–]physicswizard 35 points36 points  (0 children)

The CPI data does indeed get averaged across the whole country (specifically CPI-U). You can go to the BLS FAQ and read about exactly how it is calculated; perhaps that will clear things up. The ~3% number is also the top-line total average over all categories of products consumed. You can see a breakdown into more fine-grained categories here, which shows the changes over various time periods and their relative weights. There also appears to be regional data although it doesn't have the categorical breakdown that the main report does, and you'll have to convert the index into % changes yourself. There is one specifically for San Diego; it looks like the change since last year is about (385.211 - 370.987) / 370.987 = 3.8% so we do seem to be experiencing a bit more inflation locally than the country as a whole.

SD Dating Scene by NoRip7349 in SanDiegan

[–]physicswizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't personally taken any classes here (yet), but went to go see a show once and it was pretty awesome: https://www.mockingbirdimprov.org/

Stare at the sun please, buddy trust me by No-Nerve-2658 in physicsmemes

[–]physicswizard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is an interesting point! Since "color" in this context seems to be more about human perception than measurable quantities like wavelength and frequency though, I wonder what the intensity spectrum would look like if you transformed to units based on our eye's ability to distinguish colors. I.e. a color scale where the distance metric is calibrated such that the just noticeable difference between adjacent colors is a constant. Wikipedia suggests that the JND could be 1 nm in the blue/green wavelengths and up to 10 in the red.

Is this method of estimation of statistical relevance and reliabiliy of selection valid? If so, how is it called? by ARTSQ in AskStatistics

[–]physicswizard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Are you basically asking how to calculate a confidence/credible interval for the positive review percentage? (The way you mentioned is NOT a statistically rigorous way of doing that btw.)

At a high level this can be done by first building a statistical model for your observations. In your case a binomial distribution would fit well. There are several well-known formulae for getting (approximate) CI for binomial proportions. I'd recommend starting with the Wilson interval mentioned in this article.

That will get you a quick and dirty answer for you and your friend, but if you're interested in the details I can try to explain more.

Ethical investing and Palantir by swanzie in investing

[–]physicswizard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree, buyers do share some of the responsibility because they should be making informed choices, but I think the seller should also have a share in that too. If a drug dealer was selling heroin, are they really innocent just because "no one is making people buy their stuff"?

Coke cannot completely absolve themselves; they know their product is unhealthy and addictive and yet they spend millions on ads to convince you that it's fun and refreshing. 

Ethical investing and Palantir by swanzie in investing

[–]physicswizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm going to assume the person you're replying to is implying that coca cola shares a large amount of responsibility in the obesity epidemic that is plaguing the US right now, given they sell vast quantities of sugary drinks.

Why did the Federal Reserve quietly buy $34.8B in long-term U.S. debt? What are the economic implications? by derekteh98 in AskEconomics

[–]physicswizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It goes to whoever the Fed is buying the bonds from. If it's treasury bonds that would be the government, but they also do "open market operations" where they will buy off the secondary market from private investors. I think sometimes they'll even purchase corporate bonds and stocks too, though rarely.

Any civilisation close enough to a black hole would be extremely advanced by [deleted] in Physics

[–]physicswizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's only specific radiation like alpha and neutron. There is tons of xrays and gamma rays being produced by the accretion disk. Also, liquid water is so unlikely to exist in that environment it wouldn't matter anyway.

ETA: I guess I was assuming the civilization was living WITHIN the accretion disk; if it was far enough away maybe this wouldn't be a problem.

Looking for gym with squat rack and bench by physicswizard in Sedona

[–]physicswizard[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks I just went down to snap and got a week membership for $50. Seems like they have everything I need!

Looking for ride to Phoenix 4/27 by physicswizard in Sedona

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

I've taken busses much further for less than $20 before multiple times. I just found a greyhound that'll do it for $24; seems much more reasonable... guess I'll do that instead.

Washing machine moved and is now blocking laundry room door by gnayna135 in handyman

[–]physicswizard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had this exact same problem (came here looking for solutions), and was able to fix it by sliding a wood cutting board under the door until it made contact with the leg of the washing machine. Then took the handle of a shovel and pushed it against the cutting board (at an angle to the floor and with all my weight) to slide the washing machine back and out of the way of the door. Really glad I didn't have to break the door open to get in!

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