Viewing profile — shokwave

60% of people drop out[0] - before you knew this, you had an 60% chance of dropping out. Now you know the statistics, you can go about exerting effort to end up in the 40% that don…

The search function joke got me good.

The author writes as if, when a 'real person' makes a recommendation, they aren't just making a prediction from data. The difference is that we can see how the algorithm works, whe…

We got used to it with laptops (think back to when they were mostly desktops - "I have to charge my computer?") and we'll probably get used to it with cars, assuming the same value…

tl;dr: They take too long to charge so clearly nobody should wait 58 minutes instead of 46 or whatever. Hell, why even bother charging for 46 minutes? Charge it for however long yo…

Huffington Post Sports "Deceptive" Title

Agreed, instance_eval is definitely disgusting, but this trick scores well on readability, it's no more of a trap than some other Ruby idioms, and it serves a good purpose (robustn…

Signed up. I want to see this train wreck first-hand.

It's all well and noble to say "health journalism is flawed, everything is breathlessly reported as a breakthrough", but when you put Tara Parker-Pope and Gary Taubes in the same c…

Start with -just- the bar. Or get Starting Strength, by Mark Rippetoe, which has about 70 pages of instructions and diagrams on the correct form of each lift. Or find a gym that ha…

Once you see the strength gains tapering off, go into a cut phase - eating less than maintenance calories - and you'll see aesthetic gains to rival your strength and confidence gai…

From Pistol Lake is good.

Yes! Even a "Trash Exchange" where all moderated posts are dumped instead of deleted would be an improvement.

What if I told you that you could get these same benefits with only a 10-20% drop in WPM? And that you could be faster on the newer layout in two weeks? Believe it. Go to carpalx's…

Insurance pays out when you lose your job or crash your car; ie, when you get unlucky. Lotteries pay out when your pick of numbers was a better pick than ten million other people; …

If you do want to write a system of equations and solve for happiness... http://lesswrong.com/lw/4su/the_science_of_happiness/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/

Without the hostility, the designers might get the idea that their suggestions were good. Without the hostility, the submitter might get the idea that hackernews liked the article.…

Explanations are great, but I've found I got a lot of use out of an intuitive method for applying Bayes' Theorem. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4305144

When I find a great fishing spot, I always make sure I release a joint statement informing the fish.

The author makes it seem as if you have two choices: "tolerance and dependence" or "kick the habit". Maybe acting like caffeine is methamphetamine bumps up the pageviews, I don't k…

Hey. There's a problem you want to solve, and you tried a way of solving it. Now everyone's waving their arms about and yelling at you. Right now, you're going to feel like you sho…

Well, one obvious counterpoint: startup founders and early employees work 90 hour weeks before you point cameras at them.

He has patents, he tried a space program, and he's a strong supporter of the Long Now foundation - wait, that's evidence for him being crazy?

It's tempting to think that since a group is bigger than an individual, they should have some sort of power to select beyond the individual's procreation - but while groups are mor…