Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How many flies are in my apartment?

saml98.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 158 posts

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#81

Post by jdmichal »

OJFord wrote: post #60
only_as_i_fall wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk I've just never even considered losing light because of the screens, it's so little. Maybe I'm just used to it. Also it's not only like a cultural thing, I legally had to put screens in every window of my house before it was able to be occupied. Just an anecdote... It's weird how we never question things like that.

FWIW that applies to a lot of your 'codes'. Obviously we have regulations too, but it's bizarre (from an outsider perspective) how much it comes up in US television, or online, and (and in part it seems due to) the extent of it. Regarding light - leaving aside however much it blocks light for illumination purposes, what about seeing out? I want to look out of the window, not look at a mesh all but completely obscurin…

The mesh material is extremely thin. As long as you're focusing past it, you don't see the mesh itself. Just maybe the color of it, which is why black mesh is a popular color.

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#82

Post by smrq »

OJFord wrote: post #60
only_as_i_fall wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk I've just never even considered losing light because of the screens, it's so little. Maybe I'm just used to it. Also it's not only like a cultural thing, I legally had to put screens in every window of my house before it was able to be occupied. Just an anecdote... It's weird how we never question things like that.

FWIW that applies to a lot of your 'codes'. Obviously we have regulations too, but it's bizarre (from an outsider perspective) how much it comes up in US television, or online, and (and in part it seems due to) the extent of it. Regarding light - leaving aside however much it blocks light for illumination purposes, what about seeing out? I want to look out of the window, not look at a mesh all but completely obscurin…

I have a mesh missing on one of my windows. For over a year after moving into this house I literally couldn't remember which one without looking up close. It's just that unobtrusive.

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#84

Post by TchoBeer »

pelasaco wrote: post #49
lolc wrote: post #34

All these models ignore how insects actually zero in on a smell. For a fly outside, the source of the smell is the gap in the window. What looks like random direction changes is actually a search pattern for that source.

You are right. Even though it is probably a great exercise to improve your skills as data scientists, I'm afraid that without understanding how the insects actually "work/think", it is nothing more than garbage in, garbage out (GIGO).

I don't know how intentional it was but that's a great roast on data scientists.

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#85

Post by thaumasiotes »

Aeolun wrote: post #76
m12k wrote: post #40

In my statistics class we were taught a technique for estimating the number of flies in a barn. You capture a fixed size sample of flies, e.g. 100, and give them each a little white dot on the back, then release them all back in the barn. Leave them to mingle for a while, then capture another fixed number of flies, e.g. 100. If 5 of them have a white dot on them, then you estimate that the 100 flies you captured orig…

I found two flies in my house, marked them, then later found two more flies without marks. I think this means the population of flies in my house is infinite.

You want to consider, based on a distribution of potential fly populations, what the odds are that sampling two of them will fail to capture two specific ones. For example, you can state with certainty that the population is above 3.

Closely related (though not quite the identical problem): https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2010/03/30/statistical-rule-o...

Applying that directly, we would estimate that the odds of a fly in your house being marked are less than 150%, which tells us that you should be taking larger samples.

(With only two marked flies, this estimate will always be less informative than the fact that you sampled n flies -- it will tell you that the population is probably greater than 2/3 of n, while the sampling procedure tells you that the population is necessarily at least n+2. But as you mark more flies, the estimate will be more informative.)

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#86

Post by crispyambulance »

Well, there was at least one startup that addressed the issue of flies/mosquitoes indoors. Bzigo. https://bzigo.com/

It's a machine vision system that tracks mosquitoes and aims a laser pointer on them (so you can swat them). Don't know if this company still exists. It was/is an Israeli start-up and apparently not an April Fool's day joke.

It seems to me the best solution is to use screens, but that is not as sexy as machine vision.

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#87

Post by pjerem »

0xBA5ED wrote: post #83

A tip if you have an annoying fly in your house that's hard to swat. Turn off all the lights except the bathroom. In a few minutes it'll fly in. Close the door and it's mano-a-mano.

Works well with mosquitoes too. I just let them do whatever they want in the bathroom once the door is closed.

However I would admit that switching lights on at 3AM and deliberately opening all the doors for the light to be seen is not something my family appreciate. But, at least, I’m their hero.

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#88

Post by bombcar »

bena wrote: post #72
thearn4 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great read! In comparison, I have to wonder why the "intelligence estimates" were so bad/severe over estimates.

My intuition says counter-intelligence. The Allies were using intercepted communications, visual confirmation, captured sources, etc. You can send fake reports if you think the other side is listening. You can move or mock material if you think the other side is watching. You can feed false information if you are captured.

And this is why you may be better off solving the “serial number problem” not by going to entirely random ones but instead change to one that implies false data that you want the Enemy to find.

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#89

Post by mig39 »

Really interesting work. I love the different models of how a fly moves around. This jumped out at me, though:

>If we take a look at the animation now, we can see the flies look slightly more realistic (if not still a bit spazzy)

Is "spazzy" a word that's used in different regional dialects of English as a term to just mean jittery? In most of the places I've lived, it's an offensive word.

Re: How many flies are in my apartment?

#90

Post by pelasaco »

lolc wrote: post #34

All these models ignore how insects actually zero in on a smell. For a fly outside, the source of the smell is the gap in the window. What looks like random direction changes is actually a search pattern for that source.

an interesting research in this area https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Post reply on HN