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I needed a family of functions f(x; a) with a single parameter to transform probabilities based on a set of heuristics. The family should include both convex and concave functions. The family should also satisfy the following constraints:
I’ve got a system that is running constantly and producing data. Periodically this data is swept up and processed in a batch, and the processing archives off the chunk of raw data it processes, gzipping it along the way. As a result, after a period of time, there are a number of gzipped, textual data files sitting around. I was interested in batching these up into a single, larger file that I…
Today I found myself needing to concatenate many files to make one long file. I originally started with a simple solution:
A couple years ago, I set out to teach myself about real estate investing. I read some books (this one being my favorite), talked to some smarter and more experienced people, and synthesized that information with my own experience and logic. And then got after it. I bought myself a fixer-upper to live in, rented out my condo, and bought a foreclosure (one of the dreaded $30k properties) to fix up…
After nearly a month of self-imposed dietary restriction, I’ve come to a conclusion. In order to build a healthy relationship with food, we need to recognize it for what it is: beyond being a necessity, food is often an indulgence. By accepting and internalizing that fact, we can rebuild the way we eat to produce the outcomes we really want - fitter appearance and better health.
Bitcoin as a medium of exchange The recent rash of announcements of companies withdrawing support for Bitcoin payments is both totally expected, given the dynamics of the cryptocurrency, and in my opinion a harbinger of the end of Bitcoin as a payments system. More broadly, the combination of the validation timeframe for a given payment, the highly volatile BTC-to-fiat price, and the resulting…
Gift giving is an interesting and emotional topic. People have a strange compulsion-cum-arms race to give gifts, to the point where the gifts given often lose the importance they should have. Who hasn’t been guilty of this - in the panicked moments before Christmas, buying some silly bauble because you can’t think of anything better? I know I have, and as a quasi-minimalist, it bothers me.
I’ve been pondering the idea of authenticity. I started thinking about the concept after listening to Noah Kagan’s podcast with Jason Fried. Jason, a lover of cars, was asked about his favorite cars. He answered Aston Martin, and one of the reasons he gave was Aston’s dedication to what he called authenticity of materials - if it looks like wood, it is wood; if it looks like metal, it is metal. In…
I’m very happy to announce that today, Feb. 4, 2017, I crossed another item off my 35 by 35 list (and yearly goals) by sending my first outdoor V8-grade boulder problem, Right Exit to Fontainezoo, alternatively called W Goes to Fontainzoo. It represents over a year of effort and attempts, a very Dave MacLeod approach to climbing. Since I first attempted it, I’ve worked on my climbing roughly 3…
This may be a mild form of apophenia, but any time I see a recommendation or idea several times within a short period of time, I take note. Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts by people who are (by some metric) more successful than I am. One of the interesting themes I’ve picked out is the idea of intentionally building the network of people with whom you interact, with the goal of…