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91488597
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
01, 2017 @07:39PM
(#54530651)
Attached to: IBM Says Watson Health's AI Is Getting Really Good at Diagnosing Cancer
And maybe more importantly, if it disagrees with the humans, can we figure out why? This is a problem with a lot of machine learning applications, but there aren't many where understanding the decision-making process is more vital than it is here.
87421587
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
er 20, 2016 @12:35PM
(#53327187)
Attached to: Why Automation Won't Displace Human Workers
Governments don't produce capital, they only consume it!
He says. On the internet.
60982863
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
8, 2014 @12:46PM
(#47190831)
Attached to: These are the things in my head at night
They would get them back and then punish them and then separate them.
Exactly. If that's what he deserves, then truth will out.
And I have seen an awful lot of people saying that he wasn't worth any particular effort to get back, which is pretty close to "let him rot." That's just mind-boggling to me.
60982581
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
8, 2014 @12:37PM
(#47190799)
Attached to: These are the things in my head at night
Heh. Yeah.
I was at Minot for five years, which seemed particularly like exile after having been in England, about an hour away from London, for two years before that. I will say that it wasn't quite as bad as I expected it to be when I got my orders.
60949633
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
07, 2014 @10:23AM
(#47186301)
Attached to: These are the things in my head at night
Were you at Dover? I've always heard that's kind of the East Coast's equivalent of Minot. [1/2 g]
60899871
journal
Journal
by
Daniel Dvorkin
day June 06, 2014 @02:01AM
Then-PFC, now-SGT Bergdahl may in fact have deserted his post. There are certainly credible accusations to that effect, and if so, then he should be tried and convicted for the crime. But it's a whole lot easier to investigate those charges with him here, and we don't let the Taliban mete out justice for us.
60476025
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
2014 @10:52AM
(#47087479)
Attached to: Should We Eat Invasive Species?
So in that sense this is the most elegant natural solution.
58978979
journal
Journal
by
Daniel Dvorkin
nesday April 16, 2014 @06:46PM
[cranky rant warning]
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics." It's coming up again with depressing frequency, being used as an argument instead of a snide observation.
58200273
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
28, 2014 @02:06PM
(#46605311)
Attached to: Synthetic Chromosomes Successfully Integrated Into Brewer's Yeast
No, biological processes are inherently non-deterministic, and this becomes more apparent the smaller the scale. At the genetic level, it's all about probabilities. I suppose you could argue the same about computation since circuits are now getting small enough for quantum effects to show up, but I don't think most programmers are explicitly modeling random bit flips! On large scales, when you're talking about big programs with lots of different possible inputs, it's often more effective to model them statistically, I agree, but the underlying processes are still quite different.
58198507
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
28, 2014 @12:28PM
(#46604479)
Attached to: Synthetic Chromosomes Successfully Integrated Into Brewer's Yeast
Co-evolution only looks "co" on very large timescales; every new trick our immune systems have come up with has been in response to something a pathogen already came up with. Sure, there always can (and will) be new plagues, whether the victims are trees or people. I just think they're a whole lot more likely to come from the nigh-uncountable number of random "experiments" taking place in the wild than they are from anything done in a lab.
58197499
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
28, 2014 @11:43AM
(#46603923)
Attached to: U.S. Court: Chinese Search Engine's Censorship Is 'Free Speech'
Corporations don't go to prison for violating censorship laws. The members of the group, employees, owners, and members go to jail. They are the ones who have their assets taken.
That last bit would be a lot more persuasive if it weren't for the concept of limited liability. The whole idea of corporations owning assets, signing contracts, etc. is that the owners of the corporation are to some degree insulated if the corporation "does" something such as breaking a contract that could lead to the loss of those assets--but it really ought to work both ways. As things stand right now, the privilege pretty much only seems to go one way.
58197333
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
28, 2014 @11:37AM
(#46603839)
Attached to: Synthetic Chromosomes Successfully Integrated Into Brewer's Yeast
Honestly, I think that fear is overblown. Vertebrate pathogens have had hundreds of millions of years of optimization in the most ruthlessly selective "laboratory" ever known, and while there are obviously some pretty deadly ones out there they haven't managed to wipe us out yet. Nothing we do in a lab is likely to come close, in terms of coming up with something that can spread wildly on its own.
I used to work between a synthetic bio lab at one end of the hall and an infectious disease lab at the other. Ask which one scared me more.
58197169
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
28, 2014 @11:31AM
(#46603765)
Attached to: Synthetic Chromosomes Successfully Integrated Into Brewer's Yeast
In a lot of ways, it is similar, but there are some important differences. The biggest one, I think, is that programs are (or had better be!) deterministic: make a particular change and a particular thing will happen every time. Living systems, even relatively simple ones like yeast cells, are stochastic: make a particular change and the probability of a particular thing happening increases or decreases. What you're counting on when growing a culture of mutated cells is that enough of the cells will behave in the desired fashion to make the behavior of the colony predictable, but the underlying randomness remains.
58133193
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
ch 26, 2014 @03:06PM
(#46587143)
Attached to: First Asteroid Discovered Sporting a Ring System
Anything with significant gravity can have a ring system under the right conditions.
And up until now, we didn't know if those right conditions ever occurred for asteroids. Now we do. That certainly counts as a discovery.
57983911
comment
byDaniel Dvorkin
h 22, 2014 @12:25PM
(#46552259)
Attached to: Creationists Demand Equal Airtime With 'Cosmos'
Being a scientific organization is one of the major listed justifications for tax exempt status - assuming the other criteria are met.
The part in bold there is kind of the point. Scientific organizations--actually educational organizations of all kinds--can indeed apply for non-profit status, but they have to prove they meet the standards. Churches are assumed to qualify a priori.
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●Bioinformatics postdoc at Altitude Research Center [altituderesearch.org]. Occasional science fiction author. Former Army infantryman and Air Force medic. Consistently sleep-deprived.
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