Free Book: Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation by Luc Devroye

lpiloto · 2012-05-25T16:29:13.888534+00:00

This book is awesome, and has some seriously insane results in it. The craziest result (to me anyway), is in X.1.4 "A universal rejection method". For unimodal distributions on the integers if you know three quantities, the mode an upper bound on the probability at the mode, and an upper bound on the second moment about the mode, you can create a random number generator for that distribution.

I used it to code up a random zipf generator (chapter X.6) with an arbitrary minimum value.

thepandoras · 5 days

My fiance and I have talked about how great it would be if there was a universal organ donor tattoo. Something doctors could look for if you were found with no identifying information, and they needed to know if you were willing to donate or not. I don't know how legal it would be, but might be interesting...

Tokei · 11 days

Did this with a glass baking pan full of cake. We didn't eat the cake.

flex_luger · 24 days

My dog does this every morning, I think it's her way of making sure I am not late to take her for her morning walk.

tasteslikeeggrolls · 26 days

Which half?

disengaged1925 · 1 month

If you rent water/sewer/trash will probably be included. This is because if you don't pay your water bill they put a lien on the property rather then sending to collections, and the landlord doesn't want to be on the hook. But for reference 2 bedroom house, with my fiance and I is really consistently $40 a month.

Electricity for us is cheap in fall/winter/spring around $40, but we have AC so can run up to $120 in the summer. Gas is $20-25 in the spring/summer/fall, up to about $60 in the winter, but we like it cold.

In my experience rentals in ABQ aren't the most energy efficient, so it might vary quite a bit. Things will also vary depending on heating (gas or electric), laundry (gas or electric dryer), and water heater.

Dinstruction · 1 month

This website is AWESOME!

octaffle · 1 month

So my dog is pretty smart, and while I haven't tested it, I imagine she could remove the offending bag pretty easily. Maybe not, I don't know...

caussyn · 2 months

The broken window hypothesis isn't really true. Small crimes do not cause bigger crimes, though they were correlated. Enforcement resources are better spent on more serious crimes.

AndyZim · 2 months

I ban shaco because he isn't any fun to play against. He has good ganks if you are over extended early game, but he falls off har,d late game unless really fed. So instead of pushing a little, harassing, trading (ie having fun), I find myself being more conservative, not fun. A good shaco is almost impossible to lock down late game, so there goes any chance for an ace. He just doesn't make the game fun...

Fort_ · 2 months

flapflappy · 2 months

Maybe, maybe not. I've made that recipe. What else did you add? In my experience his recipes are pretty forgiving.

seasonedpan · 2 months

Indeed cast iron can be really brittle. What kind of floor did you drop it on?

seasonedpan · 2 months

There are cast iron questions every few months, and I always see the same advice in the comments. Some things people say that are incorrect

Never Use soap
350 degrees to season it.
Never cook tomato (or anything acidic)

The first only applies to lye soap. Most dish soaps(like Dawn) are actually detergents, which will not strip the coating off your cast iron pan. If the seasoning in the pan is coming off with dish soap and scrubbing then you haven't seasoned it properly. You also haven't seasoned it properly if things are sticking, or if acidic foods (like tomato sauce) come out tasting metallic or remove the coating on the pan. To properly season a pan you need to heat it to 400-500 degrees. 450 has been effective for me. For some science about cast iron see this post by some instructors at the french culinary institute.

Following their method, my cast iron has been nearly bulletproof. I can wash it with soap no problem. I can dry fry(no fat) an egg in them without sticking. I can cook acidic foods(tomato sauce). I can use metal tools on them. I can leave them overnight without cleaning them. If they get crusty after said leaving, I can soak them without rusting and they clean up like a dream. If seasoned right, and with a little maintenance, you pans should be bullet proof too.

whiskeyandcoke · 3 months

walked, but I did that on my phone... damn autocorrect.

whiskeyandcoke · 3 months

At the end of a lecture I once threw a whiteboard maker over my head where it landed in the tray and just stuck. There were no questions so I walled out without a word.

kalei50 · 3 months

I am not saying they are bad examples. Just examples that don't have much to do with the question you are asking namely

Is eating a paleo diet better than your current diet?

The "high-starch" diet in those regions are characterized by a heavy grain diet.

This was true in two of the 'high starch' populations "European Americans" and "Japanese", not the other population "Hadza". What I am saying is you can't draw conclusions about a grain vs non-grain diet in a study that characterizes starch vs. non-starch diets.

The study is concerned with the diet of the populations and whether they have a high prevalence of proteins that makes them able to digest starches, not anything about the health of populations, and so doesn't really answer either question.

You state that east asians can digest rice with greater efficiency than other ethnic groups. Where did you get this fact, I'd be curious to read the article.

The PNAS article is conservative; there is other evidence that estimates that grain usage started 100-150 k years ago. Regardless, even if you don't believe that it doesn't matter; we needed far less than 30,000 years to evolve to cope with a grain heavy diet.

What other evidence? Regardless 150k years go would still be less than 10% of the paleolithic era. And again you make a statement the statement that

we needed far less than 30,000 years to evolve to cope with a grain heavy diet.

without evidence or citation.

I am not disagreeing that populations with starch rich diets have a greater ability to digest them, rather I am not sure these populations are healthier than those without. Also evidence for grain eating 30,000 years ago is a nail in the coffin for the paleo diet, but rather evidence that we may have been eating grains sooner than anthropologists thought.

Piss_Marks_MY_Spot · 3 months

Sorry for the confusion.

Grass fed=grass finished means as soon as the calf or lamb is weened it eats nothing but grass until it is slaughtered.

Grain fed means that the animal is eats grass up until the last few months of it's life, when it is fed grain to fatten it up.

kalei50 · 3 months

You have kind of misrepresented both articles and their relationship to the paleo diet.

The Nature article indicates that there is a positive correlation between a certain genes and proteins that helps digest starchs (not grains specifically, but starches) and populations with high starch diets. They studied 5 populations and there was no indication of the health of the populations, just the presence of a protein that helps in starch digestion, so it doesn't really pertain to 1) above.

The PNAS article refers to a period which is the very tail end of the paleolithic era, or the beginning of the mesolithic era beginning of the neolithic era. The paleo diet argument is human diet should be more similar to the foods humans were eating 2.6 million to 10,000 years ago. Again this doesn't pertain to question 1), but does pertain to question 2), though I don't think gives evidence for your hypothesis.

As far as 2) goes you provide an argument but don't give us any evidence. I'm not advocating for the paleo diet necessarily, but if you are going to cite sources they should go to the questions at hand.

kalei50 · 3 months

So I've done both paleo and the Tim Ferris 4 hour body diet. Being a nerd I did some research about both before starting. Part of the argument is that diets higher in fat and protein make you feel 'full' faster and longer, meaning you'll be less inclined to over eat and you can maintain a hypocaloric intake. There is a fair amount of evidence for this.

As has been mentioned before, many studies are hard to draw conclusions from. Most studies that focus on macronutrient content(percentages of fat, protein, carbohydrates), start with an obese population(people or animals, mice usually) and control their diets. Also the outcomes can be different, BMI, weight, or body composition. Given this I think there is some evidence that high protein low carbohydrate diets are effective. But there are likely other studies that attribute this to them simply being hypocaloric.

I was focusing in body composition and found some studies that indicate that a low carbohydrate diet might be better,. here, here, here, here and here.

So it depends on what you are going for I guess. Do your own research Google Scholar is a great place to start. It depends on the outcome you are looking for. Lower body fat? Better Cholesterol? Athletic Performance? It might all be different.

Also check with your doctor. She might have some good advice on what you should or should not be eating, specifically because she knows about your personal health.

jcmc2112 · 3 months

Depends on the role and depends on the current map situation.

If I'm playing support and my AD carry and I just scored a double kill and grabbed dragon, I'll wait for 75 gold for that extra ward.

If I'm solo top or mid and just managed to push the tower I'll only wait 10 or maybe 20. Every moment I'm not in lane I'm losing cs and exp.

I'm jungling and my lanes are doing fine and my jungle is clear, I'll wait a while 40-50 gold. I'm worried about dragon being taken or my jungle being invaded, I'll wait for nothing.

I almost never AD carry so I don't know what I'd do. Probably complain about every one else on the team feeding.

Piss_Marks_MY_Spot · 3 months

Most beef and lamb is 'grass-fed' it is just grain finished. It's cheaper to pasture cows (sometimes its free on certain government land) up until the last few months of their lives, during which they are moved to feed lots and given grain to fatten them up.

Dairy cows are sometimes grain fed their entire lives, as it tends to increase milk production, but dairy cows are rarely sold for meat for human consumption. Usually it goes to pet food, though it might end up in some fast food burgers.

When meat is called 'grass fed' what they mean is grass finished, meaning it has been fed grass until slaughter.

It's hard to tell when exactly your cows start to be grain fed, and whether they are fed actual grain or 'feed'. The best thing to do is ask. Ask your butcher where they get it. If they can't tell you or there isn't a butcher that's probably not a good sign.

Cheaper cuts (chuck, round, brisket) can be cheap even when grass fed. They might take a little more time cooking but sticking it in a low(200) oven in some broth can do wonders by dinner time. Also look for buffalo, in the Rocky Mountain West it's usually comparable to grass fed (though maybe grain finished).

cavedave · 4 months

One of many analog computers. They are actually quite good at solving all manner of differential equations. We know that things like water flow, electrical flow, or mechanical movement are well modeled by differential equations, so we can just turn things around. Rather than measuring the parameters of the system and predicting it's output using differential equations. We can control the parameters of the system to solve specific differential equations! Awesome!

AllenDowney · 4 months

How do you mean would not be correct? You could redefine Incr as Observed, which might be more intuitive.

Something that might simplify your code a bit is the use of defaultdict instead of a dict. that way all your calls of d.get(x,0) could just be d[x]. The code might be something like.

from itertools import repeat
from collections import defaultdict
d = defaultdict(repeat(0).next)

Also, if you're sick of me creeping over your code, just let me know. Wish I could come to PyCon though...

anti_x_gravity · 4 months

Almost the same thing for me. We had met a puppy some friends were fostering for the shelter and decided to adopt him. Shelter neutered him, but after the surgery he was acting sluggish. He ended having parvo. Fuck that. Puppies shouldn't die.

segonius

TROPHY CASE

segonius

TROPHY CASE

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