bartvbl (u/bartvbl) - Readit News

bartvbl commented on Backblaze: Mounting Losses, Lawsuits, Sham Accounting, Insider Selling morpheus-research.com/bac... · Posted by u/PaywallBuster

sndean · 5 months ago

Can anyone recommend a decent Backblaze alternative in case things really go south? Not so much for storage but for the automated computer backups that I have Backblaze doing. I'm okay paying more than Backblaze's $9/month.

bartvbl · 5 months ago

I use Jottacloud, which is quite similar in many respects.

bartvbl commented on Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH): Practical and Illustrated Guide pinecone.io/learn/localit... · Posted by u/gk1

bartvbl · 4 years ago

LSH is a really neat algorithm, but to my understanding (at least what I’ve seen in literature), it also tends to be rather inefficient. For it to have good precision, you need longer hashes, but that reduces recall. It also does not really tend to produce a well balanced distribution of entries over buckets. More current research has therefore focused on more elaborate hashing functions that are capable of producing shorter, and better balanced hash maps.

The article is well put together and nicely illustrated, though :)

bartvbl commented on Challenge to scientists: does your ten-year-old code still run? nature.com/articles/d4158... · Posted by u/sohkamyung

djsumdog · 5 years ago

This article brings up scientific code from 10 years ago, but how about code from .. right now? Scientists really need to publish their code artifacts, and we can no longer just say "Well they're scientists or mathematicians" and allow that as an excuse for terrible code with no testing specs. Take this for example:

https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/blob/e8f7864ad150f40022...

This was used by the Imperial College for COVID-19 predictions. It has race conditions, seeds the model multiple times, and therefore has totally non-deterministic results[0]. Also, this is the cleaned up repo. The original is not available[1].

A lot of my homework from over 10 years ago still runs (Some require the right Docker container: https://github.com/sumdog/assignments/). If journals really care about the reproducibility crisis, artifact reviews need to be part of the editorial process. Scientific code needs to have tests, a minimal amount of test coverage, and code/data used really need to be published and run by volunteers/editors in the same way papers are reviewed, even for non-computer science journals.

[0] https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/

[1] https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/179

bartvbl · 5 years ago

The graphics community has started an interesting initiative at this end: http://www.replicabilitystamp.org/

After a paper has been accepted, authors can submit a repository containing a script which automatically replicates results shown in the paper. After a reviewer confirms that the results were indeed replicable, the paper gets a small badge next to its title.

While there could certainly be improvements, I think it's a step in the right direction.

bartvbl commented on How to Start Learning Computer Graphics Programming erkaman.github.io/posts/b... · Posted by u/phodo

robko · 7 years ago

Ah, the good old OpenGL fixed function pipeline, deprecated for over 11 years now.

For something a bit more modern, I'd recommend [0], but one might argue that old OpenGL is easier to learn since you don't have to setup your own shaders.

[0] https://learnopengl.com/Introduction

bartvbl · 7 years ago

I wrote a small booklet on modern OpenGL for the class I'm TA'ing:

https://github.com/bartvbl/A-Hitchhikers-Guide-to-OpenGL

bartvbl commented on GDPR Hall of Shame gdprhallofshame.com/... · Posted by u/K0nserv

matte_black · 7 years ago

GDPR and policies like it are an existential threat to a Big Data future where so much can be possible if we are able to amass as much data as possible without fear of consequences.

GDPR should be resisted by as many companies and startups as possible.

bartvbl · 7 years ago

Whatever the case might be, companies have shown themselves to not handle people's personal data properly, as shown by the massive leaks in the past. Whatever utopia you're thinking of, it's not happening anytime soon, and GDPR is a rightful measure to slightly apply the brakes on rampant data collection and misuse.

bartvbl commented on The IKEA Dictionary lar5.com/ikea/... · Posted by u/drgvond

bartvbl · 8 years ago

"Billy" is actually a play on the word "billig", meaning "cheap".

bartvbl commented on Kilogram conflict resolved at last nature.com/news/kilogram-... · Posted by u/ColinWright

bartvbl · 10 years ago

I wonder: the article states that the SI unit for Kg up to this point was defined using a single object. Doesn't this definition also involve the fact that it's placed on earth, thus requiring two objects for its definition?

bartvbl commented on Retiring Python as a Teaching Language prog21.dadgum.com/203.htm... · Posted by u/xngzng

bartvbl · 11 years ago

It's a fair point that the article makes. However, I've started out about 1.5 year ago with a programming group for kids in high school, and my choice was Python. I have since not regretted this decision because of one factor: fun. I could have gone with a weekly lecture on all sorts of theoretical things will learn again if (or when) they start at university.

Instead, I wrote a wrapper around OpenGL that provided some functions like "drawRectangle()" or "drawImage()", and they have used it to build all sorts of things. Additionally, they are constantly wanting to try other stuff. I don't think they would have done this if they didn't enjoy the process of writing code.