ethan_g
Joined 10 years ago
Karma
129
Submissions
41
Member since
Apr 29
Recent submissions
Comment · 8 years ago
No the gp is correct, references in c++ can't be null. Your code invoked undefined behavior before you did anything with a reference, namely *a which is a null pointer dereference.
Comment · 9 years ago
I don't know why this was getting downvoted, because it's correct. All the banks repaid their TARP loans from the Fed at a significant profit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program).
Even QE, which is not a direct bailout but certainly helped banks' profits, was substantially profitable for the treasury the last I heard.
(edit) Let me add, I was no fan of the bail-outs when they happened. But I can't deny they were, in retrospect, really profitable.
Comment · 9 years ago
Some people did, like Warren Buffett. https://qz.com/67052/heres-how-warren-buffett-made-3-1-billi...
Comment · 9 years ago
>stable of smart people operate in the stable of the corporations writing arguments for newspapers and magazine
I'm not sure if you're suggesting Matt Levine is "in the stable of corporations", but if you read his article history, he's clearly not. One reason (among many) it's fun to read him, is his incisive criticism of his previous jobs in finance and law.
Comment · 9 years ago
Unfortunately, regulations are complicated, vague, and enforced unequally.
And yes, sometimes they're even secret, because of fear that if their exact model is publicized, the banks will just optimize around it. "Security through obscurity", essentially. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-says-stress-test-models...
Comment · 9 years ago
To be clear, regulatory capture is when the regulator advances the interests of the industry rather than of the public. Revolving door is a separate issue.
There's an interesting argument that the revolving door actually prevents regulatory capture through encouraging regulators to be more strict. The idea is that the more onerous the regulations, the more desireable it is for corporations to hire former regulators who know the system. "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
Matt Levine's take on it: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-06-26/strict-re...
Comment · 9 years ago
Certainly the first thing that's apparent when watching pros play is their speed. However, after playing years of Tetris myself (though nowhere near pro level), I've really come to appeciate that speed is only a small fraction of what makes pros pro.
* Many multiplayer games give bonuses for combos (multiple consecutive line clears), T-spins, and Tetrises. Setting these up efficiently can require reading several pieces ahead and takes a ton of practice. An example where both players do a fairly elaborate setup, one with combos and the other with T-spins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mASSHXLTuU4
* 20G mode, made famous by games like TGM, drastically reduces the ability to manipulate the pieces. Even surviving takes new strategies (you're forced to play a lot of strange moves), much less making tetrises like the pros do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoU0DQh7zdU
* Some multiplayer games give difficult garbage, I'm thinking of Cultris 2 specifically. Clearing garbage efficiently, known as "downstacking", requires much more careful piece placement than regular play. It's hard to appreciate from video, but if you compare pros downstacking to a normal person, you can see they use fewer pieces to clear the same amount of garbage, which is a real competitive advantage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgK4aJ_3zCw
Comment · 9 years ago
>I'd be very curious to see a proof of an impossible sequence which adheres to the official rules, as that would be quite a feat indeed!
It sounds like, given enough piece previews, you can play without ever losing: http://tetris.wikia.com/wiki/Playing_forever
Comment · 9 years ago
I think a lot of firms already do something like that through internship programs.
Comment · 9 years ago
By the way, that's not a 10% increase in individual performance, but rather a 10% increase in relative performance for your weight. People on PEDs will usually move up a weight class from increased muscle mass.
Edit: See here for a really detailed comparison from someone who knows what he's talking about: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/steroids-and-strength-diff...
Comment · 9 years ago
World's Strongest Man, Mr. Olympia.
Comment · 9 years ago
Indeed, Jamaica doesn't have strong anti-doping organizations and Bolt has teammates caught doping. I'd love to believe Bolt is clean, but I find it hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Comment · 9 years ago
Keep in mind weightlifting has weight classes, so getting bigger muscles by taking lots of steroids is partially offset by moving up a weight class. Steroids can make small guys big, but big guys are expected to lift that much more.
Given the limits of what the human body can do within a weight class, a 10% boost in your total for the same weight class is huge. The article saying it's "modest" I think is misleading: while it's true 10% is small on an absolute scale, it's huge on a competitive scale.
To give an idea how overwhelming doping is on weightlifting performance, the IWF reset all the records in 1992 and again in 1998 as the old world records were essentially unbeatable as drug testing got better.
(Edit) If you're interesting in a very detailed essay on the topic, I enjoy reading Greg Nuckols: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/steroids-and-strength-diff...
Comment · 9 years ago
I tend to agree with GP that this is suspiciously simple. I've only skimmed it, but the novel part of the proof appears to only be Thm 5-6 which is less than 10 pages, and it's not especially dense writing. So this would be a relatively simple proof. Moreover, the technique used appears to be rather incremental over known techniques, so it's surprising it would be strong enough to prove PvNP which is so far away from the frontier of known techniques.