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Optimizing the world: Wondering what I do for a living?

http://www.simonfl.com/2008/06/wondering-what-i-do-for-living.html

Sunday, June 1, 2008. Wondering what I do for a living? I know I haven't been writing anything lately and I apologize to whoever might read this blog (hi mom! I don't usually post work related things but there's an interesting article. In the NYT about my group at Google that might be of passing interest to people who know me. Maybe you'll better understand why I think the way I do when you see the kind of people I spent my work weeks with. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). View my complete profile.

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Optimizing the world: Monte Carlo simulation

http://www.simonfl.com/2008/03/monte-carlo-simulation.html

Friday, March 21, 2008. Sometimes, figuring out something deterministically is hard.  Sometimes, it's just plain impossible. Let's say we have a model and we want to make sure that model is correct.  The best way to do that is to mathematically prove that it is correct.  This works well for simple model, but when you have insanely completed models it become a huge pain to try to prove it right.  What can you do to validate it? 160;We can use something called a Monte Carlo simulation. 160;random integer b...

simonfl.com

Optimizing the world: So much for automated traffic cops

http://www.simonfl.com/2008/04/so-much-for-automated-traffic-cops.html

Friday, April 11, 2008. So much for automated traffic cops. Looks like a few cities couldn't resist the temptation of easy money from their constituents. Six cities. Have been found to have shortened. The yellow light duration after installing red light camera. This has the effect of catching more people on red lights, at the cost of causing more accidents. What is wrong with those cities' government? I thought they were supposed to serve the people, not get them read-ended. April 11, 2008 at 9:21 AM.

simonfl.com

Optimizing the world: October 2007

http://www.simonfl.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

Tuesday, October 30, 2007. Opportunity cost and grad school. I apologize in advance to everyone who knows this stuff, but I keep writing posts and then realize I need to make sure my audience is familiar with some concepts before posting it. Is the cost of not doing something. It is something that is widely ignored and it shouldn't be. McGill: 65,000$ / year. MIT: 97,000$ / year. And something else to consider with these numbers. How much do you think a masters or a doctoral degree is worth? PS No, I'm n...

simonfl.com

Optimizing the world: August 2007

http://www.simonfl.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

Wednesday, August 29, 2007. IE rounds everything up it seems. Look at this HTML/CSS. DIV STYLE="float:left;width:50%;height:100%;background:#AACCEE;overflow:hidden" This is the first one of those divs /DIV. DIV STYLE="float:left;width:50%;height:100%;background:#EECCAA;overflow:hidden" And then the second one /DIV. Now, what does this look like in FF? Now let's look at the same code, but instead of having a 100 pixels width, we'll have a 101 pixel width:. Now, let's look at FF:. If you want to see it mor...

simonfl.com

Optimizing the world: June 2008

http://www.simonfl.com/2008_06_01_archive.html

Thursday, June 19, 2008. As you might have read in a previous post. Since last Monday I've started to eat vegetarian. I've been talking about this for months and finally did it. Well, I've actually been told that since I decided to eat seafood I'm rather a pescetarian. I'm not a very difficult person when it comes to food, I'll eat anything. So it's been weird for me to start being picky about what I eat, I feel almost guilty. Links to this post. Sunday, June 8, 2008. How much do you value your life?

simonfl.com

Optimizing the world: December 2007

http://www.simonfl.com/2007_12_01_archive.html

Saturday, December 1, 2007. Phone calls in movies. Anyone ever wondered how phone calls in movie always end weirdly? I don't know about you but I tend to end my phone call with a "Alright, talk to you later" or something like that. Not with "Yes, it's bad, really bad, I'm not sure we can save her" and then close the phone without waiting for an answer. Anyway. Links to this post. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom). View my complete profile. Subscribe in a reader. Enter your email address:. Phone calls in movies.

simonfl.com

Optimizing the world: Experiments on habits

http://www.simonfl.com/2008/06/experiments-on-habits.html

Thursday, June 19, 2008. As you might have read in a previous post. Since last Monday I've started to eat vegetarian. I've been talking about this for months and finally did it. Well, I've actually been told that since I decided to eat seafood I'm rather a pescetarian. I'm not a very difficult person when it comes to food, I'll eat anything. So it's been weird for me to start being picky about what I eat, I feel almost guilty. Haha, that's hilarious. Good luck with that. :). June 20, 2008 at 7:39 AM.

simonfl.com

Optimizing the world: January 2008

http://www.simonfl.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

Tuesday, January 29, 2008. Wait for the bus or walk? Another bus related question. You're waiting for the bus, it's late, it feels like it will never come. Inaction is killing slowly making you angry, you wonder: should I just walk instead? Unsurprisingly, you should choose the lazy option and wait, which is going to be optimal in almost all cases. This is what three mathematicians have found out in this paper. Links to this post. Thursday, January 3, 2008. You lose 100 points for every gram of trans fat.