In general I think the distinction between physical, neurological and psychological is peculiar. It suggests that the mind is not physical but a metaphysical entity that can be be analysed separately from the body and vice versa.
My experience with both mental illness and physical disease is that a systemic perspective is important if we are to avoid fixating on finding a specific diagnosis and instead focus on quality of life.
The mind, at least from our perspective, does not operate like any physical thing. So until neurobiology can explain the psychological phenomena, we need to make the distinction.
I dont like this paper. It makes statements based on references to opinion style articles. F.ex
"in practice, run-time type errors in deployed programs are exceedingly rare [TW07]."
If we look at [TW07] they state that
"even very simple approaches to testing capture virtually all, if not all, the errors that a static
type system would capture."
But provides no data or reference for that statement.
Another isue is that some references with data are based on small samples and possibly oudated:
"they [dynamc languages] lower development costs [Ous98]"
[Ous98] Compares time-to-implement and code-size for 8 different programs implemented in static and dynamic languages and shows that the dynamic languages are supperior. It is however not clear how much actual implementation is involved, so it may be the case that the difference is caused by diferences in available libraries at the time. In any case, the sample size is small and the article is old (1998) so it is not reasonable to make generalisations for programming in 2009 (or 20014).
Informally, dynamically types languages are chosen when the programmer prefers to get something running before getting something running correctly. Why would we assume then that once a program is running, the programmer would "find religion" and do the extra work to write a comprehensive test suite? If the programmer is willing to do work in an effort to prove correctness, the programmer would choose the far more efficient technique of rewriting the program in a statically typed language.
A dynamically typed program by its very nature a prototype, a program that is expected to fail when exposed to a non-trivial input. In many cases, that is fine, just not when correctness over many invocations actually matters.
> Informally, dynamically types languages are chosen when the programmer prefers to get something running before getting something running correctly.
I don't think that's at all true. I think that a major motive for choosing dynamic programming languages is that programmers want to get things running correctly and spend more time on the logic and less on making ritual invocations to the type system that are redundant with other elements of the code. (Haskell and other similar languages with very strong type inference are making this a less compelling reason to choose a dynamic language, but I think it remains an important one for many real decisions, as Haskell hasn't yet acheived the ecosystem and mind-share where its always likely to be considered as an alternative, and not rejected for reasons other than its type system.)
I think people who choose static languages do so because of concerns for correctness, but I think it is a mistake to reverse that to conclude that those who choose dynamic languages do so because they aren't concerned with correctness; many do so because the hoops you need to jump through in mainstream static languages are perceived as being a too-expensive way to get the (often very limited, given the lack of expressiveness in the type systems in many popular static languages) help in correctness that the static nature of the language provides.
I think that programmers reasons for choosing a specific language are as varied as the languages.
Personally I like programming in C++ because the typesystem and abstraction mechanisms allows me to write reasonably correct and concise code and at the same time performance is predictable.
I like programming in Python because of the emphasis on readability, the "batteries included" standard library and the scripting capabilities.
Both languages have failings, as do all the other I have tried, but what matters most (for me) is availability (platform support, libraries etc), which is the reason I occasionally write php code.
I remember visiting family in the states in 2008, we had our 9 month old child with us. Arriving in the US we got fast-tracked through security, allowed to bring formula for the baby with us and was generally treated very politely. In London we were asked to open all containers with baby food and taste it.
There are countless anecdotes illustrating how immigration rules and officers are ridiculous and racist, but not all of them are about USA. In many respects immigrants are treated worse in Europe that in the states.
So the idea that scientific studies should include people that are not upper middle-class westerns, is wrong because of the purchasing power of $100?
There is a link to the published paper in the article[1]. I have only skimmed it, but there are many different studies and findings. One I think is really interesting is this:
"Research on IQ using analytical tools from behavioral genetics has long shown that IQ is highly
heritable, and not particularly influenced by shared family environment (Dickens & Flynn 2001,
Flynn 2007). However, recent work using 7‐year old twins drawn from a wide range of
socioeconomic statuses, shows that contributions of genetic variation and shared environment
varies dramatically from low to high SES children (Turkheimer et al. 2003). For high SES
children, where environmental variability is negligible, genetic differences account for 70‐80%
of the variation, with shared environment contributing less than 10%. For low SES children,
where there is far more variability in environmental contributions to intelligence, genetic
differences account for 0‐10% of the variance, with shared environment contributing about
60%. This raises the specter that much of what we think we have learned from behavioral
genetics may be misleading, as the data are disproportionately influenced by WEIRD people,
and their children (Nisbett 2009)."
What they are arguing is that we have conducted science in a way where we have consistently sampled from a specific sub-population and used the results to generalise about the remaining sub-population. To me it sounds like they are on to something that could change many of the "givens" that are "known to be true". I recently saw a TED talk with Paul Johnson[2] where she discusses the problem that the sex of subjects in medical trials is often ignored leading to results that only holds for men or women.
Htsthbjig's point is that if the money doesn't mean much to you anyway, you're more likely to be punishing because you're not losing much. But if it means a lot to you, why punish a stranger when you're getting a significant amount of free money.
To properly compare the cultural differences in the test, it would have to be done with the same level of purchasing power. That's not really stated one way or the other in the article. $100 goes a lot further in a developing country than a developed country, so if they were using the same dollar amount (I doubt they were), then it isn't a directly comparable study.
For example: Make it $10. The stranger gives me a 1:9 split in their favour. Fuck 'em, I'm not going to lose any sleep over a dollar, and it's not worth my time to even collect the dollar. Now make it $10k. Hey, I could actually do something nice with $1k, even if the other person is being 'unfair'. The relative purchasing power of the money in the test is significant within cultures, let alone across cultures.
I have no problem with the question "Have they considered purchasing power". I could also come up with a dozen possible issues they might not have taken into consideration. But I would never argue that they havent considered them before I actually checked. And even though it seems reasonable to say
"The relative purchasing power of the money in the test is significant within cultures, let alone across cultures."
I am not convinced that is correct. A quote from the paper describing the study [1] suggest that the amount of money is not crucial
"Indeed, in the UG, raising the stakes to quite high levels (e.g., three months’ income) does not substantially alter the basic results. In fact, at high stakes, proposers tend to offer a little more, and responders remain willing to reject offers that represent small fractions of the pie (e.g., 20%) even when the pie is large (e.g., $400 in the United States). Similarly, the results do not appear to be due to a lack of familiarity with the experimental context. Subjects often do not change their behavior in any systematic way when they participate in several replications of the identical experiment."
The point of the article is that it is the norm to conduct studies where participants are selected from the same non-representative sub-population, and that this methodology is heavily biased. Rejecting this idea, because you find a possible issue with one of the many studies it is based on, seems like a really bad idea.
20% of $400 is still not all that much unless you're in abject poverty. For a minimum-wage worker in the US, it's a little over a day's work, but for anyone else, it's vanishingly smaller. For a person on a median income (around $27.5k in the US), it's only several hours work. For a higher-level professional, it's not even an hour's work. $80 doesn't buy you a lot of professional time.
$400 certainly isn't three months income in the US (~$6900/qtr is the median), as suggested earlier in the paragraph, let alone the 20% split of that.
"The stakes Henrich used in the game with the Machiguenga were not insubstantial—roughly equivalent to the few days’ wages they sometimes earned from episodic work with logging or oil companies." - Probably far from $100.
* paragraphs 1-5 describe an experiment which makes makes no sense because it appears to ignore purchasing power parity (PPP)
* paragraphs 6-12+ completely ignore the rather obvious PPP objection and go off on a tangent about the lone genius rebelling against authority blah blah blah - a style of writing which makes me increasingly more irritated and skeptical that the author is going to say anything convincing or interesting because he couldn't foresee and address my (and apparently others') immediate objections, which makes me wonder if this was even proofread
I stopped reading at that point because it felt like a waste of my lunch time. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious? I may read further this evening to see if the other 1000s of words have more substance.
Your criticism is misplaced. PPP is not the issue, its the nonconstant marginal utility of money. If the marginal utility of money were constant, one would expect the results to be identical for a dollar or a million dollars, and billionaires would be expected to behave the same as day laborers. That is ludicrous. Rather than cultural ideas of fairness, the game more likely could serve as a proxy for the participants initial ex ante wealth endowment.
That being said, many of these 'experiments' in behavioral economics are silly, in that they capture so little of a real world environment and introduce substantial effects of their own as to be meaningless in terms of real (model driven, hypothesis building, testable, repeatable) science.
You are arguing that we should use anecdotal evidence to guide public health policy. Please stop doing that and use a scientific approach instead.
I remember when I was a carpenter apprentice and asked for personal safety equipment and then being told that "wood dust never harmed anyone" or "I never use hearing protection and my hearing is just fine". I have encountered this attitude in many places, especially in small companies where not following safety rules can be seen directly in the profits. But you also see it in big projects, where the main contractor hires sub-contractors that hires sub-sub-contractors and no one has an overall responsibility.
> node is different, in that bizarre though js may be, if you have to use it in the browser, there is a kind of logic to using it on the server as well.
I don thinkt that makes any sense. Should we also use js to implement the OS for the server?
If js is good for server-side use it, if not use something else.
My main issues with php is that I dont trust the language and standard libraries to behave as I expect. There are simply to many strange type conversions, silent errors and strange behaviour going on.
> I don thinkt that makes any sense. Should we also use js to implement the OS for the server?
We don't normally develop the OS ourselves, so what language it was written in is irrelevant. Same goes for runtimes, libraries, etc. If we're not responsible for maintaining it, it should not matter what language it was written in. Naturally, the "same language on client and server" argument can only apply to code we develop and maintain.
What is the benefit of using the same language on the client and server? That the developer only needs to know one language?
The server-side code you write has to interact both with the client and the underlying OS. So you should consider how language X interacts with both client and OS, in addition to the intrinsic qualities of the language.
If we adopt a modular approach to software development, then I don't see any universal benefit to using the same language for all modules.
js might be a good server-side language, but choosing it because it works on the client is the wrong reason.
Dont worry, you dont actually feel it when you hit 30. But I get the feeling you are talking about.
I started programming relatively late, mid-twenties, and started as a CS student when I was 28. For the first two years I had this idea that I had to be faster and better than the younger students, to have a chance. But the world doesnt work that way. What matters is to try and figure out what you actually want to do, and then spend the time it takes to do it.
If an expert system prescribed you extra strength Tylenol would you feel better?
I think you are taking a too simplistic view of diagnosis and put to much faith in AI. I have also noticed Watsons good results, but I do not trust them yet, there is a lack of evidence supporting the claim that Watson can make 90% correct diagnosis.
Medical imaging is a big part of diagnosis, especially in many cancer patients. There is a huge effort to automate the segmentation of tumors, and even though algorithms often have higher inter- and intra-observability agreement than radiologists, they often fail miserably for "non-standard" tumors. A fully automated system that scans the patient, make the diagnosis and treatment plans and provides treatment is very far future.
A completely different issue is that the specific combination of a highly developed brain and opposable thumbs are sometimes necessary. Consider cardiac response teams in hospitals, but also general patient care where the ability to fluff a pillow can be just as important as placing a quick IV drop.
I think you need to view whatever process generated the answers as part of your model. In some cases, and in all textbook examples, we have a ground truth that is correct. But in real-world applications, such as segmentation problem in medial imaging, we have a gold standard which represents our best estimate, but is not necessarily correct.
Validation is not a magic bullet, we need to be critical of any part of the model that is given as truth, otherwise we might end up fitting a solution to the wrong problem.
More generally I think that textbooks should emphasize the need for the scientific method and stress that any model (or theory) is only as good as its ability to explain the entire problem domain.
pydicom is nice but it lacks network functionality: find, send, store and so on. And it cannot decompress jpegs.
Two large open source toolkits are dcmtk[1] and gdcm[2]. Both comes with commandline applications for viewing dicom files and querying pacs servers. gdcm is bundled with itk[3].
My experience with both mental illness and physical disease is that a systemic perspective is important if we are to avoid fixating on finding a specific diagnosis and instead focus on quality of life.