Collected links

1. A good discussion of the merits and perils of the Chinese script vs. alphabets.

2. Life just got better: Unlimited private Github repositories. (Also get the Student Pack.)

3. Economics in the rear-view window. [source]

4. Early (1989) words of wisdom by Jerome Friedman – of Statistical Learning fame – [source]:

   So, this was the setting – small data sets, manual computation, and noisy environments. These were the conditions under which almost all the statistical procedures that we use today were produced. (p19)

   A formula is a simple presciption for computation, one that does not contain data dependent branches. (p21)

   I think what this allows us to do, and what is basically the trend for the future, is that we are substituting computer power for unverifiable assumptions about the data. […]

   Why use these techniques? I think the reason is clear. The cost of computation is ever decreasing, but the price that we pay for the incorrect assumptions is staying the same. (p26)