Mattalyst

memewhore:

yourdndstories:

I’m pretty sure the monster manual explicitly states that goblinoids are super kinky. 

oldmanyellsatcloud:

prostheticknowledge:

Project Soli

Another announced project from Google ATAP today in collaboration with Ottica developing interactive method using small RADAR chips and finger gestures:

Project Soli is developing a new interaction sensor using radar technology. The sensor can track sub-millimeter motions at high speed and accuracy. It fits onto a chip, can be produced at scale and built into small devices and everyday objects.

Link

Ottica have a Tumblr blog here

The initially drone focused radar-on-a-chip is having some really, really neat novel applications elsewhere.

qb-black:

FUCK ME THAT’S DEPRESSING.

Also, thx /v/.

The former Speaker of the House is accused of then lying to the FBI when asked about unusual cash withdrawals from several banks. Read the rest

Book club

Free tagging: 

• Downtown Crossing
• Red Line
• Orange Line

Neighborhoods: 

• Downtown

Topics: 

• Crime
• The T

punchingart:

Evolution

by Matthew Day Jackson

More skulls here.

helmhammerhand:

And the award for the most in character cosplay goes to…

John Bohannon is at it again. In 2013 he published the results of a sting operation in which he submitted terrible papers with fake credentials to 304 open access journals. Over half of the journals accepted the paper for publication. He published his results in Science magazine, and it caused a bit of a stir, although arguably not as much as it should have.

Bohannon was asked to repeat this feat, this time to expose the schlocky science of the diet industry. He was asked to do this for a documentary film which will be release shortly, but he has already published his reveal. You can read his full account for details, but here is the quick summary.

He collaborated with others to perform a real (although crappy) scientific study. His researchers recruited 16 people, with one drop out, the remaining 15 were divided into three groups: low carb diet for three weeks, low carb diet plus daily chocolate for three weeks, and no change in diet. The results were not surprising in that the two diet groups lost 5 pounds on average, while the no diet group did not. However, they also found that the chocolate group lost 10% more weight. He explains:

Here’s a dirty little science secret: If you measure a large number of things about a small number of people, you are almost guaranteed to get a “statistically significant” result. Our study included 18 different measurements—weight, cholesterol, sodium, blood protein levels, sleep quality, well-being, etc.—from 15 people. (One subject was dropped.) That study design is a recipe for false positives.

Think of the measurements as lottery tickets. Each one has a small chance of paying off in the form of a “significant” result that we can spin a story around and sell to the media. The more tickets you buy, the more likely you are to win. We didn’t know exactly what would pan out—the headline could have been that chocolate improves sleep or lowers blood pressure—but we knew our chances of getting at least one “statistically significant” result were pretty good.

Yes, our old friend p-hacking. Bohannon is simply demonstrating effects that we have been discussing here and on Science-Based Medicine for years – published small studies are likely to be false positives because they are more susceptible to quirky results and manipulation through p-hacking. Throw in a little publication bias and we have a literature flooded with worthless positive studies.

I have argued that the press should not even be reporting such preliminary studies. They are nothing but noise in the background of science. At best they serve as a way to guide future research (by giving some indication of which questions are worthwhile and helping design more rigorous studies). They are useful for scientists, but really should not be presented to the public as if their results were reliable.

Here Bohannon is using one common method of p-hacking – multiple analysis. He looked at 18 variables, but did not adjust the statistics to reflect this. You can make an adjustment for multiple analysis so that the p-values reflect the “multiple lottery tickets.” At least then the p-value is legitimate. Otherwise the p-value is meaningless.

Even when legitimate, p-values are problematic. Some scientific journals are discouraging or even banning their use. The essence of the problem is that p-values are being over-used as a single measure of reliability of scientific results. The p-value was never meant to be used this way. It is only really a quick assessment of how seriously to take the data, or the signal to noise ratio in the data. But because p-value became the one measure of a study’s results, that led  to methods that essentially amount to p-hacking – tweaking the methods and massaging the data until you get across the magical 0.05 p-value.

Mutliple analysis is just one of those methods (sometimes called researcher degrees of freedom). Other methods include collecting data until you get the result you want, making multiple comparisons among the variables, and looking at multiple types of statistical analysis then using the one that works the “best.” These tricks are often done innocently, and sometimes not-so-innocently.

It is great that more attention is being paid to these problems with published scientific studies, and Bohannon’s efforts should be applauded.

This is a good time to point out, however, that these problems do not mean that science is broken or that no results can be trusted. It just means you have to understand the structure of the scientific literature and how to interpret results. Science progresses through eventually performing high quality studies with clear results that can be independently replicated. Until we get to this level of evidence I am suspicious of any claims.

Preliminary, small, soft, one-off studies are just noise. I pay no attention to them (although I do pay attention to the sloppy press they often receive). More robust results start to get interesting, and then you have to pay attention to plausibility. There is no sharp demarcation line, but at some point the combination of plausibility and direct evidence is sufficient to conclude that a phenomenon is more likely to be true than untrue. Of course, scientific conclusions are always tentative and subject to revision, but probabilities can reach so high that it is reasonable to treat certain conclusions as if they were facts. At the very least, overturning them would require a mountain of evidence equal to the mountain of evidence that establishes them as true.

I can’t give you a formula for this. It takes scientific knowledge and judgment. That is why we further rely on the consensus of scientific opinion to indicate when a claim has crossed the threshold and should be generally accepted. The judgment of any individual scientist can be quirky or mistaken, but the consensus of many scientists has a greater chance of being valid because individual quirkiness should average out. It is like crowdsourcing, but within an expert population.

In any case, this is the best we can do. It has proven very effective overall, as the amazing progress in science and technology attests. So we are clearly doing something right.

But we can do better. I look at this in terms of efficiency. Science is grinding forward, and eventually most claims work themselves out. Bad ideas do not get long term traction within science, while good ideas eventually do. The real question is, how rapid and efficient is this progress. Sloppy research techniques and poor journal filters slow progress by making the system inefficient.

I would argue that sloppy science journalism does as well by contributing to the scientific illiteracy of the population. The elaborate and expensive institutions of science depend upon public support. Public beliefs also tend to drive funding and therefore research, and sometimes scientists have to waste resources addressing popular, but not very scientifically valid, ideas. Think of the money wasted researching highly implausible alternative medicine treatments, or proving yet again that vaccines do not cause autism.

How much more rapid would our progress be if these inefficiencies were worked out of the system, or at least minimized?

With temperatures hovering in the mid-80s along the Northeast corridor today, it's easy to forget how terribly cold and snowy this winter was. It's slightly harder for Bostonites, though, since they still have melting snow on the ground.The Tide Street Snow Farm sits in a parking lot near the seaport ... More »

The International Trade Union Confederation estimates a body count of 5,200 by the time the stadium is completed. More »

Uber has become the company that sophisticated thinkers on the left love to hate, with some calling for the startup, currently valued somewhere around $50 billion, to be socialized. One of the nicer things I’ve seen written about Uber by a lefty is Cory Doctorow’s recent Boing Boing observation that while “Uber may be rapacious, exploitative corporate scum,” it is better in at least some respects than the crooked taxi medallion markets it is replacing—hardly a ringing endorsement. Labor activists are rallying around a lawsuit that would force Uber and Lyft, its closest competitor, to treat drivers who use their car-hailing apps not as independent contractors but as employees, a seemingly small change that would have enormous implications for the companies’ business models. Granted, libertarians and conservatives tend to celebrate Uber as lustily as their lefty counterparts condemn it. But given that Uber has to win over regulators in monolithically liberal cities, that is small consolation.

Staring at the Sun

Talk about a devilish prank.

Read more...

All of us who are not Family Values Republicans agree on this whole “Ewwwww, Duggars, you are DIS-gusting” thing, right? RIGHT. Josh molesting his kid sisters is gross and bad and wrong; his parents hush-hushing it because their God says those whores shouldn’t have tempted Big Brother with their vaginas to begin with is EVEN MORE gross and bad and wrong; and the Arkansas state trooper friend of the family who gave Josh a “very stern talk” and then dropped the whole matter, thereby allowing the statute of limitations to expire before Josh could be investigated and charged and convicted and sent to prison, is also gross and bad and wrong, for letting Josh Duggar get away with it, but also because corrupt ex-trooper Corporal Joseph Hutchens is now doing 56 years in the pokey his own self for being a child pornography sex-crimer, and WHAT EVEN THE EFF is in the water in Arkansas?

Read more on Kiddie Porn Cop Says Lying Duggars Didn’t Mention ALL The Kiddie Sex Crimes…

Even though they have similar temperments, angsty Tumblr teens and conspiracy theorists are groups that rarely intersect. On Tumblr, teens float stories about how Slenderman wants to kill them or how Zayn left One Direction because he is in love with Liam. Conspiracy theorists, meanwhile, tend to attach to theories that ... More »

paranormal-blacktivity:

lilliaun:

cloudofpurple:

memejacker2kxx:

holy shit this video is amazing

I wish I had this attitude around ignorant white people.. I just get mad lol

I was dead when he threw the sign lmao but I love this so much haha

BLESS

I added some new pet options to my local pet store

tastefullyoffensive:

Chinese Words for Animals Translated to English (photos via ah_q)

Previously: Name Improvements for Everyday Stuff

ourtangledbones:

WELCOME ANIME.

gameraboy:

1944 … informative Donald by x-ray delta one on Flickr.

Donald teaching us about propaganda

theinnocentgear:

sultan-of-sentiment:

#GLORYTOACEN !

HOLY SHIT THIS IS EXCELLENT

Oh hey, scarlet–harlot, more pictures of your friend~

fuckyeaharachnophobia:

what a giant healthy looking baby