This past year, the years of 2007 and 2008 to be specific, there was a softball team. This team was very skilled in many of ways. On the field and off the field. Stuck together when there were losses, and celebrated on their victories. Unfortunately, they lost the first postseason game with the ending score to be 15-16. The warriors ended their season with a record of 11-6. But in my eyes, of course its 12-6. Next year the warriors will be back full flegded and ready to fight. You bet your knickers they'll make it far into the playoffs.
---C.C.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Paradox of the False Positive
Say you have a new disease, called Super-AIDS. Only one in a million people gets Super-AIDS. You develop a test for Super-AIDS thats 99 percent accurate. I mean, 99 percent of the time, it gives the correct results - true if the subject is infected, and false if the subject is healthy. You give the test to a million people.
One in a million people have Super-AIDS. One in a hundred people will generate a "false positive" - the test will say he has Super-AIDS even though he doesnt. That's what "99 percent accurate" means: one percent wrong.
What's one percent of one million?
1,000,000/100=10,000
One in a million people has Super-AIDS. If you test a million random people, you'll probably find one case of real Super-AIDS. But your test wont identify one person as having Super-AIDS. It will identify ten thousand people as having it.
Your 99 percent accurate test will perform with 99.99 percent inaccuracy.
Thats the paradox of the false positive. When you try to find something really rare, your test's accuracy has to match to the rarity of the thing you're looking for. If you're trying to point at a pixel on your screen, a sharp pencil is a good pointer: the pencil tip is a lot more accurate than the pixels. That basically explains the paradox of the false positive.
One in a million people have Super-AIDS. One in a hundred people will generate a "false positive" - the test will say he has Super-AIDS even though he doesnt. That's what "99 percent accurate" means: one percent wrong.
What's one percent of one million?
1,000,000/100=10,000
One in a million people has Super-AIDS. If you test a million random people, you'll probably find one case of real Super-AIDS. But your test wont identify one person as having Super-AIDS. It will identify ten thousand people as having it.
Your 99 percent accurate test will perform with 99.99 percent inaccuracy.
Thats the paradox of the false positive. When you try to find something really rare, your test's accuracy has to match to the rarity of the thing you're looking for. If you're trying to point at a pixel on your screen, a sharp pencil is a good pointer: the pencil tip is a lot more accurate than the pixels. That basically explains the paradox of the false positive.
Simple and Easy Programming
There's nothing like programming a computer. When you program it, it does EXACTLY what you want it to do. Its like designing a machine - any machine, a car, a faucet, a gas hinge for a door - using math and instructions. Its awesome in the truest sense. It can fill you with awe.
A computer is the most complicated machine you'll ever use. Its made of billions of microminiaturized transistors that can be configured to run any program you can imagine. But when you sit down at the keyboard and write a line of code, those transistors do what you tell them to. Most of us will never build a car. Pretty much none of us will ever create an aviation system. Design a building. Lay out a city. Those are complicated machines, those things, and they're off limits to the likes of you and me. But a computer os like ten times more complicated, and it will dance to any tune you play. You can learn to write code in an afternoon. Start with a language like Python, which was written to give nonprogrammers an easier way to make the machine dance to their tune. Even if you only write code for one day, one afternoon, you have to do it. Computers can control you or they can lighten your work. If you want to be in charge of your machines, you HAVE to learn to write code. It is essential.
A computer is the most complicated machine you'll ever use. Its made of billions of microminiaturized transistors that can be configured to run any program you can imagine. But when you sit down at the keyboard and write a line of code, those transistors do what you tell them to. Most of us will never build a car. Pretty much none of us will ever create an aviation system. Design a building. Lay out a city. Those are complicated machines, those things, and they're off limits to the likes of you and me. But a computer os like ten times more complicated, and it will dance to any tune you play. You can learn to write code in an afternoon. Start with a language like Python, which was written to give nonprogrammers an easier way to make the machine dance to their tune. Even if you only write code for one day, one afternoon, you have to do it. Computers can control you or they can lighten your work. If you want to be in charge of your machines, you HAVE to learn to write code. It is essential.
Bayesian Analysis
This is the most common type of computer analysis in existence. You use it without even knowing it. [there's a hacker inside of everyone]
Its how computers can be used to find all kinds of errors, anomalies and outcomes. You ask the computer to create a profile of an average record in a database and then ask it to find out which records in the database are furthest away from average. Without it, we couldnt spam or spam filter.
Its how computers can be used to find all kinds of errors, anomalies and outcomes. You ask the computer to create a profile of an average record in a database and then ask it to find out which records in the database are furthest away from average. Without it, we couldnt spam or spam filter.
Cryptography: Crypto 101
Crypto is math. Hard Math. Its very difficult to explain in details. Trust me, Im very good with words and even this is difficult for me. So here are the Cliffnotes, basically.Some kinds of mathematical functions are really easy to do in one direction and hard to do in the other direction. Its easy to multiply large primes, making one big prime number. Its really, really hard to take any given giant number and figure out which primes multiply together to give you that number. That means if you can come up with a way of scrambling something based on multiplying large primes, unscrambling it without knowing those primes will be hard. Wicked hard. Like, a trillion years of all the computers ever invented working 24/7 wont be able to do it.
There are four parts to any crypto message: the original message, called "cleartext". The scrambled message, called the "ciphertext". The scrambling system, called the "cipher". And finally there's the key: secret stuff you feed into the cipher along with the cleartext to make ciphertext. Now, of course any TG would know this, but its an updated version of cryptography. Let it rip!
There are four parts to any crypto message: the original message, called "cleartext". The scrambled message, called the "ciphertext". The scrambling system, called the "cipher". And finally there's the key: secret stuff you feed into the cipher along with the cleartext to make ciphertext. Now, of course any TG would know this, but its an updated version of cryptography. Let it rip!
The Rip-Off Behind "Razor Blade Business"
Giving away one thing to sell another is what we like to call "razor blade business". Companies like Gillette give you free razor blade handles and then stiff you by charging you a samll fortune for the blades. Printer Cartridges are the worst for that. The most expensive champagne in the world is cheap when compared to inkjet ink, which casts all of a penny a gallon to make wholesale. [money hungry fools]
Razor Blade businesses depend on you not being able to get the blades from someone else. After all, Gillette can make nine bucks on a ten dollar replacement blade, why not start a competitor that makes only four bucks selling an identical blade. An 80 percent pprofit marginnis the kind of thing that makes your average bussiness guy go all drooly and round eyed. [these are classified tricks of the trade. im letting you in on some crucial info here]
Razor Blade businesses depend on you not being able to get the blades from someone else. After all, Gillette can make nine bucks on a ten dollar replacement blade, why not start a competitor that makes only four bucks selling an identical blade. An 80 percent pprofit marginnis the kind of thing that makes your average bussiness guy go all drooly and round eyed. [these are classified tricks of the trade. im letting you in on some crucial info here]
IndieNet Browser Network Connections
Because school networks log every click in and out of the system, the answer is ingenious. It's called TOR - The Onion Router. An onion router is an internet site that takes requests for web pages and passes them onto other onion routers, and on to others until one of them finally decides to search the page and pass it back through the layers of the onion until it reaches you. The traffic through the onion routers is encrypted, which means that the school can't see what you're asking for and the layers of the onion dont know who they're working for. For instance, when you try to access myspace or youtube. There are millions of nodes - the program was set by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. But I tapped into it and made you a simpler more efficient version.
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