Idle Analytics» Reuben

An illuminating trip to the Microsoft store

Reuben — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 05:26:02 +0000

Microsoft has, as you may know, released a piece of hardware called the Surface Pro 2. I own one. It's currently a doorstop, but I'm told it may compute once again maybe sometime tomorrow. What's sad is that the hardware isn't defective; the developers are. Specifically, MS pushed out a firmware update for the Surface …

Netflix streaming continues to founder as dozens of prominent movies are taken down

Reuben — Sat, 28 Dec 2013 21:37:57 +0000

As I've written before, Netflix streaming is not a particularly good deal if you want to actually watch movies that people want to watch. With the end of 2014, the streaming catalog is about to shrink yet again: For a while, it was also possible to find out what was expiring, information that was valuable …

Saints Row IV is the most fun I've had playing a game

Reuben — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 03:55:43 +0000

In the first ten minutes of Saints Row IV, I climbed up a nuclear ICBM, in flight and on a course to hit the US, and disabled it, as Aerosmith's Don't Wanna Miss a Thing played and my teammates told me how much they'd miss me and appreciated my sacrifice. Naturally, I survived and became …

Statisticians need to see how experimental science really works, then shut up about it

Reuben — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 04:46:34 +0000

This kind of irks me. The plague of non-reproducibility in science may be mostly due to scientists’ use of weak statistical tests, as shown by an innovative method developed by statistician Valen Johnson, at Texas A&M University in College Station. The article goes on to specify an amazing new Bayesian test the person invented which …

Surface Pro 2: first impressions

Reuben — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 08:16:55 +0000

For several years all of my computing, note taking, and organization has happened through a few devices. Most of my mental computing work (actual writing, modeling, programming) happens on my laptop, a 3 year old Dell Core 2 Duo. My note taking, conceptual thinking, and written calculations happens on an iPad (3rd gen) with a …

Virtual reality is finally coming next year

Reuben — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 08:04:00 +0000

Virtual Reality has been a joke for years. For all the derision heaped on nonexistent flying cars, jetpacks, and cures for cancer, no seemingly straightforward bit of technology has been vaporware for so long. 1992's film The Lawnmower Man enticed us with the idea of entering a fictional world, a facsimile of Star Trek's Holodeck, …

Jeopardy contestants don't know good game theory

Reuben — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 19:02:09 +0000

Two things demonstrate to me that Jeopardy contestants don't understand rudimentary game theory. Case 1: In many cases you have a score where one person is way ahead, and the other two trail by an amount so that it's a "run-away", meaning that even if the second place contestant bet the maximum amount in final …

Let's Play Mass Effect - Episode 1

Reuben — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 03:09:59 +0000

Jessica and I embark on a journey to snark all over a great video game. Part1: Part 2:

Hollywood's box office debacle this summer is not hard to understand

Reuben — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 17:29:42 +0000

Via Slashdot: In the weeks since Spielberg’s prediction, six wannabe blockbusters have cratered at the North American box office: “R.I.P.D.,” “Turbo,” “After Earth,” “White House Down,” “Pacific Rim,” and “The Lone Ranger.” These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects—exactly the sort of summer spectacle that ordinarily assures a solid run at …

Netflix streaming still a crap deal compared to disc plan

Reuben — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 06:00:28 +0000

Zap2It is out with a press release that Netflix streaming will now be expanding its vast collection to include ... a major network show that's been running for almost 9 years. Netflix, Inc. today announced an extension of its multiyear licensing agreement for select CBS library content streamed instantly to Netflix customers. Under the revised …