Consider all the entities [stars, galaxies, or whatnot] in your study as points in 3-space. The descriptive length of the data is the total number of bits that describes the location of all points in your study.

If all points are random and evenly distributed, then the total number of bits required is (number of points)x(number of bits for 1 location).

Suppose you notice a clumping of points. Is this a structure or random variation?

Rework your data description as follows: for any point, use the first bit to determine whether a point is a member of the clump or not, and subsequent bits to complete the description, depending on whether the point is in the clump.

For this description, the total number of bits required is 1x(total number of points) + (number of points in clump)x(number of bits for location relative to clump) + (number of points not in clump)x(number of bits for general location).

If the 2nd description is shorter than the 1st description, then by Occam's razor the second description is more likely correct.

In fact, the number of bits directly tells the probability that the 2nd description is correct: if the 2nd description requires 10 fewer bits (total) than the 1st, then the 2nd description is more likely to be correct by a factor of 1024. Alternately, there is a 1/1024 chance that the 2nd description is *not* the correct description of the data.

If you have lots of data, it's not unusual for a descriptive length to be thousands of bits shorter than the baseline description; meaning, that it's virtually certain that the new description is correct and that the new structure does not arise from random variation.

I haven't seen the data, but I assume that describing all galaxies in the universe using the newly described "clump" as a categorical structure gives a smaller descriptive entropy than describing all galaxies without the extra category of "clump".

Okay, just to be clear.

In your meetings, everyone waits while one person tells his status, then everyone waits while a 2nd person tells his status, and so on.

How is this more efficient than everyone composing a 1-paragraph summary and sending it around in E-mail? How is this more efficient than the boss visiting everyone one-at-a-time, taking notes, and typing up a summary E-mail?

How is a "free topics" meeting with everyone better than "targetted topics" meetings with only the people involved? Aren't impropmtu get-togethers with a couple of people in the bosse's office more effective than big meetings in the conference room?

I'm confused. What about your meetings make them good meetings?

I always use robots.txt to forbid caching my incriminating evidence.

You can't be too careful these days...

Sovereign debt isn't the core issue, in that debt is neither good nor bad and has some uses.

What I find objectionable is the blanket pronouncement by economists that "it's not like your family debt" as a way of deflecting analysis and criticism of the US government's situation.

It's disingenuous, and it belies the deep problems with the current US policy.

(To contrast, I think that much of our current debt is the bad kind. Of the rest, economists would be better served by saying "it's for *this* purpose and only for a little while, and then we'll pay it down" or similar. But they don't do that.)

I'm not against sovereign debt properly used.

From your answer, you probably understand the issues. I just wanted to make clear that I object to the blanket statement.

Well, let's see here:

Economics:

1) Sovereign debt is not like ordinary debt, so it's OK for the US to have a large deficit
2) A little inflation is good (but we can't tell you what the best value actually is)

Medicine:

1) Depression is a disease, and not a consequence of another disorder (as "fever" is)
2) Depression meds actually work
3) Obesity can be fixed by a) diet, b) exercise, or c) eating less
4) Every medical study that hasn't been replicated at least once

Psychology:

1) Seeing a psychiatrist has more benefit than not seeing one
2) Every study which hasn't been replicated at least once (More info)

Social sciences:

1) Every study which hasn't been replicated at least once

Physics, Chemistry, other "hard" sciences:

Nothing, really. Most everything of note has been replicated and confirmed by independent experimenters.

Typo'ed my post. The path to citizenship should read inexpensive.

Well, then. Let's see what we have here:

1) Reduce the number of aircraft carriers from 10 (+3 under construction) to 5
2) Spend less on military than the rest of the world combined. Reduce the amount by half.
3) Stop waging war in Afghanistan. Pull out of Afghanistan entirely and bring our people home.
4) Stop the war on drugs. Release everyone jailed for non-violent drug-related crime.
5) Stop the war on immigrants. Allow an easy and expensive path to citizenship. (Note: Our population is declining and we need more taxpayers.)
6) Stop the war on tourism. Disband homeland security, allow unencumbered and easy travel within the US. Redirect the TSA money away from worthless scanners and put it towards intelligence.

That's just off the top of my head. Search for "ways the federal government can save money" and get a zillion hits. Google is your friend.

(Ending Saturday delivery of mail would save an est. $1.7 - $3.1 billion alone. How much did you say those satellites cost?)

Because the universe was created by an all-powerful all-knowing being who came down to us in the form of a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father who can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master.

He can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

He has defined a category of behaviours which are biologically imperative but which we should not do, lest he judge us unworthy in his eyes and stick us in his personal torture chamber for all eternity.

Showing naked people to children encourages them to have sex in ways which are not permitted, which will get them sent to the eternal torture chamber.

Does this answer your question?

If you have difficulty expressing yourself in front of others for whatever reason (stage fright, for instance) consider joining Toastmasters.

It's a club for people who want to learn to speak in front of an audience. It's got branch clubs all over the world, so there's probably one near you. They meet twice a month (more or less - depending on the club) and have a nominal yearly dues.

After about two years of going you start to "get the hang of it" and become more relaxed and fluent when talking to groups.

If you think you might get a Skype interview and if you have trouble with presentations, you should check them out.

Incorrect. Source.

I read a more in-depth report of the incident. Mr. Weir phoned the police, who suggested all of the things one would expect: turning off the engine, shifting to neutral, &c.

Mr. Weir was unable to stop the car using the foot brake alone, and only "just barely" managed to stop the car using both the handbrake *and* the foot brake *while* hopped up on adrenaline.

Anyone in worse physical shape than Mr. Weir (a 22-year old male) would have considerable difficulty stopping a vehicle under those circumstances.

Oh, and read the report: he was speeding for 30 minutes and had time to call the police. He didn't inadvertently have his foot on the gas.

This might indeed be bull, but I've got good evidence in support of my statements.

Like!

Will add to my list of "Best Practices for Safety".