Yeah, that New Zealand imperialism has been getting out of hand lately.

> while I don't think it's automatic that Kaspersky would do the Russ gov 'favors'

What's with this amazing inability of us Westerners to learn from past mistakes and endless optimism about benevolent intention of others? You'd think we would have corrected this by now, eg. after http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/russiago.... Personally FYI, I understand the optimism, but less so the inability to learn.

TL;DR Sorry, it's automatic. No such thing as ex-KGB. [/End of rant].

There is a brilliant new book (albeit somewhat advanced) that I don't see in this list: Introduction to Python for Econometrics, Statistics and Data Analysis (2014) by Kevin Sheppard. PDF available for free here: https://www.kevinsheppard.com/images/0/09/Python_introductio...

I'll add it to the page. Thanks!

As an economics major, thanks!

you may not want the enemy to know you're sending a fleet of fighter jets in their direction.

Nobody pointed this out yet. It would be very interesting to keep finding such perturbations that mess up learning and repeatedly add the new-found examples to the training set, retraining the model in the process. I wonder if after a finite number of iterations the resulting model would be near-optimal (impossible to perturb without losing its human recognizability) -- or, if this is impossible, if we could derive some proofs for why precisely this is impossible.

The article points out that this is the approach taken by the researchers who found the effect.

Related and a very good BBC documentary on the role (and tragedy) of engineering and planning in the USSR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3gwyHNo7MI

Amazing, thank you for this link.

Being of strategic value, space was political from day one. Nothing ever done in space was entirely apolitical. AAMOF, there would be no exploration at all without politics. So get used to it.

So, the beatings will continue until morale improves? Is that the best offer you got?

Fucking hell. No wonder this world ain't worth saving.

You don't understand my point. If you look at human psychology, things connected to power are often fascinating, but not always in the "I'm going to get the other guy and beat the shit of him" way. Young boys are fascinated with toy helicopters, trucks, army soldiers, and yes, spaceships, but they aren't being evil/scheming about it. For them, it's just a game. There are two levels of fascination with power: a) the childish "ooh that's cool" and b) the adult "hmm, we would be a pretty powerful nation/team/individuals if we got hold of it".

But the underlying reason why something is fascinating -- because it is connected with power -- doesn't change. So it is hypocritical to claim that "I want this and that, and my intention are innocent and sincere" when the object of your desire is a helicopter gunship. Now, something flying at 7.8 km per second is potentially far more dangerous than a helicopter gunship.

In other words, wanting space exploration to be free of politics is essentially wanting power to be free of politics. Which is a bit oxymoronic. As soon as your exploration produces something interesting, be it knowledge, materials, or even location, someone else is going to want it for themselves.

Umm, have you been living under a rock during the past two months?

Nope.