Bad beat/Moaning/Venting thread - Mammy told me not to come.

[Arazi]

A colleague was on phone at lunch today to a "Feng Shui" consultant. #weareback

I’d fire your colleague on the spot.

[Guest]

@Hitch and others, The Apprentice final:

SPOILER

First year I've watched it, it's not too bad, pretty amazing how some of the people on it were cast outside of the comedic value.

I was pretty disappointed to see the Irish girl go, I thought the fact that she already had a successful product albeit discontinued was more than enough to see her go through to the final.

I had Scarlett as the fav for a while now, assume she was most people's.
I saw your back & forth on Twitter Hitch, I'd have to agree with you regarding the globe question but it does just look terrible on TV.

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[kpnuts]

If you ever do have to go into Temple St with a fracture, be prepared for a long wait - especially at night time when they have only quarter as many fracture nurses on.

The pro tip is to tell your kid to scream really loudly when they are doing the triage examination. That way you will get bumped higher up the queue.

Stoic little kids bravely bearing the pain go to the bottom of the list.

Solid info.
For adults, complaining of chest pain scores very highly in the A&E triage algorithm, of course, but lesser known is that any mention of testicular pain as a sideline symptom can rocket one to the, ahem, head of the queue, according to a well-placed source!

[Guest]

Can't quote or google that! Apprentice Final has already been shown?

(apols for not yet getting back to your very nice PM, been working like a bollix all week)

No not yet, 9pm tonight, just some thoughts in the lead up. No spoilers for someone up to date through the semis

[Guest]

Flying...stupidly expensive, extremely frustrating at times, but occasionally worth it...

SPOILER

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[Guest]

SPOILER

Scarlett has a great business personality. Actually Carina too. I kinda think it might be Carina just from the way it has been filmed and no harm there. It would definitely be picking the underdog though as Scarlett would do great through corporate connections of Sugar+co, whereas there are only so many of Carina's dad's cakes that Amstrad can eat.

SPOILER

Yeah fair point, my issue with the show is that it feels very outdated. It's based so much upon being a good salesperson and success in the tasks are often quite dependent on luck.

I think a reshuffle with Lord Sugar or someone new with a fresher "Silicon Valley" approach, people wear more casual clothes, less about sales, maybe more focus on tech, innovative solutions to a company's problem.

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[Raoul Duke III]

Child # 1's school just had Christmas carol service. 300 kids singing in perfect harmony rather impressive. Possibly helped that the girl:boy choir split was about 5 to 1.

They finished with a medley, which itself finished with Fairytale of New York. Ballsy choice imo!

[MrsFlushdraw]

Solid info.
For adults, complaining of chest pain scores very highly in the A&E triage algorithm, of course, but lesser known is that any mention of testicular pain as a sideline symptom can rocket one to the, ahem, head of the queue, according to a well-placed source!

Having Long QT syndrome and also suspected Mastocytosis gets me right in ay any A&E. 5 min wait maximum to see triage if not taken straight through without even seeing a nurse!

[ArmaniJeans]

SPOILER

Oh absolutely. Its pure entertainment, and a bit aged at even that. The fact that one of the best contestants plans to open a bakery says it all about the ambition of the show. Would be class to have people e.g. working on new projects.

It's only £250K so I'd have thought the businesses are always going to be fairly low-key like the one you mentioned. A revolutionary tech idea would probably need a lot more money?
Also anyone with a solid business idea would presumably have easier ways of raising the money rather than spending 6 weeks in a dormitory and doing these strange tasks.

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[Solksjaer!]

Solid info.
For adults, complaining of chest pain scores very highly in the A&E triage algorithm, of course, but lesser known is that any mention of testicular pain as a sideline symptom can rocket one to the, ahem, head of the queue, according to a well-placed source!

Didn't work for me . Plenty more serious ahead she said . I had a pain in me balls waiting.

[Guest]

It's only £250K so I'd have thought the businesses are always going to be fairly low-key like the one you mentioned. A revolutionary tech idea would probably need a lot more money?
Also anyone with a solid business idea would presumably have easier ways of raising the money rather than spending 6 weeks in a dormitory and doing these strange tasks.

Perhaps changing the incentive from a 250k investment to something more innovative.
A guy I worked with up until recently was accepted on to a program run within the company.
He does four 6 month projects in four different locations around the world, he gets his full salary and all expenses paid throughout the entire project.
The goal is to create the future leaders of the company and incentivise the best to stay.
That sort of opportunity seems better than 250k in the right industry.

[Hectorjelly]

Zuutroy (or anyone). I am trying to work out probabilities for a Markov Chain that contains recursion (ie there are terminal states, and there are also possible infinite loops). Can you point me to a resource for a suitable algorithm?

[Guest]

Zuutroy (or anyone). I am trying to work out probabilities for a Markov Chain that contains recursion (ie there are terminal states, and there are also possible infinite loops). Can you point me to a resource for a suitable algorithm?

My field is semiconductor physics, so I won't even pretend I have the first clue. Sorry! Sounds like you need a mathematician.

[Guest]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AunImole9HI

[Solksjaer!]

The Irish Revolution on RTE is great Christmas viewing . 100 years Anniversary next year of the bastard Auxiliary atrocities.

[BennyHiFi]

Kenny Lynch is dead, aged 81

Loved this guy when i was a kid. He was everywhere in the 70s and 80s (and the 60s too apparently). So much talent.

Pop music, movies, light entertainment with a side frisson of gangster in real life.

[Guest]

[Guest]

Zuutroy (or anyone). I am trying to work out probabilities for a Markov Chain that contains recursion (ie there are terminal states, and there are also possible infinite loops). Can you point me to a resource for a suitable algorithm?

Are you looking to work out steady state probabilities via a markov matrix? If so, it sounds like something that could be done via numpy in Python.

https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/markov-chains-python-tutorial

If you are working with some type of matrix and it isn't too complex say 2x2 or 3x3 you should be able to work out the steady state by hand if that's the end goal.

Not 100% sure this is what you're after but numpy arrays are used for markov so that might help.

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[Guest]

Next day or same day Amazon delivery is coming to Ireland.

I'd settle for getting the stuff I ordered on November 23rd, and again on December 8th

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[ionapaul]

I've got Amazon Prime membership and get stuff in two days very often.

[AndyFatBastard]

Which one of us was this? Any sightings of Denny Crane in the Cork area?

https://www.breakingnews.ie/discover/cork-punter-places-record-bet-on-trumps-re-election-971252.html

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[Goodluck2me]

Christmas arrival in the local fancy butchers of truffles. A whopping €1,920 a kilo, which is seemingly quite cheap compared to other years and the truffles this year are meant to be amazing. What do I do with my measly 15grams? I gather a very simple pasta or maybe scrambled eggs is the ideal recipe?

Ortolan?

[Raoul Duke III]

Christmas arrival in the local fancy butchers of truffles. A whopping €1,920 a kilo, which is seemingly quite cheap compared to other years and the truffles this year are meant to be amazing. What do I do with my measly 15grams? I gather a very simple pasta or maybe scrambled eggs is the ideal recipe?

Mrs D3 still rates a plate of scrambled eggs with truffles grated over it in Umbria as one of her top 3 meals ever.

The truffle wasn't even mentioned on the menu. Think it was a fiver.

[Raoul Duke III]

Speaking of Denny Crane.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-stock-price-soars-intraday-record-high-elon-musk-goal-2019-12-1028773656

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[DeadParrot]

10/11 seems like a great price

I'd be eating the 6/1+ on dem candidates personally.
But...I'm a bit of a sucker for political betting. I knew the tories were gonna romp but still had a little flutter on a hung parliment

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[Hectorjelly]

Are you looking to work out steady state probabilities via a markov matrix? If so, it sounds like something that could be done via numpy in Python.

https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/markov-chains-python-tutorial

If you are working with some type of matrix and it isn't too complex say 2x2 or 3x3 you should be able to work out the steady state by hand if that's the end goal.

Not 100% sure this is what you're after but numpy arrays are used for markov so that might help.

I have to write python code that can take a series of states, and return the probability of ending in each of the terminal states. The states can have recur, which is what makes it difficult. So far I have written a program that will just run the series (n) times and give me the data, but I think there is a formula I'm lacking that allows you to work out the limit of each probability. My brute force method is too slow to be of any use.

Here's an example to make sure I'm explaining properly: We always start at state(0).



s0 = [0, 0.5, 0, 0, 0, 0.5] # s0 can become s1 or s5 in equal probability
s1 = [(4/9), 0, 0, 3/9, 2/9, 0] # s1 can become s0, s3, or s4, but with different probabilities
s2 = [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0] # s2 is terminal, and unreachable
s3 = [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0] # s3 is terminal
s4 = [0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0] # s4 is terminal
s5 = [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1] # s5 is terminal

[Theresa]

Aer Lingus have to be the worst airline.

It’s a tough call considering so many of them make something that should be easy so so difficult but I think the Irish are the ones to take it.

An absolute joke of a company and a service. I swore I’d never book with them again last time and I’m the idiot for giving them a chance. Back to Ryanair, who despite the bad press they get are efficient, easy and for me the space isn’t an issue.

[Denny Crane]

Seems like a nice illustration of a fairly well-established market principle there. Never get into a fight with stupid investors as they can stay stupider for longer can you can remain liquid.

Denny seems to have smart views of the markets, given its his job, but that whole anti-Tesla thing seems to be driven by some weird pro-Trump community ideology about how awful it is that cars can run in an environmentally friendly way.

Plus given the sheer volume of money dying to get into the market, betting on anything falling seems like working with the odds against you. Until it all eventually collapses of course.

where'd you get that idea?

[Tar.Aldarion]

I'd be eating the 6/1+ on dem candidates personally.
But...I'm a bit of a sucker for political betting. I knew the tories were gonna romp but still had a little flutter on a hung parliment

Yeah my brother got warren at 7/1 to be the nominee, seemed nice!

[Guest]

I have to write python code that can take a series of states, and return the probability of ending in each of the terminal states. The states can have recur, which is what makes it difficult. So far I have written a program that will just run the series (n) times and give me the data, but I think there is a formula I'm lacking that allows you to work out the limit of each probability. My brute force method is too slow to be of any use.

Here's an example to make sure I'm explaining properly: We always start at state(0).



s0 = [0, 0.5, 0, 0, 0, 0.5] # s0 can become s1 or s5 in equal probability
s1 = [(4/9), 0, 0, 3/9, 2/9, 0] # s1 can become s0, s3, or s4, but with different probabilities
s2 = [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0] # s2 is terminal, and unreachable
s3 = [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0] # s3 is terminal
s4 = [0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0] # s4 is terminal
s5 = [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1] # s5 is terminal

Ok what I think you have there will need an Efrenfest model, it's a discrete not continuous model, you have been given the states, you'll need to do the reading on it because I haven't looked at anything like that in 2 years but looks like what you may need.

I found Dartmouth good: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/te.../Chapter11.pdf

I hope this helps

[Strewelpeter]

Christmas arrival in the local fancy butchers of truffles. A whopping €1,920 a kilo, which is seemingly quite cheap compared to other years and the truffles this year are meant to be amazing. What do I do with my measly 15grams? I gather a very simple pasta or maybe scrambled eggs is the ideal recipe?

I just finished the Bruno book about the Truffles. I'm assuming that I've never eaten a real truffle and only ever had the cheap chinese ones they use to flavour oils etc. I find the taste of those 'Truffle' products quite nasty but now after reading that I have a longing to rey the real thing.

Those books are ok, all the idyllic provincial France colour is great but the rewriting the same crime yarn with different names is a bit thin.

[thechamp87]

Aer Lingus have to be the worst airline.

It’s a tough call considering so many of them make something that should be easy so so difficult but I think the Irish are the ones to take it.

An absolute joke of a company and a service. I swore I’d never book with them again last time and I’m the idiot for giving them a chance. Back to Ryanair, who despite the bad press they get are efficient, easy and for me the space isn’t an issue.

Fly with them twice a week to/from London and a couple of times a year to/from the US and have the complete opposite view.

[DeadParrot]

heh, am an absolute sucker on that front too. Hence why suspecting that the exact opposite to what I feel will happen (that dems will romp home even if they put a dead duck up as their candidate) is the right bet to make.

because Trump is nothing if not wildly inconsistent with his rambling...

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[Keane]

I could get on board with a 'make your own truffle oil' kit.

[Theresa]

Fly with them twice a week to/from London and a couple of times a year to/from the US and have the complete opposite view.

I actually think it’s specific to Canada, they refuse to give you your onward connection boarding pass in your departure airport. It’s happened every time now. KLM do. BA do. Aer lingus dont. I wonder what is causing that stupid policy and why it hasn’t been fixed in 3 years.

So what happens then is even with 90 min overlay in heathrow you miss your connection as you, and 50 others need to line up to get your boarding pass in the terminal. Where of course they have one incredibly unhelpful person working on a lone desk.

On the way back the online check in never ever works. And of course they have three people and a billion people lining up to check in at a desk. Eamonn can prob confirm how bad this is.

[Theresa]

Actually while I’m at it!

What is the whole point of check in and the utter rigmarole around it for Air travel in particular? Where did it come from and why aren’t we past it?

I don’t need to check in for a bus, well at least not with as much effort as an airline.

What checks are they doing that they can’t do at the actual boarding gate.

Pls explain. BBV is all knowledgeable please tell me why this process began and persists.

[Guest]

Can’t be bothered digging it up but seem to remember a big row here about self driving cars here a few years ago and the consensus here from all the lads who swallow big tech press releases was that we would be well on our way with public adoption by now
Just like most of the AI bullshit, pure spoofery.

[Theresa]

At check in, the airline receives the relevant flight coupon(s) from the ticket or electronic ticket. The coupon, whether paper or electronic, is needed for the operating airline to claim the value of the flight back from the original travel agent or airline that issued the ticket, and who received the money from the purchaser in the first place. The coupon (and the money) is not transferred earlier because once it is out of the agent or original issuer's hands, the flight related to it cannot be cancelled or changed until the coupon (or the money) is transferred back to the original issuer. Everyone has to play by the same rules, to ensure interoperability between airlines and travel agents worldwide.

However, some low cost airlines, like EasyJet and Ryanair, do not participate in the "normal" way ticket accounting is done, they just collect all the money at the time the booking is made. Travel agents who wish to sell their flights must arrange to use their special and proprietary systems. These airlines are free to arrange their check in system however suits them best. They still have an interest in knowing how many people are likely to show up, in collecting passport or immigration information where required, and estimating baggage weights for the flight. But they do not need to obey the rules on time limits.

Longer explanation.

You probably have noticed that you often buy your flight from a different company than the airline itself. Maybe you buy the ticket from a travel agent. Or perhaps even a different airline. Often many airlines are involved in a complicated itinerary, such as a round-the-world ticket.

There are many millions of travel agents around the globe and hundreds of airlines. But they are not independent. Airlines often need to work together, not just on codeshares but for interline feed too, and travel agents anywhere could be selling a journey for any airline. Therefore we need a single, universal system for moving money between airlines. It's no good to make it up for each individual transaction, (unless you are a low cost carrier who sells your tickets yourself only for your own flights).

So how does the ticket seller who collects your money distribute it to the operating carriers, and more importantly (considering we are talking about billions of dollars moving around the globe every year) what is the audit trail for this process? How do you keep track of currency exchange movements in a fair way?

When you buy a flight or a journey, you are actually buying a ticket. This used to be a paper ticket, but now it's electronic. But the actual process is the same as before, it's just an electronic implementation of the paper. The ticket is your proof to the airline that you paid an organisation it trusts for the flight. The airline will only distribute its unique ticket paper to travel agents it trusts. With electronic ticketing, only travel agencies it trusts will have access to its e-ticket server. The airline may also trust the ticket paper of other airlines through a formal process called an interline agreement.

The ticket also has, for each flight, a "flight coupon" of certain monetary value attached to it. That value is determined by the appropriate fare for the journey.

At check in, in the old days, you presented your ticket to the airline. The airline detached ("clipped") the flight coupon from the ticket and kept the flight coupon. In exchange, you got a boarding pass. At the end of the month, the airline collected all the paper flight coupons and figured out who issued each coupon based on their serial numbers. It presented the coupons back to their original issuers and in exchange gets the financial value of those coupons. Since this happens only once per month, it's a lot easier than money moving about in each ticket transaction.

The system is exactly the same now, except the tickets and coupons are electronic instruments that are transferred in the background when you do your check in.

Also, the International Air Transport Association publishes a monthly exchange rate for all currencies based on the average over the past month, to ensure currency movements do not unfairly affect any individual carrier. If anyone has any questions about a fraudulent ticket or a defaulted payment, there is a clear paper trail to follow.

But why doesn't the travel agent just send the money right away and give you a kind of a receipt? If you wanted to change or cancel your itinerary, the travel agent would have to claim all the money back and send it out again. When dealing with paper tickets, making changes could take weeks. Also, in some circumstances it is necessary to issue a ticket for travel occurring more quickly than money can be moved between accounts. This is particularly the case when moving capital between certain countries, such as to Syria or Iran, where capital controls may delay the settlement of such accounting. It makes sense to settle it all after travel with the flight coupon system.

So we need a universally agreed system for flight coupons to be detached and given to the operating carrier. In the case of changeable or cancellable tickets, we need a way for the passenger to say "I definitely want to exchange my flight coupon for a flight today". The agreed time is no earlier than 24 hours before departure of the first flight on the ticket.

Although the air carrier does want to know about final loads and baggage weights, the real reason for the check in is to facilitate the coupon collection.

However, not all airlines are part of this system. Some of the low cost airlines don't care about the interoperability advantage that this system offers. They find it is too expensive to run. So they have their own way of managing ticket sales and running the finances. Each travel agent must sign up to their proprietary system and make payments immediately. Such airlines will do the "check in" according to their own requirements.

If anyone was curious.

A fine example of “enterprise” process where the user doesn’t matter a bollocks.

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[Keane]

http://arethebritsatitagain.com/

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[Denny Crane]

Isn't it all from some 2+2 sub-forum which pretends to be intellectual in order to support Trump talking points.

No

Would be interested in a link to such a forum though!

[Theresa]

You're presumably not on an Aer Lingus flight Teresa or you would have landed in Dublin, not overflown to London. It must be some codeshare flight that is effectively BA. tl;dr blame the brits.

Nah. Air Canada to heathrow, Aer lingus is the codeshare partner from there to Dublin.

Evidence suggests it’s an Aer Lingus issue. O

[Theresa]

Show us one single post saying there would be public adoption of self-driving cars by now.

AI, or narrow AI anyway, is changing absolutely everything and if you work in a company (although I think maybe its public sector?) that isn't automating everything as fast as they can then wave good luck to that firm in the next five years max.

“Narrow AI” what is narrow AI?

And outline some examples of what it or wide AI is changing. Not just proposing to change.

[TheJiggaman]

Which one of us was this? Any sightings of Denny Crane in the Cork area?

https://www.breakingnews.ie/discover...on-971252.html

lol - Bookies losing out both ways?

If he ultimately swerves impeachment as expected, bookie Paddy Power will face a six-figure sum payout but they revealed that they stand to lose far more if things play out in the reverse.

[Guest]

“Narrow AI” what is narrow AI?

And outline some examples of what it or wide AI is changing. Not just proposing to change.

Narrow AI would be domain specific AI like AlphaGo.

More general AI would be that which isn't bounded within a specific domain and would encompass everything you view as intelligence in a human; reasoning, creativity, knowledge, language, I'm sure there is others.

Basically anything you can think is a prerequisite for passing the Turing test.

[Strewelpeter]

Can’t be bothered digging it up but seem to remember a big row here about self driving cars here a few years ago and the consensus here from all the lads who swallow big tech press releases was that we would be well on our way with public adoption by now
Just like most of the AI bullshit, pure spoofery.

I drove a Volvo S90 , current model but a few years old, from a rural address near Belfast the whole way to Kildare and the only thing I had to do for the entire journey was reset the max speed on the Cruise control for the road (the car knows the local speed limit but doesn't have an option to apply it to the CC for some reason) and keep a hand on the steering wheel.

It works just as well if you put it in heavy traffic and it will just do all the stop start shite for you.