Heuristic

Hello! I'm a frequent poster (thought not a mod) at /r/MensLib, The Only Good Men's Sub^^tm , and I'm trying to figure out how to balance the bad, the good, and the perfect.

As a background: I often seek out criticism of that sub, because I'm interested to see third parties' take on it. The most common one, of course, is that /r/MensLib is FEMINIST PROPAGANDA!! CONTROLLED OPPOSITION!!! etc from antag morons. I can safely ignore that.

There's another strain though: that /r/MensLib allows too many bad takes. That it is antifeminist, or bordering on antifeminist, or misogynist.

There's a lot of angles here and I won't get into all of them, but off the top of my head:

1: if /r/MensLib is going to disabuse some strawfeminist takes, they need to allow them in some form or another.

2: maybe /r/MensLib, specifically, is not a 101 space. But if it's not, where should a 101 space be? Would that place be tagged misogynist?

3: or maybe this is just one of those "everyone gets some bad press sometimes" kinds of things that can safely be ignored? Because this criticism doesn't happen too often.

ML deals with a lot of complicated ideas, I think, and since it centers male perspectives, I think you're always gonna have some unique and/or challenging posts. I'm just trying to consider the balance to be struck.

Tia for your perspectives.

Hello, I have implemented A* and I have found that sometimes weighting the path length higher helps find a solution faster while sometimes weighting the heuristic higher helps find a soln faster; is there a way to optimize the relative weighting for the average case?

Note: I was not trying to optimize the path chosen, but rather the runtime. However I now believe that I should just g and h in terms of the most natural units rather than trying to weight them

here is a demo of the current implementation: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k8k4n2dgoh0zqpm/2021-04-16%2020-48-23.mp4?dl=0

"The availability heuristic, also known as availability bias, is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision." -Wikipedia

Just a friendly reminder that this sub is filled with high-scoring individuals (and that's awesome) and it's not a great representation of reality. You are not a failure because your baseline was not 230 or 240 or 250 or even 160. SO MANY PEOPLE start out with low scores and SO MANY PEOPLE don't score above average (about half because it's the average duh) on the actual exam. Don't get bogged down by this snapshot of the big picture on reddit.

And another thing: You are among the best of the best and "below average" in this arena is above and beyond real world average. Be kind to yourself. Keep pushing. Work hard and do your best. That is more than enough.

Hello! I've posted here a few times and quite like this subreddit. I particularly like breaking down the large concepts of league into information accessible to newer players or folks who have played a while but just began really breaking down the game and trying to improve. I am not particularly high rated myself, but offline am an Educator so I find applying learning strategies to League to be a fun way to combine two parts of my life.

Today I am here to talk HEURISTICS, and why using them will make you a better League player. So first off, what are Heuristics?

>- A heuristic, or a heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving that uses a practical method or various shortcuts in order to produce solutions that may not be optimal but are sufficient given a limited timeframe or deadline.

It is probably quite obvious to many readers where I am going with this. Heuristics are a big part of developing your MACRO. But what is Macro? Here is a definition I like:

>Macro gameplay in League of Legends is the way in which you... press your win conditions over others by gaining and utilizing your advantages on a map-wide scale.

The key with Heuristics is that, by following them, we may make the wrong play 1 in 10-20 reps, but we are making the right play almost every time. As we experience more game states, and witness the failures, we can build a case by case understanding of WHY the exceptions exist and naturally learn them.

So, how can we use Heuristics to improve our Macro?

To begin, we can develop some incredibly general sounding If -> Then statements. Then we can refine them if needed. For example:

- If my lane opponents has to go to base, then I should crash the wave into their tower.

Now, this statement is flawed, and there a few glaring and common situations that would make this backfire on us. Like if the enemy has teleport, or if we are unable to actually get the wave to their tower due to lack of resources like HP or mana, or even just having bad waveclear. Or maybe we recently reset and have no reason to reset again. So we can refine that statement:

- If my lane opponent goes to base and I have the time / resources to do so, Then I crash the wave into their tower before I leave lane.

The above if then statement is a shortcut to decision making. A Heuristic. By nature of being a heuristic, it is not infallible but will get me to the right place at least 90-95% of the time as the exceptions are fairly ni

I love it when the authors of sci-fi and fantasy I read is able to give me something which I can apply in real life. I'll give some examples of sayings and rule of thumbs that I apply in my own life:

• Hanlon's Razor (attributed to Heinlein): Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
• Tyrion Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire: Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.
• First Sight and Second Thoughts (by Terry Pratchett in the Tiffany Aching series): First sight means you can see what really is there, and Second Thoughts mean thinking about what you are thinking.
• Logen Ninefingers from the First Law series: Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it
• Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert's Dune: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
• Scalzi's The Failure Mode of Clever is Asshole: Scalzi's explanation can be found on his blog here.

So, what proverbs, sayings, wisdom, and heuristics do you know from sci-fi and fantasy that you think more people should know about?

I've seen a number of hcim including one from my clan complaining that they can't access their account anymore. I'm wondering if a new heuristic was applied that somehow includes hcim on accident? Anyone else notice this?

Americans would often use the length of Empire State Building to describe very long objects and size of several football fields to describe vast areas. I couldn't think of any interesting examples when it comes to Turkey. My wife is Japanese and she says they would often use Tokyo Dome for such heuristic measures. Do you have such measures specific to your country?

A common piece of advice I've heard for building legacy decks in paper is "the first dual is the most important." That makes sense, but I'm curious to know whether there are specific heuristics that folks use to adjust their manabases when they have a non-zero number of the correct duals, but not as many as the stock or "optimal" build.

More specifically, if you're cutting one dual, how do you choose among {basic, shock, fetch} as a substitute? Does it change if you're cutting two duals (say, from three down to one)? Are there decks / archetypes that are more or less sensitive to reduced dual counts?

My own interest is primarily in Delver variants, as I have two each of USea, Volc, and Trop, but basically every Delver build runs three of one or more of those. But scrolling through the most recent showcase challenge, this applies to loads of decks! Eg:

• Hogaak with fewer USea / Bayou?
• RG Lands with only one Taiga?
• Doomsday wither fewer USea?
• 3C and 4C control variants without all its blue duals?

And so forth. Thanks!

Hello JDMers!

As we said in class, once you have covered the assigned materials about heuristics and biases, you will need to make an original post within this thread and thoughtfully respond to someone else's post (and don't forget to vote!). Each week we will provide you with a few prompts to get you started, however, these prompts are merely a guide. Please do not feel that you have to respond to all or even any of the questions that we pose; you are welcome to take your discussion post in any direction you like as long as it is relevant to the topic.

Remember, this thread will be locked at 10am, Friday the 5th of March.

So, housekeeping aside, let's get cracking!

• In class this week we talked about charitable giving and very quickly we all realised what a complicated decision picking a charity can be. Now that you know about some of the heuristics and biases that influence our judgements, tell us about which ones were operating for you in this discussion and importantly, how they were operating.
• What did you find most interesting/surprising about the readings this week and why?
• Facebook and other social media platforms use algorithms to generate news-feed items it knows you want to see. Considering what you’ve learned this week about cognitive biases, why is this a huge issue?
• Now that you know how anchoring works, in what situations could you be careful not to fall prey to its influence?
• Given that most heuristics and biases operate outside of our awareness, do you think it is even possible to catch yourself before a mistake in judgement is made?
• Availability and representativeness are often confused. In what ways do these heuristics differ?
• Although we often spend a lot of time talking about the negative side of heuristics and biases, can you think of an example when they might be useful for us?

Over the past couple of days I've seen a few 7-x posts of people who've had success with mono-coloured decks. That's great for them, and I'm not here to criticise those people. But I think that most players would have a higher win rate if they simply *never drafted mono-coloured decks* outside of environments where it's specifically encouraged, and I'm writing this post to explain why.

But first - why is it good to draft mono-colour?

The first reason is obvious - inability to colour screw. Once you're mono-coloured you only have to worry about drawing the right number of lands, as opposed to the right number and type. That is not an insignificant benefit (though I personally believe the benefit is a little exaggerated since after around the 3rd source of the same colour, it doesn't matter what colour the rest of your lands produce). The second reason is that because you only require one colour of mana, you can now run fewer lands as a consequence. One of the reasons for running 17 lands in a limited deck is to enable you to hit both colours with greater frequency. Once that's out of the equation, you can shave one, maybe two lands without much of an issue, which will slightly improve your late-game draws.

There are other reasons, but those tend to be particular to a draft format so I'm not considering them as part of the heuristic. You'll know them if you see them.

So with that in mind, what are the reasons not to draft mono-colour?

Firstly, you are restricting yourself to a significantly small part of the draft pool by only choosing cards of one colour. The other people in the draft are choosing from around 40% of the available cards, and you're choosing from 20%. So for your deck to be functional, the colour you're drafting had better be extremely deep and open. Now you probably won't even consider drafting mono-colour unless your colour is really open, but that's just to achieve a functional deck, not necessarily a good one.

Secondly, each colour offers something different to your deck, since no colour is adept at everything in the colour pie. By branching into a second colour, you can cover the weaknesses of your first colour.

Thirdly, sets are usually explicitly designed to support drafting colour pairs. That means that you are giving up on cards in a second colour which have been planted in the set to help make your cards better. Let alone missing out on powerful multi-coloured uncommons that are designed to help those colour pairs.

Fourthl

Sorry about the -1/12 question! I'm sure you must be getting tons of similar questions. But I've never been able to find an answer to this one.

My question is this: how come the popular false proof (the one purporting to prove that the sum of the natural numbers is in some way "equal" to -1/12 by abusing sum notation) gives the same result as the analytic continuation of the Riemann zeta function, or the Ramanujan summation?

Is it a coincidence? Was the false proof carefully constructed to get to the same result? Or is there something a little deeper at work, somehow?

I know -1/12 isn't the only result you can get by abusing sum notation. You can get -1/8 in two different ways, one of which having very few steps. Can you get any result with enough abuse? (beyond the trivial answer of using the principle of explosion or something)

Bonus question: if we limit ourselves to rigorous methods (Zeta function regularization, cutoff regularization, Ramanujan summation), what does it mean that various methods of attributing a value to the infinite sum gives the same result?

If you only know the mean and the median of some data, like some exam scores, is it possible to imagine what the distribution looks like?

Of course, you have an infinite number of distributions that fit the values of these two summary statistics. But some distributions are more likely in the real world.

So, based on real-world distributions, what are some ways (or heuristics) to estimate a distribution when only given the mean and the median?

Hi,

I am currently practicing coding interviews with Leetcode and I am wondering when I should take challenging software engineering interviews (e.g., FAANG in Europe). One friend said I will be ready when I can master medium level tasks easily with correct submission on the first try.

Is this a good heuristic? What is your experience?

Thanks!

I have Googled and searched and despite the definitions given i still can't wrap my head around it. I'm wondering if an example (or three) would help, but, if I 5 year old would get it... :P

A Microsoft research team provides concrete evidence showing that existing NLP models cannot robustly solve even the simplest of Math word problems, suggesting the hope that they might capably handle one-unknown arithmetic MWPs is untenable.

Here is a quick read: Do NLP Models Cheat at Math Word Problems? Microsoft Research Says Even SOTA Models Rely on Shallow Heuristics

The paper Are NLP Models Really Able to Solve Simple Math Word Problems? is on arXiv.

title q

I feel like this sub and Twitter only talk about WR analytics. What are the heuristics based in analytics for selecting RBs? Which rookies in this class fit the mould?

This is my second attempt. My first can be found here. I tried to take on board the comments offered on my last draft, but would greatly appreciate any additional insight anyone may have to offer.

I struggle a bit with putting my novel into a genre, as well. If anyone has advice on this, I would appreciate it. It has some elements of horror, there is a demon in the book, but it goes beyond the traditional horror formula and tropes. For this reason, I'm not sure if a horror purist would find it satisfying, and I'm reluctant to categorize it as horror.

Thank you!

-J

--

[Agent]

The Reverend wasn’t trying to start a doomsday cult, but accidents happen. Loosely basing his theology on self-help books and a demonic Grimoire, the Reverend pens the Heuristics of Better Living and it’s an instant success. He opens a beautiful Temple dedicated to his peculiar new religion. The only thing missing is love, but then he hits DeeAnne Cooper with his car and becomes convinced she’s his soul mate.

Dee doesn’t particularly care for the Reverend, but she’s happy to take his money. Dee’s broke and terrified to learn that she will become a grandmother at only 31. Chrissie, her teenage daughter, is pregnant, but something isn’t right. The child is displaying abnormalities on ultrasound so troubling that her doctor is left speechless. Chrissie also insists there isn’t a father. Dee doesn’t believe her daughter’s story of immaculate conception, but that doesn’t matter. A child is coming and with him, Hell’s most powerful demon.

Asteroth hasn’t been summoned to earth in hundreds of years and fancies herself retired until the Reverend finds her Grimoire and appropriates her sacred conjuring ritual. Asteroth is livid. She will retrieve both her child and his surrogate, but not before seeking to destroy the Reverend and all who follow him. If Dee is to save Chrissie, she must face not only Asteroth, but own her demons, as well.

THE HEURISTICS OF BETTER LIVING is a work of speculative fiction, complete at 93,000 words. It would appeal to readers of Grady Hendrix’s THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES and Karen Russell’s SWAMPLANDIA. This is an #OWN voices novel, with a strong queer character presence.

[Bio]

As the title says, I have tried making a synergy map with the aim to use it as deck analysis and deck building heuristic tool. I will highlight below some of the features of the synergy map in line with those goals. I used an Iron Midrange deck from the BS Meta Report as an example although Destructobot synergies aren't included.

What it can do:

• Show possible synergies and dis-synergies for 2 card plays. This is the main feature of the synergy map - to show possible synergies. I have put four types of synergies at the moment based on guides by Stormbound Kitty and my own experiences:
  • Strength synergy: Plain and simple addition of strength towards units and/or structures. Examples are Linked Golem + Friendly Constructs; Debug Loggers + Surronding Unit; Enabler + FT + Surrounding Unit/s.
  • Enabling synergy: This synergy focuses on providing a target or an anchor for another card's ability. This may include putting status effects on targets (e.g. Frost Hexers + Wisp Cloud); act as direct target of the card's ability (e.g. Friendly Unit + Toxic Sacrifice); or as an anchor (e.g. Friendly Unit + Toxic Sacrifice; Building + Hearthguards).
  • Triggering synergies: This is a special type of enabling synergy where the second card activates the first card's effects. Examples include Destructobots + Elder Cards or Chaotic Pupil; and Mia + Structures.
  • Dis-synergies: These synergies have a possible negative effect on each other. This may mean that a player shouldn't put them in the same deck or don't activate their effects together. For example, Mia could trigger an Unstable Build's effect therefore lowering its strength.
• Show possible strategies from above said synergies. General strategies can be seen at glance from the map. Using the deck from the meta-report, we can see that the general strategy of the deck is buffing units as represented by many strenghtening synergies; and possibly destroying bases by running Hearthguards anchored by buildings.
• Show core cards. Core cards can be imperfectly shown by basing on the number of synergies or interactions. FT (+ Enablers), UP have the the highest number of interactions and is considered in the meta-report as Core.

adjective

-enabling someone to discover or learn something for themselves.

noun

- a heuristic process or method.

Timeless wisdom from Naval which has changed the way I make decisions in day-to-day life - https://tanmaymunigala.com/blog/navals-decision-making-heuristics/

Let me know how you've applied these in your lives and what impact they had! :)

This is a symbolic solution that takes target ROI increase/decrease and respective probabilities to calculate a Kelly fraction for investment. I am linking a repo to the code here and also a web app where one can just input data and receive output, please ask questions if you’re confused how this works - this works well from n < around 10.

Code implemented in Python using sympy with a quick scipy approximation on the target function.

Looking forward to feedback and hopefully this is helpful to even 1 person

Systems should allow users to undo and redo an action or task. Users often make mistakes when using a system or want to change something about the system.

https://medium.com/uxd-critical-software/usability-heuristics-on-critical-systems-3-user-control-and-freedom-c7ac19d932c8

A research team from DeepMind and Alberta University proposes Policy-guided Heuristic Search (PHS), a novel search algorithm that uses both a heuristic function and a policy while offering guarantees on the search loss that relate to both the quality of the heuristic and the policy.

Here is a quick read: DeepMind & Alberta U Introduce Novel Search Algorithm: Policy-Guided Heuristic Search with Guarantees

The paper Policy-Guided Heuristic Search with Guarantees is on arXiv.

I am currently working on a version of checkers as my project in my programming class. in the project, you can play against the computer. the problem is to do so I have to find some sort of heuristic(a strategy with a value that evaluates the board). the rules of this version are:

1. a soldier can only eat forward(even if it a multi-capturing move).
2. you don't have to perform a capture
3. a queen can move only one square back and forward.
4. you can stop in the middle of a multi-capturing move by refusing to keep capturing.
5. the loser is the person who can not perform any legal move(so if you are stuck, you lose)

the board can be any size(x*x) as long that x is even and greater or equal to 2.

due to those rules, it's very hard for me to find any strategy online on how to win a game like this.
if any of you could help me think of some sort of heuristic that will be much helpful.

I think many people have benefited from the stock market rally and may confuse luck with skill, however, I created a method that has been successful and I'm curious to how it could be stressed tested.

I read in another post that https://whalewisdomalpha.com is a good way to research 13F filings to understand what institutional investors are doing. I was wondering if anyone has other references to trend or weigh what institutional investors are doing?

Below are a few of the main lessons that I've learned after losing money investing in biofuel stock when I was fresh out of college (2012).

· Discovered over time, more success with index funds that individual stocks. Concede that index funds outperform managed funds and Institutional investors have more resources to outperform retail investors. Always dollar cost average into and out of investments.

· Disclaimer that this is for long term (5+ years holding) investors and that have at least 80% of their investments in uncorrelated highly ranked index funds.

7 Steps to Finding High Alpha Stocks:

1. Research consumer and social psychology trends. Millennial’s interest in health and wellness, travel, finding new online services to more efficiently do work and are conscious of company’s impact on the environment.

2. Research economic trends like spending habits and interest rates.

3. Research top exclusive performing growth funds over time. Included a link in the description.

4. Identify similar holdings.

5. Learn about what the companies do and if that aligns with the consumer trends you identified in Step 1.

6. Identify which companies have the largest addressable market and competitive advantage (moat). (winner take all or winner take most)

7. Evaluate % Revenue Growth over last 3 years (demand), Price/Earnings, Value/EBITDA relative to other companies in the same sector.

Optional: Rebalance every quarter by taking approximately 20% from the winners and allocate to losers.

All ideas and thoughts are welcomed. Thanks.

Hey everyone,

I wrote an article on some of the heuristics I use almost every time I play that I think can potentially be useful for some people here. Obviously they will not be true all the time, since they're heuristics, but I think following them will improve most people's winrates as a general rule.

https://articles.starcitygames.com/premium/six-heuristics-to-make-you-a-better-magic-player/

The article is on starcitygames.com and was originally premium only but it's free to read now.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know!

• PV

Anti-Racist Scholarly Reviewing Practices:

A Heuristic for Editors, Reviewers, and Authors

Contributors include:Lauren E. Cagle, Michelle F. Eble, Laura Gonzales, Meredith A. Johnson, Nathan R. Johnson, Natasha N. Jones, Liz Lane, Temptaous Mckoy, Kristen R. Moore, Ricky Reynoso, Emma J. Rose, GPat Patterson, Fernando Sánchez, Ann Shivers-McNair, Michele Simmons, Erica M. Stone, Jason Tham, Rebecca Walton, Miriam F. Williams

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lZmZqeNNnYfYgmTKSbL2ijYbR4OMovv6A-bDwJRnwx8/edit?usp=sharing

via IFTTT

A research team from DeepMind and Alberta University proposes Policy-guided Heuristic Search (PHS), a novel search algorithm that uses both a heuristic function and a policy while offering guarantees on the search loss that relate to both the quality of the heuristic and the policy.

Here is a quick read: DeepMind & Alberta U Introduce Novel Search Algorithm: Policy-Guided Heuristic Search with Guarantees

The paper Policy-Guided Heuristic Search with Guarantees is on arXiv.

This is my first attempt at a query letter for my novel. Thank you in advance and I greatly appreciate any advice, I'm new to querying. I worry this is too long. It's also a multi POV, and I have concerns about that with respect to the query. Any and all advice welcome.

--

The Reverend wasn’t trying to start a doomsday cult, but accidents happen. Basing his theology on American self-help gurus, Alcoholics Anonymous, and a demonic Grimoire he stole from his ex-wife, the Reverend pens the Heuristics of Better Living and it's an instant success. He has money, power, and a beautiful Temple dedicated to his new religion. The only thing missing is love, but then he hits DeeAnne Cooper with his car and becomes convinced she’s his soul mate. He sends his disciple, Simon, to follow her. The Reverend is determined to convince her that she loves him, too.

DeeAnne is a militant agnostic. She's suspicious of the Reverend and his strange religion, but doesn’t mind taking his money. A young, single mother, Dee is struggling because she has just learned she will become a grandmother at only 31. Chrissie, her teenage daughter, is pregnant, but something isn’t right. Chrissie’s child is displaying strange birth defects on ultrasound, and when asked about the father, she insists there isn’t one. Dee doesn’t believe her daughter’s story about immaculate conception, but that doesn’t matter. A child is coming, and with him, one of Hell’s strongest demons.

Asteroth is the Archduke of Hell, which is a bureaucratic way of saying she’s important. She hasn’t been summoned to earth in hundreds of years and fancied herself retired until the Reverend found the Grimoire, and appropriated her sacred summoning ritual for his cult’s consumption. This ritual impregnated the nearest virgin, Chrissie, with Asteroth’s child, whom she will retrieve. Asteroth is livid. She wants more than just the child. She also wants revenge against the Reverend and his disciples. She's determined to ensure no one ever summons her back to earth again.

THE HEURISTICS OF BETTER LIVING is a work of speculative fiction with elements of horror and humor. It is complete at 94,000 words. It would appeal to readers of Grady Hendrix, T.C. Boyle, and Karen Russell. While this novel stands alone, there is the potential to tell additional stories within its universe.

[Bio and pub credits]