Top all-time · #20222
David Woods
Personal blog · simplexify.net/blogmathdataprogramming
David Woods writes Simplexify, a personal blog at simplexify.net about math, data and programming. Since 2011, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 10 times, most often “I am a statistician and I buy lottery tickets”. The last post was in 2012, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (1) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this post in the recurring debate over building a business versus aiming for an exit. One commenter calls it well written but says its expected-value math counts only money.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 1 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The thoughts of David Woods on Operations Research, Optimization, and Analytics.
Most-linked posts?
- I am a statistician and I buy lottery tickets2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-05-07
- What should a modern research publishing platform look like?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-08-19
What Hacker News says?
Yeah, we have this same rant every few weeks on HN (I admit this one is pretty well written and features an interesting back story). The biggest problem I see with the expected value math is that it only factors in the money side of the equation. A lot of entrepreneurs (most entrepreneurs?) are doing a "go big or go home" startup for many reasons, money not necessarily being the primary one. If all Melanie cares abo…
Comment linking /blog/2012/5/6/i-am-a-statistician-and-i-buy-lottery-tickets.html
on “Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy”Submitted I am a statistician and I buy lottery tickets as a story · 142 points
HN discussionSubmitted I am a statistician and I buy lottery tickets as a story · 87 points
HN discussionSubmitted Introducing Minimax: an LP solver for iPhone as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted What should a modern research publishing platform look like? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Social content discovery is broken but Instapaper could fix it as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted What should a modern research publishing platform look like? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Show HN: A simple iOS app for trimming the status bar from screenshots as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Show HN: My first iPhone app, TrackMate as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Let's learn from owls and disrupt the postal service as a story · 1 points
HN discussion