better estimator...but why?

Instead of Monte Carlo integrating the Hellinger divergence directly, if I use the Phi-divergence form (modified to be symmetric), then both the convergence speed is faster and the power of the hypothesis test is faster...at least in the Poisson vs PTST case.

Old:


New:

Total variation (Phi-divergence)

Synchrony detectors

My paper on a new point process model got rejected because of the estimation method I introduced was far from complete. I was wondering if I should try to decompose signals into precisely timed components and others. That would be more practical, and I can use the existing synchrony detection methods on multiple trials to detect those events. Hmmm

Incognito mode of Chrome

I love the incognito mode key combination of google chrome browser, "Ctrl-Shift-N".
It instantly forks a fresh browser process that does not share any cookies with my other browser windows. I use it whenever I see a suspicious link that someone sent or is 'tinyurl'ed. These can be dangerous because they can sometimes use the already logged in brower/tab's cookies to do stuff. For example, the viral twitter applications use this to send messages to people you follow, without you noticing (you just click a wrong button). I can't wait to see how Chrome will be advancing with plugins.

Q: Integrative management of personal information

My data are not integrated nor very well organized. I use a somewhat distributed and categorized storage system, but I really wish I had something that can do the following. Does anybody know such a software system?

Requirements
1. backed up: nothing is more frustrating than loosing all your information at once
2. secure: I want to be able to dump all the sensitive information in my brain to somewhere
3. control I want to be the person who controls my information, not bound by some EULA that I won't read.
4. widely used data format: in case I want to migrate the data to some other format in the future
5. keyboard only navigation: I don't like moving my hand to the mouse too often
6. simple hierarchical organization + tags
7. fast text search
8. versioning

Memming's AMD Rig @ Home

I just built a new desktop computer for myself a couple of days ago. This is my first AMD machine. (I owned more than 10 intel machines and others)
Here's the sepc:

• AMD Phenom II x2 550 BE 3.1 GHz (unlocked to x4)


• ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO motherboard (BIOS 0604, 8/4/9)


• G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ


• SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550HT 550W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS


• Rosewill R5601-BK 0.8mm Japanese Cold Rolled Steel Screw-less Dual 120mm Fans ATX Mid Tower


• SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive


• Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA Model AD-7240S-0B


• Dell E207WFP widescreen LCD 20" 1680 x 1050

I unlocked the disabled cores using the unleashing mode from recent BIOS from ASUS. Also I increased the memory clock to 800MHz (CAS is 11). I must say the system performance is AWESOME!

Currently I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate RC from MSDN. I'm pretty impressed with the OS. So far I had two problems: Vim self-extracting installer fails (I used the zipped version which fails to install the context menu), and some java swing application seems to hang.

I know regular expressions

About 12 years ago, I learned regular expressions (also learned regular language in undergrad automata class). I'm just so proud of myself everytime I use complicated replacements. I think everybody should learn it. At least, I won't say everybody should learn vim.

5ms vs 2ms with Silverman's rule

Averaged squared Hellinger divergence computed for the same dataset, just different kernel sizes.