Plurrrr

Psalmopoeus irminia feeding

Just after 5PM I handed a fresh mealworm pupa, Tenebrio molitor, to the Psalmopoeus irminia I keep since the 7^th of April. Instead of grabbing the pupa and disappearing in a flash as on a previous occasion it stuck around long enough to take some photos.

It currently has turned the end of a cork tube, which I closed with some dry moss, into its hiding place. While this makes for easy feeding it also makes for an easy escape, as its near the top of the terrarium. And in my experience, this specimen can move very fast; so I have to be careful.

In the above photo you can see the end of the cork tube on the left. The plants are fake, but the dry moss is real. I like this set up a lot.

• spider

Solving an age-old problem using Bayesian Average

Coming up with an aggregated score is not an easy thing - we need to crunch a millions of ratings and then see that the score is, in fact, the true measure of quality. If it isn't then it would directly affect the business. Today we discuss how we should define this score in a rating based system; spoiler alert! the measure is called Bayesian Average.

Source: Solving an age-old problem using Bayesian Average, an article by Arpit Bhayani.

• math

On the Link Between Polynomials and Optimization

There's a fascinating link between minimization of quadratic functions and polynomials. A link that goes deep and allows to phrase optimization problems in the language of polynomials and vice versa. Using this connection, we can tap into centuries of research in the theory of polynomials and shed new light on old problems.

Source: On the Link Between Polynomials and Optimization, an article by Fabian Pedregosa.

• computer science