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[KingBacon]

Well I never thought I would see the day when all my hours of impaling elves and exploring geology would be of benefit.

So I am busy writing a referee report for a working paper for my research seminar. The paper is on the industrialization of Germany and the importance of coal in firms' decisions to locate in certain regions in the 19th Century. The professor wants me to criticize the paper and the author employs some uncommon regressional techniques (of which I am too ignorant to comment on.) But the paper talks about lignite and bituminous coal and oversimplifies the relationship between fuel quality and metallurgy.

I started going off on BTU's, anthracite, and carbon content. Not to mention ease of access of certain deposits.

Totally pulled a neckbeard on this one.

Does anyone else have tales of how DF has promoted their education?

Edit: Wrong forum, dangit. Should have put in general discussion.

[Airgeoff]

Well, not yet.  But I'm studying to become a statistician.  I'd be interested in their uncommon regression techniques.  Then we could say df connected us for improving our education.

[Matoro]

One word: geology. I've learned much more geology from DF than from any other source.

[Redlog]

One word: geology. I've learned much more geology from DF than from any other source.

This. Geology.

Also, designing and planning. Architecture in general.
Playing DF is like managing a VERY BIG house.
Full of drunk berserker kids. And magma.

[DiacetylMorphine]

english ! Playng this game gave me more vocabulary than anything else. So many things : body parts, plants, minerals, metals, name of animals (even if i thought at the begining that a fluffy wambler was a real animal  ), and many other.

[Dirst]

Well, not yet.  But I'm studying to become a statistician.  I'd be interested in their uncommon regression techniques.  Then we could say df connected us for improving our education.

I've run into people for whom no technique has enough buzzwords (random coefficients Bayesian inference via Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, anyone?), others who have a certain technique that they want to apply everywhere (instrumental variables) and others who are befuddled by anything more complex than ordinary least squares.

Toady has mentioned that the math behind DF isn't actually that complicated, there's just a lot of it.  I wonder if he's looked into Operations Research for optimization routines.  Things like pathing are known as "NP Hard" problems in their lexicon, though when I see that nowadays I always read it as "DF Hard" 

[KingBacon]

Well, not yet.  But I'm studying to become a statistician.  I'd be interested in their uncommon regression techniques.  Then we could say df connected us for improving our education.

I've run into people for whom no technique has enough buzzwords (random coefficients Bayesian inference via Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, anyone?), others who have a certain technique that they want to apply everywhere (instrumental variables) and others who are befuddled by anything more complex than ordinary least squares.

Toady has mentioned that the math behind DF isn't actually that complicated, there's just a lot of it.  I wonder if he's looked into Operations Research for optimization routines.  Things like pathing are known as "NP Hard" problems in their lexicon, though when I see that nowadays I always read it as "DF Hard" 

Ha, this paper uses a paired combinatorial logit. It all sounds like gibberish, both in and out of context. It's all "we have to correct for this problem so we do this thingy that is in not really intuitive which someone smart than us developed at (insert top 10 school.)"

(And dangit, I have a crush on a gal in operations research...)

[Dirst]

Well, not yet.  But I'm studying to become a statistician.  I'd be interested in their uncommon regression techniques.  Then we could say df connected us for improving our education.

I've run into people for whom no technique has enough buzzwords (random coefficients Bayesian inference via Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, anyone?), others who have a certain technique that they want to apply everywhere (instrumental variables) and others who are befuddled by anything more complex than ordinary least squares.

Toady has mentioned that the math behind DF isn't actually that complicated, there's just a lot of it.  I wonder if he's looked into Operations Research for optimization routines.  Things like pathing are known as "NP Hard" problems in their lexicon, though when I see that nowadays I always read it as "DF Hard" 

Ha, this paper uses a paired combinatorial logit. It all sounds like gibberish, both in and out of context. It's all "we have to correct for this problem so we do this thingy that is in not really intuitive which someone smart than us developed at (insert top 10 school.)"

(And dangit, I have a crush on a gal in operations research...)

Paired combinatorial logit dispenses with a particularly silly assumption from a basic multinomial logit model, but if the authors can't make an argument as to why covariance across choices are important, they probably don't understand what they're doing.

By the way, choices by Dwarf Fortress characters really do obey the assumptions of a multinomial logit model.  Go figure.

[nekoexmachina]

Every time I start playing dwarf fortress again (e.g. once in half-a-year), I fermentize/brew a bunch of bottles of dark ale. Dunno why, but it is tastier after dorfs, which is not only my opinion.

[Philii]

geology
And

english ! Playng this game gave me more vocabulary than anything else. So many things : body parts, plants, minerals, metals, name of animals (even if i thought at the begining that a fluffy wambler was a real animal  ), and many other.

I learn(know) from DF.

[slaytanic]

it's a wonderful day for pie guys. 

[ShadowBroker]

Geology and Metallurgy and simple wildlife biology. i made my environmental science teacher's day when i knew more about types of rocks, ores, and layers than the kids in his geology class

[SanDiego]

I used my studies to improve my DF. Because when I saw the new wound system, I thought "Not enough blood."

[Pyro]

The game featured in a large way in inspiring and actually in my Master's thesis on emergent narrative. Even managed to get some nice quotes from Toady in there.

[WJLIII3]

english ! Playng this game gave me more vocabulary than anything else. So many things : body parts, plants, minerals, metals, name of animals (even if i thought at the begining that a fluffy wambler was a real animal  ), and many other.

You should always describe rabbits as fluffy wamblers to native English speakers you meet, just to watch their reactions. "Ahhh what a cute little wambler, is he your pet? Who is a fluffy little wambler!"