News
| Four short links: 19 September 2011 - The Changing Internet, Python Data Analysis, Society of Mind, and Gaming Proteins by Nat Torkington
1996 vs 2011 Infographic from Online University (Evolving Newsroom) -- "AOL and Yahoo! may be the butt of jokes for young people, but both are stronger than ever in the Internet's Top 10". Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Pandas -- open source Python package for data analysis, fast and powerful. (via Joshua Schachter) The Society of... |
| Four short links: 24 August 2011 - STM in Python, Static Web is Back, Cyberwar, and Virtual Language Education by Nat Torkington
STM in PyPy -- a proposal to add software transactional memory to the all-Python Python interpreter as a way of simplifying concurrent programming. I first learned about STM from Haskell's Simon Peyton-Jones at OSCON. (via Nelson Minar) Werner Vogels' Static Web Site on S3 -- nice writeup of the toolchain to publish a web site to static files served... |
| Four short links: 17 August 2011 - Tabular Data API, Open Stanford Courses, Wearable TV, and Wearable Sensors by Nat Torkington
Tablib -- MIT-licensed open source library for manipulating tabular data. Reputed to have a great API. (via Tim McNamara) Stanford Education Everywhere -- courses in CS, machine learning, math, and engineering that are open for all to take. Over 58,000 have already signed up for the introduction to machine learning taught by Peter Norvig, Google's Director of Research. Wearable... |
| Four short links: 12 August 2011 - Learning Adventure, Python Data Analysis, Lanyrd Technology, and New Sensor by Nat Torkington
Hippocampus Text Adventure -- written as an exercise in learning Python, you explore the hippocampus. It's simple, but I like the idea of educational text adventures. (Well, educational in that you learn about more than the axe-throwing behaviour of the cave-dwelling dwarf) Pandas -- BSD-licensed Python data analysis library. Building Lanyrd -- Simon Willison's talk (with slides) about the... |
| Four short links: 8 August 2011 - Graph ORM, Graphic Computation, Web Intents, and Async RPC by Nat Torkington
Bulbflow -- a Python framework for graph databases: it's like an ORM for graphs. (via Joshua Schachter) Nomograms -- the lost art of graphical computing. (via John D Cook) Web Intents -- adding Android-style Intents to the web. Services register their intention to be able to handle an action on the user's behalf. Applications request to start an Action... |
| It's True. Don't Believe A Word Of It. by Paul Barry
The Ruby book was smoking! |
| Four short links: 17 May 2011 - Sorting Out 9/11, Tagging Text, Unlocking Scientific Publishing, and Internet Archive's Meatspace Branch by Nat Torkington
Sorting Out 9/11 (New Yorker) -- the thorniest problem for the 9/11 memorial was the ordering of the names. Computer science to the rescue! Tagger -- Python library for extracting tags (statistically significant words or phrases) from a piece of text. Free Science, One Paper at a Time (Wired) -- Jonathan Eisen's attempt to collect and distribute his father's... |
| Less Code Is Better by Paul Barry
I'm a big fan of the "less code is better" principle, in that I firmly believe the number of bugs in my code is directly related to the number of lines of code I write. |
| Four short links: 25 April 2011 - Healthcare Data, C64 Emulator, Python Machine Learning, and Startup Success Stats by Nat Torkington
E-Referral Evaluation Interim Findings -- in general good, but note this: The outstanding system issues are an ongoing source of frustration and concern, including [...] automated data uptake from the GP [General Practitioner=family doctor] PMS [Patient Management System], that sometimes has clearly inaccurate or contradictory information. When you connect systems, you realize the limitations of the data in them.... |
| Four short links: 21 March 2011 - Javascript Master Class, Stats for Pythonistas, CAM Floor, and HTML Extraction by Nat Torkington
Javascript Trie Performance Analysis (John Resig) -- if you program in Javascript and you're not up to John's skill level (*cough*) then you should read this and follow along. It's a ride-along in the brain of a master. Think Stats -- an introduction to statistics for Python programmers. (via Edd Dumbill) Bolefloor -- they build curvy wooden floors. Instead... |
| Four short links: 17 March 2011 - Data Manual, Data Processing, Piracy Report, and Fragile Free by Nat Torkington
The Open Data Manual -- a HOWTO for organisations wanting to open up data. This report discusses legal, social and technical aspects of open data. The manual can be used by anyone but is especially designed for those seeking to open up data. It discusses the why, what and how of open data — why to go open, what... |
| Four short links: 2 March 2011 - Python Unicode, Cognitive Enhancement, Journal Balk, Engineering SaaS by Nat Torkington
Unicode in Python, Completely Demystified -- a good introduction to Unicode in Python, which helped me with some code. (via Hacker News) A Ban on Brain-Boosting Drugs (Chronicle of Higher Education) -- Simply calling the use of study drugs "unfair" tells us nothing about why colleges should ban them. If such drugs really do improve academic performance among healthy... |
| Four Short Links: 2 February 2011 - Visualization Papers, Immersive Learning, Readability, and Quora's Technology by Nat Torkington
Seven Foundational Visualization Papers -- seven classics in the field that are cited and useful again and again. Git Immersion -- a "walking tour" of Git inspired by the premise that to know a thing is to do it. Cf Learn Python the Hard Way or even NASA's Planet Makeover. We'll see more and more tutorials that require participation... |
| Developer Year in Review: Programming Languages - Java's wild ride, multicore drives functional, and a look at how the usual programming suspects stacked up in 2010. by James Turner
This year brought confusion and chaos in the Java space, continued growth for functional languages due to the attack of multicore, and the usual popularity for all of the dynamic languages we know and love. |
| Strata Gems: Make beautiful graphs of your Twitter network - Use Gephi and Python to find your personal communities by Edd Dumbill
Using a bit of Python and the Gephi graph tool, exploring your own Twitter network is a great way to learn about analyzing networks: and the results definitely have a "wow" factor. |
