Whittaker was excellent in Broadchurch -- the three-series UK original on ITV, not the dreadful short-lived American remake. Broadchurch was definitely not sci fi, but David Tennant's portrayal of Detective Inspector Alec Hardy often reminded me of the Tenth Doctor, and now there will be two regenerations on the show's main cast.
I'm eager to see Whittaker's version of The Doctor.
The Halloween Documents provide an inside look at the internal dialogues within a large company confronted by change. Terms in broad general use today, such as FUD and "embrace, extend, extinguish" , originated here. The Halloween Documents are important historically, but are also well-worth another look today.
The notion of the "Protestant work ethic" is much older. Max Weber's book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, was written in 1904 and 1905 (in German), and Weber definitely wasn't writing about the baby boomers in the United States born fifty years later.
"Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. But there is plenty of evidence that they do not." http://www.economist.com/node/...
I was surprised to encounter this on a recent family vacation, and even more surprised to learn that it had been happening for years with no backlash from park visitors.
Although the IEEE is encouraging members to switch over to digital only to reduce costs and waste, IEEE Spectrum and many of the technical society journals are still available on paper for those who want them.
- The society journals can be quite technical and specialized, but IEEE Spectrum maintains a broader focus.
- The IEEE Computer Society (www.computer.org) is the largest society in the IEEE, with lots going on and lots of publications. - Other groups that might be of interest include the communications society (http://www.comsoc.org/), the robotics and automation society (http://www.ieee-ras.org/), or the society on social implications of technology (http://www.ieeessit.org/).
Likewise, it is better to provide high quality links within the summary. All to often, the links in the summary point to some guy's derrivative blog rather than original sources, and the higher quality links are found by scrolling down through highly moderated comments.
I can appreciate liking to blogs in order to encourage story submissions and reward submitters, but please also link to high quality sources.
Slashdot is still a great site, and better links would make it even more useful.
Romans had some engineering, but not the equations we have today, so they over-engineered their bridges for safety because they knew they couldn't calculate the exact, optimal configuration...
"If in doubt, make it stout,
for things you don't know much about"
- A pearl of design wisdom shared with me early in my career from a seasoned mechanical design engineer. Very memorable.
Wrong. There is no better or worse in evolution. What is good one day sucks when the environment changes. Evolution is not directed towards anything, it can not progress or retreat.
The philosopher of science Daniel Dennet argues quite persuasively that evolution does indeed result in real progress, beyond fleeting temporary advantage. His arguments are best articulated in Darwin's Dangerous Idea and his talks (e.g. TED2009, TED2006, TED2003, and TED2002).
The jury is still out on whether Dennet is right on this point, but it has support from some evolutionary biologists, and the debates continue...
IMHO, the best popular book in this area is Carl Sagan'sThe Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. There is a paperback edition published by Ballantine Books in 1996.
It's very readable, engaging, and informative. Much of the material is drawn from Sagan's popular undergraduate course in Critical Thinking at Cornell University. Even though it's more than ten years old, The Demon-Haunted World still reads very well today.
For all IEEE journals and conferences (electrical engineering, computer engineering, engineering management, social implications of technology, etc.):
The undersigned hereby assigns to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Incorporated (the "IEEE") all rights under copyright that may exist in and to the above Work, and any revised or expanded derivative works submitted to the IEEE by the undersigned based on the Work....
Some of the ATM doors in my city are even less secure than that, checking only that *something* has been inserted into the card slot. No magnetic strip required -- a piece of paper or thin cardboard will do.
The parent post has inadvertently demonstrated that "tiananmen" is filtered at Google.cn, but the misspelled "tienanmen" is not.
For instance, if you are in the United States and do a google image search for Tiananmen Square you mostly find pictures of tanks. Do a China google images search for the same term and you get a much more patriotic view of things. Hmm... the ratio used to be a lot more unbalanced... I wonder if Google is intentionally letting the filtering slide, or if reporters have simply found ways around the google.cn filtering rules.
DISCLAIMER: I'm an academic researcher in the social sciences. I often use statistics in my work.
Other than the computational and data acquisition challenges, a larger sample is always preferred over a smaller one. In particular, confidence intervals are smaller -- in other words, estimates of population parameters are more precise; we know more with large samples, and what we know, we know with greater confidence.
Although there are diminishing returns on increasing sample size (as other posters have noted), the only downsides of a larger sample are the costs of acquiring more data and the costs of analysis. Evidently, Google was willing to incur those costs.
There are few absolutes in research, but this one of them: there are no statistical advantages of small samples. Ceteris paribus, you should trust the results of a large-sample study more than those of a small-sample study -- at least, to the extent that you can "trust" any statistics.
My HP LaserJet 4L is nearly twelve years old, and still churns out over a thousand sheets each month in my home office. For your workhorse products, buy quality and you won't be sorry.
My father, with the best of intentions, recently decided to buy a toner cartridge for me at a big box store (don't ask why -- it's a long story). He was, of course, stunned by the high price. The salesman, also meaning well, nearly talked him into a new low-end (translation: piece of crap) inkjet, arguing that it was way better value than throwing money into an old obsolete printer. He almost went for it on the spot, thinking that he would be doing me a favour.
"Newer is better" is a seductive arguement until you crunch the numbers.
I'm a researcher in the field of technology and innovation management. IMO, the article either misunderstands or chooses to misrepresent the value proposition of Googgle Scholar.
My area of research is rapidly evolving, yet, it can take two to three years to get a paper published in a leading journal. The academic peer review process takes time.
If I want to search published papers in my field, I use a commercial database, such as INFORM or Business Source Premier. In that way, I can find out what researchers did a few years ago.
HOWEVER, if I want to know what people are working on RIGHT NOW, I go to Google Scholar. There, I can find draft working papers, conference papers, papers submitted for review, and even papers that were rejected by journals (possibly for good reason!).
For my needs, Google Scholar currently complements commercial databases; it does not replace them. Given time, however, Google's potential is limitless. Firms that make revenue licensing scientific databases have every reason to feel threatened. Unless they innovate to address the needs of their end-users, they may well be displaced from their market -- and rightly so.
Slashdot Mirror
Whittaker was excellent in Broadchurch -- the three-series UK original on ITV, not the dreadful short-lived American remake. Broadchurch was definitely not sci fi, but David Tennant's portrayal of Detective Inspector Alec Hardy often reminded me of the Tenth Doctor, and now there will be two regenerations on the show's main cast.
I'm eager to see Whittaker's version of The Doctor.
It's the perfect time to re-visit the Halloween Documents from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yes, much has changed.
Eric Raymond's archive: http://catb.org/esr/halloween/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
The Halloween Documents provide an inside look at the internal dialogues within a large company confronted by change. Terms in broad general use today, such as FUD and "embrace, extend, extinguish" , originated here. The Halloween Documents are important historically, but are also well-worth another look today.
The notion of the "Protestant work ethic" is much older. Max Weber's book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, was written in 1904 and 1905 (in German), and Weber definitely wasn't writing about the baby boomers in the United States born fifty years later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber
Here's what The Economist had to say last week about patents and patent reform (August 8 2015):
"Today's patent systems have created a parasitic ecology of trolls who aim to block innovation"
http://www.economist.com/news/...
"Patents are protected by governments because they are held to promote innovation. But there is plenty of evidence that they do not."
http://www.economist.com/node/...
It's a well-researched and thoughtful position.
> Some recent uses of my fingerprints in which I
> had no real say...
Disneyland requires a biometric fingertip scan at the park entrances, ostensibly to deter fraudulent passes. Here's a 2008 blog post from Cory Doctorow:
http://boingboing.net/2008/03/15/fingertip-biometrics.html.
I was surprised to encounter this on a recent family vacation, and even more surprised to learn that it had been happening for years with no backlash from park visitors.
Biometric scanning for a theme park? Really?
Another relatively inexpensive option is the IEEE.
http://www.ieee.org/
Although the IEEE is encouraging members to switch over to digital only to reduce costs and waste, IEEE Spectrum and many of the technical society journals are still available on paper for those who want them.
- The society journals can be quite technical and specialized, but IEEE Spectrum maintains a broader focus.
- The IEEE Computer Society (www.computer.org) is the largest society in the IEEE, with lots going on and lots of publications.
- Other groups that might be of interest include the communications society (http://www.comsoc.org/), the robotics and automation society (http://www.ieee-ras.org/), or the society on social implications of technology (http://www.ieeessit.org/).
Likewise, it is better to provide high quality links within the summary. All to often, the links in the summary point to some guy's derrivative blog rather than original sources, and the higher quality links are found by scrolling down through highly moderated comments.
I can appreciate liking to blogs in order to encourage story submissions and reward submitters, but please also link to high quality sources.
Slashdot is still a great site, and better links would make it even more useful.
One of the best teaching resources, IMHO, is Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
Highly recommended.
I ordered the AudioQuest K2 terminated speaker cable for all my friends this Christmas.
:-)
Only $6800 and check out the reviews! Only one left in stock, so better act fast.
And Jon Lajoie will need to revamp the Chatroulette Song.
Classic.
Me too, but I'll give it one more episode.
[rim shot+cymbal]
Reminiscent of the Onion News Network:
Breaking News: Some BS Happening Somewhere
"If in doubt, make it stout,
for things you don't know much about"
- A pearl of design wisdom shared with me early in my career from a seasoned mechanical design engineer. Very memorable.
The philosopher of science Daniel Dennet argues quite persuasively that evolution does indeed result in real progress, beyond fleeting temporary advantage. His arguments are best articulated in Darwin's Dangerous Idea and his talks (e.g. TED2009, TED2006, TED2003, and TED2002).
The jury is still out on whether Dennet is right on this point, but it has support from some evolutionary biologists, and the debates continue...
"New...Nabisco TITS!!"
I bet you can't eat just one!!
It's very readable, engaging, and informative. Much of the material is drawn from Sagan's popular undergraduate course in Critical Thinking at Cornell University. Even though it's more than ten years old, The Demon-Haunted World still reads very well today.
From http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/rights/copyrightmain.html
Some of the ATM doors in my city are even less secure than that, checking only that *something* has been inserted into the card slot. No magnetic strip required -- a piece of paper or thin cardboard will do.
The parent post has inadvertently demonstrated that "tiananmen" is filtered at Google.cn, but the misspelled "tienanmen" is not.
DISCLAIMER: I'm an academic researcher in the social sciences. I often use statistics in my work.
Other than the computational and data acquisition challenges, a larger sample is always preferred over a smaller one. In particular, confidence intervals are smaller -- in other words, estimates of population parameters are more precise; we know more with large samples, and what we know, we know with greater confidence.
Although there are diminishing returns on increasing sample size (as other posters have noted), the only downsides of a larger sample are the costs of acquiring more data and the costs of analysis. Evidently, Google was willing to incur those costs.
There are few absolutes in research, but this one of them: there are no statistical advantages of small samples. Ceteris paribus, you should trust the results of a large-sample study more than those of a small-sample study -- at least, to the extent that you can "trust" any statistics.
Hear, hear.
My HP LaserJet 4L is nearly twelve years old, and still churns out over a thousand sheets each month in my home office. For your workhorse products, buy quality and you won't be sorry.
My father, with the best of intentions, recently decided to buy a toner cartridge for me at a big box store (don't ask why -- it's a long story). He was, of course, stunned by the high price. The salesman, also meaning well, nearly talked him into a new low-end (translation: piece of crap) inkjet, arguing that it was way better value than throwing money into an old obsolete printer. He almost went for it on the spot, thinking that he would be doing me a favour.
"Newer is better" is a seductive arguement until you crunch the numbers.
I'm a researcher in the field of technology and innovation management. IMO, the article either misunderstands or chooses to misrepresent the value proposition of Googgle Scholar.
My area of research is rapidly evolving, yet, it can take two to three years to get a paper published in a leading journal. The academic peer review process takes time.
If I want to search published papers in my field, I use a commercial database, such as INFORM or Business Source Premier. In that way, I can find out what researchers did a few years ago. HOWEVER, if I want to know what people are working on RIGHT NOW, I go to Google Scholar. There, I can find draft working papers, conference papers, papers submitted for review, and even papers that were rejected by journals (possibly for good reason!).
For my needs, Google Scholar currently complements commercial databases; it does not replace them. Given time, however, Google's potential is limitless. Firms that make revenue licensing scientific databases have every reason to feel threatened. Unless they innovate to address the needs of their end-users, they may well be displaced from their market -- and rightly so.