CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-20 21:01:41 (14 comments, 4 reshares, 12 +1s)

This article claims that scientists are most software-illiterate. They use software without worry about whether it does what they think it does. 

2013-05-17 14:00:05 (15 comments, 3 reshares, 5 +1s)

"You can compare a modèle with reality (...), but you can never prove it wrong. A modèle is true as long as it is logically consistent, irrespective of reality.

Computer scientists love their modèles!"

2013-05-15 18:42:47 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/05/09/how-different-is-a-b-s-in-computer-science-from-an-m-s-when-it-comes-to-recruiting/

2013-05-10 22:00:26 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Hmmm.... Translating Relational Queries into Spreadsheets... 

2013-05-10 17:48:40 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

Fast integer compression in Java: JavaFastPFOR version 0.0.2. Includes comparisons with the Kamikaze PForDelta lib: in my tests, we smoke the competition...

2013-05-09 14:21:53 (36 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Why do people like RAR archives so much? What is up with that? (My students keep handing in their code in RAR archives even though I specifically tell them not to!)

2013-05-08 18:15:36 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

On my mac, if I type "if (1 < 2)" then the space right before the number 2 is a non-breakable space (\160).

This works with any applicable, from Terminal to Eclipse. Of course, Java won't compiler code with non-breakable spaces in it, so I have to manually seek and delete such spaces every time. I have been doing this for years and I am getting tired of this.

2013-05-08 01:13:11 (9 comments, 7 reshares, 19 +1s)

I am convinced that by the time I will leave my professorship, they won't be replacing me. There will be just no need.

« [Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, was] giving a talk at a big meeting of the American Association of University Professors, the guild organization that invigilates the protectionist rules that keep the professoriate in their tenured luxury.  Ellison began with a little flattery. Teachers, he said, are one of the most important assets of our society. Applause and appreciative murmurs.  Not only are teachers important, he said they are also drastically underpaid. Even more appreciative applause and scattered “Here, heres.” In fact, quoth this business giant, I think teachers are so important that they ought to be paid at least a $1 million a year. A standing ovation: who knew that someone from corporate America could be so  insightful?  Unfortunately, Ellison concluded,I’m only... more »

2013-05-08 01:01:14 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Now trending in Technology via http://TrendSpottr.com/

2013-05-06 20:26:18 (16 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

It is often said that the European economy looks bleak. But how is Germany doing?  Germany's unemployment rate has fallen from 12% to 5.4% from 2006 to 2012. That's right! In the middle of a crisis, Germany got better, much better...

(Not all indicators are good however... but for regular folks, the unemployment rate seems like a good indicator.)

2013-05-06 14:31:41 (28 comments, 22 reshares, 58 +1s)

2013-05-05 16:12:22 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 31 +1s)

Bread production of the week-end: includes peanut bread

2013-05-03 21:37:20 (15 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

The Keynesian model is failing:

"I think the recent jobs numbers are a huge embarrassment to Keynesians.  If we’d gotten 50,000 jobs a month for the first 4 months, they’d be crowing that their model is vindicated.  So what’s the criterion for testing it?  Are we to assume that favorable data can prove Keynesianism and discredit other models, but unfavorable data is inconclusive?  That’s a recipe for never rejecting Keynesianism.  Which is exactly the point I guess."

2013-05-03 01:53:48 (7 comments, 3 reshares, 7 +1s)

External memory sorting in Java, version 0.1.4 is out!
by +Jerry Yang 

2013-05-02 20:23:42 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I'd own a Segway if it were affordable. The damned thing is more expensive than a cheap car.

2013-05-02 13:12:43 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

You might have heard that nearly 3000 tons of Maple syrup were stolen from the Maple syrup reserve in Quebec. They got most of it back, but they are still missing 900 tons of syrup. 

In case you are wondering why there is a Maple syrup "reserve"... it is state-sponsored price fixing. They want to keep the prices high even when the production is abundant, so they take away much of the production and store it in a reserve.

(The price of many food items is similarly subject to state-sponsored price fixing... milk, eggs, beer...)

(Link in French)

2013-04-30 16:59:42 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 14 +1s)

If life gives you melons, you may be dyslexic.

2013-04-26 14:59:13 (0 comments, 7 reshares, 11 +1s)

Quick review of +Lance Fortnow's book.

2013-04-24 17:50:30 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 21 +1s)

We need a GitHub equivalent for economics professors and their Excel spreadsheets.

2013-04-23 14:17:01 (8 comments, 6 reshares, 13 +1s)

2013-04-22 13:34:11 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

 A 2010 meta-analysis found no association between red meat consumption and heart disease. 

2013-04-22 13:18:19 (8 comments, 2 reshares, 20 +1s)

If you are an academic, you are probably receiving spam from made-up journals that try to get you to publish with them (for a fee). I just received one that hits a new low:

I came across to your research paper titled "" and feel that your research is having a very good impact.

That's right... they couldn't even mine the web properly for the title of a paper I wrote.

We encourage research activities all around the globe with Online, 3D and Print versions.

They'll publish my papers in 3D! 

Dr. R. K. Dixit
Chief Author (Hon.)
(Fellow of Association of Research in Medical)

I'll let you decide whether this sounds credible.

2013-04-20 14:37:15 (43 comments, 11 reshares, 43 +1s)

Undeclared martial law, dancing to terrorists' tune, ... and we applauded
I think I'm one of the few people disturbed and unhappy by how the manhunt was run in Boston and by how few people even questioned if any of this was legal.  Or what precedent we just set.

The media, who should have been loudest in questioning these actions, used the polite term "lockdown" to describe what was an undeclared martial law.  When you shut down all transportation, close businesses, tell citizens they must remain inside their homes, and bring in the armored vehicles - that's martial law.  When you search people's bags and demand their ID because they are walking on the street - that's martial law.  When you "ask" people for "consent" to search their homes by sticking your foot in the door and using intimidation and fear - that's martiallaw.  T... more »

2013-04-19 16:54:38 (15 comments, 5 reshares, 21 +1s)

Greatest.
Press.
Conference.
Ever.

2013-04-17 15:04:47 (14 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

2013-04-16 05:28:48 (6 comments, 8 reshares, 28 +1s)

2013-04-15 15:41:33 (12 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

2013-04-11 02:13:19 (20 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

In 2012, for every 3 PCs sold, there was one tablet sold. It looks like the numbers will be even scarier for PCs in 2013... I'm thinking a 2:1 ratio or worse... 

2013-04-10 11:28:17 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

With a financial transaction tax only this will go away. With all other loopholes. So why not do it? Too smart?

2013-04-08 18:47:34 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 19 +1s)

2013-04-06 04:43:20 (4 comments, 10 reshares, 19 +1s)

Interesting open course: "Introduction to Data Science" by Bill Howe https://www.coursera.org/course/datasci via +Andre Vellino 

2013-04-04 18:03:53 (38 comments, 18 reshares, 23 +1s)

Nobel-prize winner Paul Krugman in 1998 on the Internet:

"The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in Metcalfe's law–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's."

2013-04-04 17:31:11 (17 comments, 28 reshares, 45 +1s)

" 62% of the growth in jobs in science-related fields will be in computer science" via +Carles Farré 

2013-04-03 23:01:40 (3 comments, 5 reshares, 12 +1s)

Save time and watch all 6 Star Wars movie at once.

2013-04-03 22:06:04 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 12 +1s)

2013-04-03 14:40:51 (38 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

It looks like the Intel Math library is about 300x faster than glibc (e.g., with sin, cos, ...). It has been so for about a decade. Why can't free software catch up a little bit? c.c. +Leonid Boytsov 

2013-04-02 05:39:11 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Leading-edge  approximate dictionary searching software by +Leonid Boytsov 

2013-04-02 04:57:29 (6 comments, 5 reshares, 13 +1s)

2013-04-02 00:35:34 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

I find it amazing that TED now feels the need to put disclaimers at the bottom of its videos. Can we find a sane default, like "everything you read or watch on the Internet, no matter the source, is probably junk or spam or both"?

2013-04-01 15:40:42 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

"Organisations that make a virtue of their staff's wisdom and sell intangible services or branded products,(...), are highlighted as being particularly disposed to develop functional stupidity."

2013-03-30 00:25:06 (2 comments, 7 reshares, 21 +1s)

Hilarious essay on industrial obsolescence: Obsolete Anonymous 

2013-03-29 22:34:38 (10 comments, 4 reshares, 13 +1s)

There is a price to pay for cranking up the competition too high.

There is a deep-seated belief in academia that training 100 Ph.D.s and then recruiting 1 or 2 as professors is a good thing. It might be but it also means the slightness bias can cripple someone:

"Only the highest rated work is funded and published. (...) In this environment, even a small bias will have a huge ripple effect on the quality of scientific results that emerge and the make-up of the researchers left employed and standing at the end of the day. Unfortunately, we have a growing body of evidence that subconscious bias is alive and well."

Of course, this article takes the angle of gender bias... but I suspect that anything that makes you different from some perceived ideal works against you, irrespective of your abilities.

2013-03-29 01:31:09 (9 comments, 7 reshares, 7 +1s)

This seems much more important than the rising inequality. 

"(...) the labor share has fallen because traditional middle-skill work is being supplanted by computers, and the marginal product of labor has declined"

2013-03-28 06:35:27 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I am test-driving Clarity, the dial-a-consultant service. So if you're interested in scheduling a free consulting call with me, go ahead. I'll leave the free link enabled for a week or so while I try this thing out.

2013-03-28 01:39:21 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

You are a decent C++ programmer and you have access to Visual Studio 2012?

Can you help me diagnose this issue with a C++ compressed bitmap library (APL 2.0)?

Unit tests work with g++ and clang++, and I was told that they work with Visual Studio 2010.

The example2.cpp file (see GitHub) also gives the wrong result under Visual Studio 2012.

(There is no pay, but you get to add your name to the project if you help us.)

2013-03-27 15:28:20 (0 comments, 16 reshares, 14 +1s)

What are schools for?

2013-03-27 13:31:06 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Some people have trouble dealing with their inbox (cough +Philippe Beaudoin  cough). Here is my answer. Nothing insightful, just sharing common thoughts.

2013-03-26 22:01:51 (0 comments, 5 reshares, 7 +1s)

Plan to sort large files in Java one day? Bookmark this public domain library: 

External-memory sorting in Java version 0.3 (last release contributed by +Eleftherios Chetzakis)

2013-03-26 21:20:49 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Here is how a friend of mine described Canadian higher ed: "The only fat left is well-defended, untouchable fat that will persist while meat and bones are chopped out."

2013-03-25 20:14:09 (23 comments, 1 reshares, 16 +1s)

Very convincing case the requiring women to get prescriptions for the pill is paternalistic: