January 2012
3 posts
There is no way Siri "doubles" iPhone4S data...
What a ridiculous headline on Bloomberg and other sites… “Apple’s Siri Feature Doubles IPhone Data Usage”. Video streaming uses lots of data, not talking to your phone. Did they ever think heavy users might upgrade first? Selection bias? Sometimes I think journalism courses should be offered through the statistics department…
Women to the back of the bus? →
I am glad to live in a country with religious freedom. It’s hard to believe that just 50 years ago we started overcoming our own problems with segregation. There are too many things dividing us. Let’s not invent more.
December 2011
21 posts
“Why bother going to a meeting if you’re not prepared to change your mind?”
– Al Pittampalli
There’s nothing like a short vacation to make me appreciate being home and going to work.
Another Bad Apple
“For example, the case decided Monday involves the technology that lets you tap your finger once on the touch screen to call a phone number that is written inside an e-mail or text message. It also involves the technology that allows you to schedule a calendar appointment, again with a single tap of the finger, for a date mentioned in an e-mail.”
There is no way Apple should sue on...
50 Crazy Economic Facts of 2011 →
“we no longer have permission to redistribute new Java packages as Oracle has...”
– Important notice regarding Java packages in Partner archive
“Between forest and field, a threshold
like stepping from a cathedral into the...”
– Ravi Shankar, Crossings
Suicide? →
“Suckers try to win arguments, nonsuckers try to win.”
– Nicholas Nassim Taleb, Antifragility
Treasury is getting a GitHub →
never get on a plane if the pilot is not on board
Fat Tony has two heuristics.
First, never get on a plane if the pilot is not on board.
Second, make sure there is also a co-pilot.
-Nicholas Nassim Taleb, Antifragility
Sunday Morning Sysadmin
The early hours of Sunday are the best for mucking around with swappiness and seeing how many iptables rules you chain together. Hoping to do a DNS migration next weekend…
A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly...
A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.
-Waldo Jaquith
“I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my...”
– HAL
“We don’t do wire frames. We switched to thick plastic.”
– Hipster Designer
“PragmaticAndy: “You are enough. You are always enough. You don’t ever have to pretend to be anything other than what you are.” — Barbara Cook #zenmonday” —http://twitter.com/PragmaticAndy/status/143692375326326784
Saw her Saturday in the hotel lobby giving people hugs.
AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean
Just use reflection already. Spring has eaten itself.
Netflix Streaming
The streaming business is hostage to the content owners. When Netflix bought the DVDs, the content owners couldn’t take them back and start charging more for them. The content owners don’t want a single streaming provider to win, they want streaming providers to bid high prices for exclusivity. This is forcing Netflix to undertake unpopular price hikes to maintain their...
ActiveRecord to Java →
November 2011
40 posts
“People pretty much do what you ask of them, and rarely more. Ask for great...”
– Heidi Grant Halvorson
“The Amiga had a built-in BASIC — but no one used it. Why? Because there...”
– This doesn’t seem to be anything special about Hypercard.Hypercard was the BASIC… | Hacker News
“Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called
upon to...”
– Oscar Wilde
Unix at 40 →
Data Science →
“16. No, you don’t get to be “permanent QB.” Not if you want...”
– Jason Gay: The 32 Rules of Thanksgiving Touch Football - WSJ.com
“thought it was a joke when I first heard about it, but the MySQL command line...”
– http://sql-info.de/mysql/notes/I-am-a-dummy.html
“The spatial propinquity of rows with like keys ensures that when you must scan...”
– http://jimbojw.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Hbase_and_BigTable
“Compared to one year ago, every category of goods and services has increased...”
– CARPE DIEM: CPI Factoid of the Day: Natural Gas Prices -2.2%
“We will find a way. Or make one. -Hannibal Barca, 247 BC – 182 BC”
– If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker | SebastianMarshall.com: Strategy, Philosophy, Self-Discipline, Science. Victory.
“Home buyers with FHA-backed loans can take out mortgages with minimum down...”
– Lawmakers Near Deal on Raising FHA Loan Limits - WSJ.com
Shapefiles Live on in R
library(maptools)
shppointfile="./testdata/points.shp" # simple points file
shppolyfile="./testdata/polys.shp" # simple points file
shplinefile="./testdata/lines.shp"
#simpleLines@data
# Name Value
#0 Highway 1
#1 Highway 1
#2 Arterial 2
#3 Arterial 2
#4 Arterial 2
#5 Arterial 2
png('./output/test.png')
simpleLines //sekhon.berkeley.edu/library/sp/html/SpatialLinesDataFrame-class.html
colours
plot(simpleLines,col=colours[simpleLines@data$Value], main="Route")
legend("topright", fill=unique(simpleLines@data$Value), legend = as.character(unique(simpleLines@data$Value)))
# add point layer
simplePoints
plot(simplePoints,pch=20,add=T) # pch == plotting character
# also polylines are possible
#simplePolys
#plot(simplePolys,col='blue', add=T)
dev.off()
“He proposes a model of intuitive thinking “that can accommodate both its...”
– Nobel Laureate Kahneman Posits Two Forms of Thought in WALS Talk, April 13, 2004 NIH Record - National Institutes of Health (NIH)
“Having said that there are only 3 way to scale: distribution, caching, and...”
– Srinath
Zing 5.0 High Performance JVM Features →
Want to try JRuby on this…
Zing 5.0 Features Zing 5.0 is a high performance JVM optimized for Linux and x86 deployments. The Zing JVM leverages Azul Systems’ proven technology to provide the only JVM that can support heap sizes of 512 GB with pauseless operation and superior responsiveness, scale and throughput. Optimized for Linux and x86 Supported collector: Azul C4...
Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? →
In saying that intellectuals feel entitled to the highest rewards the general society can offer (wealth, status, etc.), I do not mean that intellectuals hold these rewards to be the highest goods. Perhaps they value more the intrinsic rewards of intellectual activity or the esteem of the ages. Nevertheless, they also feel entitled to the highest appreciation from the general society, to the most...
“Perhaps what we need is a fourth branch of government, smallish and economical,...”
– Scott Adams: What If Government Were More Like an iPod? - WSJ.com
Seeing Robots Everywhere →
“Really hoping to make good use of my extra hour tonight.”
Master of Puppets →
35k for an MFA in Puppetry… Who would make that loan? Why do you even need an MFA to do puppetry? Shouldn’t that be more of an apprenticeship thing? Does it even mean you are good at it? Credentialism gone mad…
WatchXtend Java with sensible defaults…just learn JRuby already and compile straight to bytecode.
