In their 2004 founders’ letter[9] prior to their initial public offering, Larry Page and Sergey Brin explained that their “Don’t be evil” culture prohibited conflicts of interest, and required objectivity and an absence of bias
Month: November 2014
How to go around a Writer’s Block
Tales from the crypto-
1) Accept the inevitability of writer’s block and surrender to it for a few days. Even Nobel Prize Winners have had it
2) Divert your attention from constantly thinking on the same topic by reading a completely different topic
3) Relax your body . Some people exercise and run. Me, I prefer a pedicure
4) Open your computer and start typing whatever comes to your mind for five minutes. Think of it as a game of speedy fingers. After 5 minutes pause. Hey that was not so bad
5) Distract yourself .Watch Benedict Cumberbatch and Listen to Freddy Mercury. or Mika. Music helps
6) Tea is the only stimulant that is legal AND healthy even if you take it a lot. Everything else including alcohol, pills, weed, coffee will cause pain OR side effects
7) Create an artificial deadline and type type type. Edit for quality later.
8) Stop worrying on getting the right words in first go and focus on creation first and polishing later. Worrying kills creativity
9) Time spent on Internet is not counted as time spent productively, so go for a digital detox. Switch off all technology for two days if you can
10) More relaxing- Pray to someone or something you believe. Visit someplace you enjoyed. Smell the roses. This too shall pass.
continued from- How to be a Better Writer
https://decisionstats.com/2013/08/02/how-to-be-a-better-writer/
Algorithms Alsorhymes Everywhere
Now even Astrology uses Algorithms. See Bottom Left.
Why Data Scientists should refuse to work with the NSA
Will: Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.? That’s a tough one, but I’ll take a shot.
Say I’m working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ’cause I did my job well.
But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed.
Now the politicians are sayin’, “Send in the marines to secure the area” ’cause they don’t give a shit. It won’t be their kid over there, gettin’ shot. Just like it wasn’t them when their number was called, ’cause they were pullin’ a tour in the National Guard. It’ll be some kid from Southie takin’ shrapnel in the ass.
And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, ’cause he’ll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks.
Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain’t helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon.
They’re takin’ their sweet time bringin’ the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin’ play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain’t too long ’til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic.
So now my buddy’s out of work and he can’t afford to drive, so he’s walking to the fuckin’ job interviews, which sucks ’cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin’ him chronic hemorroids. And meanwhile he’s starvin’ ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they’re servin’ is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.
So what did I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure, fuck it, while I’m at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.
(written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck)
Google Glass for Police Officers
Wearable Computing for honest law enforcement
Why cant police officers in the USA (or the World) be asked to wear something like Google Glass ( or equivalent) with the records secure but ready to be subpoenaed in case of shootings or conflict. It was also add to security of police officers .
Heck why cant you add a small wearable computing /camera to every handgun?
Surely it could have prevented the unrest in Ferguson? 
Basics of Analyzing Data #rstats #social #sma
A recent training I created and gave
Coursera is not a MOOC
Consider the hypothesis above and consider the facts below
massive open online course= Mooc
but coursera is not Open
- You cannot share Coursera content on Youtube or any non Coursera- this effectively ties in people to the website
- The Website does not use any social login or OpenID
- There is enough evidence of cross selling including branding, selling books and now 50$ certificates
- There is more vigor to get easily monetization course curriculum than to get subjects that are relevant to society ( eg job training for laid off workers in rural USA or for farmers in Africa or for textile mill workers in Bangalidesh)
- No effort in localization and customization or translation despite multiple avenues for machine learning enabled translation APIs (cough cough Machine learning= ML)
- Prof ML insists on using Octave and not R. Everyone knows Sheldon Cooper is more cool than Howard Wolowitz, yet Prof ML will say – it is easy to prototype using the latter and not the former. Plus he does not really update his slides too much
- With a 5% pass rate you actually dont care about the (students) education as they are just (money) bricks in your (fire) wall
- Blog posts are shared but data on usage and engagement is not shared openly or through an API
- Lame efforts at open sourcing the platform
- Lamer efforts at keeping clutter off the course search page ( Hint- Dont use Ctrl + F)
All images sourced from http://boards.4chan.org/b/
DECISION STATS 