Microsoft acquires leading vendor of enterprise R -Revolution Analytics

The news-

http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2015/01/revolution-acquired.html

Revolution Analytics joins Microsoft

by David Smith, Chief Community Officer

On behalf of the entire Revolution Analytics team I am excited to announce that Revolution Analytics is joining forces with Microsoft to bring R to even more enterprises. Microsoft announced today that it will acquire Revolution Analytics.

and

http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/01/23/microsoft-acquire-revolution-analytics-help-customers-find-big-data-value-advanced-statistical-analysis/

Microsoft to acquire Revolution Analytics to help customers find big data value with advanced statistical analysis

I’m very pleased to announce that Microsoft has reached an agreement to acquire Revolution Analytics. Revolution Analytics is the leading commercial provider of software and services for R, the world’s most widely used programming language for statistical computing and predictive analytics. We are making this acquisition to help more companies use the power of R and data science to unlock big data insights with advanced analytics.

——-

Detailed Note to follow, but in the meantime.

Training in R on the WeekendR in February

I have agreed to teach R on the Weekend. As a change from my usual online trainings these will be in the class. I am collaborating with http://weekendr.in/r-training.html

For an initial price the cost is Rs 5500 (~100 USD) for 8 sessions of 3 hours each in the classroom. This is only for New Delhi, India as of now.

You can review the course here http://weekendr.in/r-training.html

Screenshot from 2015-01-23 13:40:41

Movie Review – Imitation Game

This is a brilliant movie by the talented Benedict Cumberbatch playing the genius Alan Turing and his war time adventures. It is also a tribute to the  injustice served by gay people  by then notions of British Justice and is a dramatized version of the actual true story of the pioneers of cryptology. Alas, their legacy is now in the hands of the GCHQ and NSA to establish digital tyranny and an empire in cyber-space.

Knowing Mr Turing ‘s standards , the world suffered when he was cut down in his prime by pressures brought by official governmental machinery after they had used him through for their own ends.

Watch it and admire the father of Computer Science.

Denial of Freedom to Laugh

What is common between somebody hacking a movie studio to stop the release of a critical movie and somebody killing some cartoonists in Paris. Both are examples of terrorism (one digital, the other physical)

Both deny your freedom to laugh at silly stuff.

This is the same reason I deplore denial of service attacks on websites that are critical to your ideas ( with the possible exception of paedophiles). Terror recruiting websites should be monitored by analytics not shut down by attacks.

The difference between the good guys and the bad guys is not just the reasons they do nasty stuff, it is also in their methods.

The internet needs more freedom not more regulation. Attempts to do so shall just cause activists to create technology that bypass future web anaytics in a more damaging way that current Tor projects do.

Creation of browsers that have both bit torrents and tor embedded by default could be one such example.Screenshot from 2015-01-16 20:08:49

Everybody is an hacker ?

Because I keep getting trolled-

The Hacker Attitude

1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.

and

The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them.

Hacker-logo.sh-600x600

 

Open Source Intelligence and Data Scientists

In view of recent events-a note on OS Intelligence

Opensource intelligence (OSINT) is intelligence collected from publicly available sources. In the intelligence community (IC), the term “open” refers to overt, publicly available sources (as opposed to covert or clandestine sources); it is not related to opensource software or public intelligence

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_intelligence

My  Will’s views on data scientists working with people in intelligence..

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.

from –

https://decisionstats.com/2014/11/26/why-data-scientists-should-refuse-to-work-with-the-nsa/

 

Things I wonder about

  1. Why humans need one set of accommodation to live in, another to work in, and a third to relax in. It seems we are using three times the number of buildings we should be using.
  2. Why can’t analytics measure the cost to environment (not just carbon output) in any product and service?
  3. What prevents a global effort for analytics  against corruption ?
  4. Why open source software underestimates the need of marketing and why proprietary software companies underestimate the need for open sourcing at least a small part of their extensive portfolio?
  5. Why is education and training still so expensive in the era of MOOCs and Internet and Skype?
  6. Why are expensive textbooks (and books and newspapers) still being printed on paper?
  7. Why does it take 15 minutes to set up the projector before any presentation despite the advances in technology?
  8. Why can’t I just 3D print most of my wardrobe and my gadgets?
  9. When will we have virtual reality movies?
  10. Why software companies focus on creating more and more languages, rather than use machine learning to create a language 1 to language 2 translator. How about a Google/Bing Translate for Computer Languages?
  11. Why they do a lot of checking for giving me a credit card but not so much checking for giving me a gun in the USA? Why do 2 billion Indians and Chinese put up with corruption ? Why do Europeans work so few hours and Asians so many?
  12. Why people who write packages in open source make less money than people who write apps for mobiles?
  13. When can software startups  focus on job search and dating search as the real problems humans care for- not just website search?
  14. Why is there a digital divide and what a donation of 1000,000 phablets in poor countries to kids can do for the future?
  15. When will we start consuming smarter rather than just less or more to heal climate change?

But mostly I am thinking of this?  aYpYmWV_700b1-560x559Happy New Year. Stay Awesome and Classy