Are homo sapiens still evolving?

Eddington's photograph of a solar eclipse, whi...
Image via Wikipedia

If the chance of a a genius like Al Einstein was one in a billion, will the planet have many more geniuses if the population crosses many more billions.

Have increasing brain sizes, decreasing fertility, mark a shift in homo sapiens.

Who wants to go out like a Neathendrel- not homo sapiens. Go out like a dinosaur- not us. Go out like a Martian. – thats just a movie.

Yeah right.

Here is song called Robot Song- for all the robots that lie in wait.

and here are the laws for robots.

The Laws are:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
but above all

:

0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
The Fifth Law says:

A robot must know it is a robot.

Related http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

Weather Modifying Weapons

OSTM/Jason-2's predecessor TOPEX/Poseidon caug...
Image via Wikipedia

This is part of a continuing series of theoretical weapons. The weapons are theoretical as the United Nations has already banned the weapons (but not banned the building of research of defense from these weapons).

Possible applications of weather modifying weapons.

1) Use surface modifiers on oceans including but not limited to submerged nuclear heaters, airborne solar powered  lasers, surface spreaders like oil slicks. This will help modify the temperature of the ocean in certain critical areas  at critical times, influencing weather esp winds that bring rains.

Example- Modifying or Enhancing El Nino to influence rain to specific countries.

2) Use of air borne or aircraft borne lasers to start forest fires

3) Use of lasers to enhance the rate of melting of strategic glaciers.

4) Modify and interfere with the timing of an active volcano to prevent big rupture, rather to go for controlled releases.

5) Use of harmonics to influence seismic wave activity in geological reasons.

Who writes white papers?

A social network diagram
Image via Wikipedia

There are four main types of commercial white papers:

  • Business benefits: Makes a business case for a certain technology or methodology.
  • Technical: Describes how a certain technology works.
  • Hybrid: Combines business benefits with technical details in a single document.
  • Policy: Makes a case for a certain political solution to a societal or economic challenge.
Name the best white paper you ever read? (comment that in the field)..
What categoy of white papers is the best?
Do you think white papers are too expensive or they give adequate ROI?
To be continued- including

  1. demographic and social network analysis of analysts and white paper sponsors to measure interaction effects.
  2. white papers segmented by type of software company
  3. proc freq analysis of the words frequency data viz in white papers written by same analysts for different companies on same topics.
  4. Race and ethnic analysis of influencers and analysts in Business Analysts and Business Intelligence. – Null hypothesis – it is not a white mans world, women, Hispanics and other minorities are adequately represented.
Why I am doing this?
I am writing a white paper on WHO writes a white paper? 
Sponsorships are invited- but academics and startups in analytics may be preferred.

What is a White Paper?

Christine and Jimmy Wales
Image via Wikipedia

As per Jimmy Wales and his merry band at Wiki (pedia not leaky-ah)- The emphasis is mine

What is the best white paper you have read in the past 15 years.

Categories are-

  • Business benefits: Makes a business case for a certain technology or methodology.
  • Technical: Describes how a certain technology works.
  • Hybrid: Combines business benefits with technical details in a single document.
  • Policy: Makes a case for a certain political solution to a societal or economic challenge.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————



white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as a marketing or sales tool. Policy makers frequently request white papers from universities or academic personnel to inform policy developments with expert opinions or relevant research.

Government white papers

In the Commonwealth of Nations, “white paper” is an informal name for a parliamentary paper enunciating government policy; in the United Kingdom these are mostly issued as “Command papers“. White papers are issued by the government and lay out policy, or proposed action, on a topic of current concern. Although a white paper may on occasion be a consultation as to the details of new legislation, it does signify a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law. White Papers are a “…. tool of participatory democracy … not [an] unalterable policy commitment.[1] “White Papers have tried to perform the dual role of presenting firm government policies while at the same time inviting opinions upon them.” [2]

In Canada, a white paper “is considered to be a policy document, approved by Cabinet, tabled in the House of Commons and made available to the general public.”[3] A Canadian author notes that the “provision of policy information through the use of white and green papers can help to create an awareness of policy issues among parliamentarians and the public and to encourage an exchange of information and analysis. They can also serve as educational techniques”.[4]

“White Papers are used as a means of presenting government policy preferences prior to the introduction of legislation”; as such, the “publication of a White Paper serves to test the climate of public opinion regarding a controversial policy issue and enables the government to gauge its probable impact”.[5]

By contrast, green papers, which are issued much more frequently, are more open ended. These green papers, also known as consultation documents, may merely propose a strategy to be implemented in the details of other legislation or they may set out proposals on which the government wishes to obtain public views and opinion.

White papers published by the European Commission are documents containing proposals for European Union action in a specific area. They sometimes follow a green paper released to launch a public consultation process.

For examples see the following:

 Commercial white papers

Since the early 1990s, the term white paper has also come to refer to documents used by businesses and so-called think tanks as marketing or sales tools. White papers of this sort argue that the benefits of a particular technologyproduct or policy are superior for solving a specific problem.

These types of white papers are almost always marketing communications documents designed to promote a specific company’s or group’s solutions or products. As a marketing tool, these papers will highlight information favorable to the company authorizing or sponsoring the paper. Such white papers are often used to generate sales leads, establish thought leadership, make a business case, or to educate customers or voters.

There are four main types of commercial white papers:

  • Business benefits: Makes a business case for a certain technology or methodology.
  • Technical: Describes how a certain technology works.
  • Hybrid: Combines business benefits with technical details in a single document.
  • Policy: Makes a case for a certain political solution to a societal or economic challenge.

Resources

  • Stelzner, Michael (2007). Writing White Papers: How to capture readers and keep them engaged. Poway, California: WhitePaperSource Publishing. pp. 214. ISBN 9780977716937.
  • Bly, Robert W. (2006). The White Paper Marketing Handbook. Florence, Kentucky: South-Western Educational Publishing. pp. 256. ISBN 9780324300826.
  • Kantor, Jonathan (2009). Crafting White Paper 2.0: Designing Information for Today’s Time and Attention Challenged Business Reader. Denver,Colorado: Lulu Publishing. pp. 167.ISBN 9780557163243.

#Rstats gets into Enterprise Cloud Software

Defense Agencies of the United States Departme...
Image via Wikipedia

Here is an excellent example of how websites should help rather than hinder new customers take a demo of the software without being overwhelmed by sweet talking marketing guys who dont know the difference between heteroskedasticity, probability, odds and likelihood.

It is made by Zementis (Dr Michael Zeller has been a frequent guest here) and Revolution Analytics is still the best shot in Enterprise software for #Rstats

Now if only Revo could get into the lucrative Department of Energy or Department of Defense business- they could change the world AND earn some more revenue than they have been doing. But seriously.

Check out http://deployr.revolutionanalytics.com/zementis/ and play with it. or better still mash it with some data viz and ROC curves.- or extend it with some APIS 😉

Movie Review -Source Code

Jake Gyllenhaal has always been a dear chap from his Donny Darko days. So when you mash some quantum physics (parabolic calculus as per movie), with science fiction to capture terrorists (a very topical topic)- you get Source Code– an investigative and recursive logical thriller. Lead actress Vera Farmiga from the Departed (remember the scene of making love to Comfortably Numb) seems a bit bored today and the tension never crackles. This is a movie for science fiction or action thrillers not geeks- and the name source code is a bit of a misleading title- as it should probably be called Complex Event Processing. It is also a terrible name to search for in Google Image Search- you dont get movie images at all.

The movie is very watchable, but it wont be winning any Hugo awards yet.

Also stars Michelle Monaghan of MI3 ,

with the cute upturned nose made famous by

Nicole not Kid(ding)man