R for Business Analytics now in Chinese

Email from Springer to me-

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Dear Dr. Ohri,

Springer SBM is pleased to inform you that we have concluded a contract for the Chinese translation of your book:
R for Business Analytics
Edition Number: 1 (2013)
Mr. A Ohri
978-1-4614-4342-1

We trust you are as enthusiastic about this opportunity to distribute your book as we are.

The publisher of the translation is: Xi’an Jiaotong University Press.

The financial conditions we agreed upon are:
A flat fee of EUR XXXX  for 3,000 copies, payable upon conclusion of the agreement but not later than 60 days thereafter. (Please note that this fee is subject to tax deductions of 15.77%, imposed by the licensee’s country.)

Upon receiving the payment, we will ask our accounts department to transfer your shares to you, according to your contract with Springer. The share will then be shown on the next royalty statement you’ll receive.

Upon publication you would receive 4 complimentary copies.

In case you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

With best wishes,

XXXXX

Springer
Rights and Permissions

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For the book in English- see right margin!

So many R Packages Everywhere, which one do I use? #rstats

Some thoughts on R Packages

  • CRAN is no longer the sole repository for many useful R packages. This includes R Forge, Google Code and increasingly Github
  • CRAN lacks the flexibility and social aspect of Github.
  • CRAN Views is the only thing that lists subject wide listing of R packages. The categorization is however done more on methods than on use cases or business domains.
  • Multiple R packages for the same thing. Which one do I use? Only Stack Overflow helps with that. No rating , no recommendation system
  • The packages suggested by R package feature needs better and automatic association analysis . Right now it is manual and dependent on package author and maintainer.

  • Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who guards the guardians of R packages. In an era of cyber security, we need better transparency on security measures within R packages especially given the international nature of the project.  I am very sure I ( or anyone) can create R code to communicate discretely especially on Windows

  • I would rather not install anything on my local machine, and read the package directly from the CRAN . CRAN was designed in an era of low bandwidth- this needs to be upgraded.
  • Note I am refraining respectfully from the atrocious nature of aesthetics in the home website. Many statisticians feel no use of making R user friendly. My professors at U tenn (from which I dropped out in 2 sems) were horrified when I took courses in graphic design as I wanted to know more on the A and B, which make the A/B testing of statistical design. Now that I am getting older, I get horrified by the lack of HTML, CSS and JQuery by some of the brightest programmers in this project.
  • Please comment below.

 

Using Google Image search for OkCupid Profile Images

  1. Suppose you like some one on OKCupid. Click to navigate to photos.
  2. Click Save as to save the webpage completely. All Images are now in a folder on your laptop
  3. Use Google Image Search Upload to one by one . The biggest privacy drawback, Google Image search doesn’t find Instagram or Twitter  or Facebook or LinkedIn profile images so well, but does it extremely well for Google Plus Profile Image. Lolcat!
  4. Solution- have two sets of photos that make you look good, one for  friends, other for OKCupid or other online dating shenanigans!

faceoffI interview Stephen, awesome Face Recognition hacker here, and I think his solution is the best for privacy- use a robots.txt equivalent for images, just as you use it for websites.

I hope they find a solution, in time for wearable computing to take off properly.

In the meantime, I am telling people on OK Cupid that I am a fortune teller. It is really working awesome!

How to make inforgraphics easily- Use Infogr.am

What is an Infographic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infographic

Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly.[1][2] They can improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system’s ability to see patterns and trends.[3][4] The process of creating infographics can be referred to as data visualization, information design, or information architecture.[2]

What is Infogr.am?

It Create infographics and interactive online charts. It’s free and super-easy!

How?

Step 1

Login using Twitter or Facebook

Step 2

i1Create

Step 3

i2Choose New Infographic or New Chart?

Step 4

i3Create using options-you can edit the table, figures, text, colors etc

That’s it

Use Infogr.am to make inforgraphics easily!

 

Coursera gets cluttered

I am a big fan of Coursera, but I really think they should organize the Courses along tracks for people wanting to gain multiple skills for a domain or a career.

Their current system of tracks is a signature track that at 39/69$ offers a certificate. Can’t this be upgraded to something like a Data Scientist certification – say if you complete 5-6 courses that are specified.

Also there needs to be much more external social (rather than internal social /forums discussion) as well as some gamification like Codeacademy does (points, badges, leaderboard) to make it more fun.

Lastly- I wish there was a way to read the transcripts fast or at least some way for professionals who are busy to change the rate of learning (the video speed can be changed but its not that effective)

See this- with 370 courses I think Coursera should really build a layer of certifications for multiple courses along a single industry/domain.

c1