On Software

1) All software has bugs. Sometimes this is because people have been told to code in a hurry to meet shipping deadlines. Sometimes it is due to the way metal and other software interact with it. Mostly it is karma.

2) In the 21 st Century,It is okay to insult someone over his software , but not over most other things. Sometimes I think people are passionate not just for their own software but to just diss the other guys. It is a politically convenient release.

3) Bloggers writing about software are full of bull-by products. If they were any good in writing code, they would not have time to write a blog. Mostly bloggers on code are people whose coding enthusiasm is more than their coding competence.

4) Software is easier than it looks to people who know it. To those who dont know how to code, it will always be a bit of magic.

5) Despite immense progress, initiatives and encouragement- the number of females writing code is too low . Comparatively, figuratively and literally. If you are a male and want a social life- get into marketing while the hair is still black.

Man walks into Bar. Says to Women at Bar. ” Hey,What do you do, Me- I write code”

See!

6) People who write software end up making more money not just because they create useful stuff that helps get work done faster or helps reduce boredom for people. They make more money because they are mostly passionate, logical problem thinkers, focused, hard working and better read on a variety of subjects than others. That’s your cue to how to make money even if you cannot code.

7) I would rather write much more code rather than write poetry. But I sometimes think they are related. Just manipulating words in different languages to manipulate output in different machines or people.

8) Kids should be taught software at early age , as that is a skill that helps in their education and thinking. More education for the kids!

9) Laying off talented software people because you found a cheaper , younger alternative half across the globe is sometimes evil. It is also inevitable. Learn more software as you grow older.

10) The best software is the one in your head. It was written by a better programmer too.

 

Ethics and Writing

A particularly prominent technology blogger ( see http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/michael_arrington_the_kingmaker_who_would_be_king.php )has now formalized his status as an investor (which he did even before) while relinquishing his editorial duties (which were not much given the blog’s acquisition by AOL and its own formidable line of writers, each one of whom is quite influential). Without going into either sermon mode (thou shall not have conflict of interests) or adulatory mode (wow he sold the blog for 30 mill and now he gets another 20 mill for his funds)- I shall try and present the case for ethics and ethical lapses while as a writer.

Continue reading “Ethics and Writing”

New Community for Analytics- All Analytics

Here is a brand new community for analytics called allanalytics.com or http://www.allanalytics.com/

 

 

It seems to be managed by http://www.ubmtechweb.com/about/ who have a lot of other internet properties as well.One feature I disliked was the lengthy registration form which seems anarchic in these days of OAuth

Currently the community seems to be sponsored by SAS Institute, and it is basically a curated blog aggregator, like TeraData has SmartDataCollective , but much different than SAS Institutes’s affiliated sascommunity.org which is more for coders and consultants in SAS Language.

The community talks about analytics as a paradigm and way of getting business down. Have a look, notable names include Thomas C Redman and SAS’s very own Gary Cokins at http://www.allanalytics.com/bloggers.asp. The list of bloggers seems to be much lesser here, a kind of trade-off for high profile bloggers and thinkers. Worth a dekko or RSS subscription at least IMHO

 

Also see-

https://decisionstats.com/interview-thomas-c-redman-author-data-driven/

https://decisionstats.com/interview-gary-cokins-sas-institute/

Poets and Hackers

analysts analyze bloggers blog but scientists research

if hackers hack and writers write why dont poets poe

or maybe everybody is a closet poet

some write prose some write code

some play in ones and zeros some play with images

some with video while most stick to playing with A to Z

we all have our favorite toys some we choose most are given to us

poets and hackers playjoes and crackers

choosing to play in a divine farmville playing till we slacken

 

 

Calling #Rstats lovers and bloggers – to work together on “The R Programming wikibook”

so you think u like R, huh. Well it is time to pay it forward.

Message from a dear R blogger, Tal G from Tel Aviv (creator of R-bloggers.com and SAS-X.com)

———————————————————————————————————-
Calling R lovers and bloggers – to work together on “The R Programming wikibook”
Posted: 20 Jun 2011 07:05 AM PDT

This post is a call for both R community members and R-bloggers, to come and help make The R Programming wikibook be amazing:

Dear R community member – please consider giving a visit to The R Programming wikibook. If you wish to contribute your knowledge and editing skills to the project, then you could learn how to write in wiki-markup here, and how to edit a wikibook here (you can even use R syntax highlighting in the wikibook). You could take information into the site from the (soon to be) growing list of available R resources for harvesting.

Dear R blogger, you can help The R Programming wikibook by doing the following:

Write to your readers about the project and invite them to join.
Add your blog’s R content as an available resource for other editors to use for the wikibook. Here is how to do that:
First, make a clear indication on your blog that your content is licensed under cc-by-sa copyrights (*see what it means at the end of the post). You can do this by adding it to the footer of your blog, or by writing a post that clearly states that this is the case (what a great opportunity to write to your readers about the project…).
Next, go and add a link, to where all of your R content is located on your site, to the resource page (also with a link to the license post, if you wrote one). For example, since I write about other things besides R, I would give a link to my R category page, and will also give a link to this post. If you do not know how to add it to the wiki, just e-mail me about it (tal.galili@gmail.com).
If you are an R blogger, besides living up to the spirit of the R community, you will benefit from joining this project in that every time someone will use your content on the wikibook, they will add your post as a resource. In the long run, this is likely to help visitors of the site get to know about you and strengthen your site’s SEO ranking. Which reminds me, if you write about this, I always appreciate a link back to my blog

* Having a cc-by-sa copyrights means that you will agree that anyone may copy, distribute, display, and make derivative works based on your content, only if they give the author (you) the credits in the manner specified by you. And also that the user may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.

———-

Three more points:

1) This post is a result of being contacted by Paul (a.k.a: PAC2), asking if I could help promote “The R Programming wikibook” among R-bloggers and their readers. Paul has made many contributions to the book so far. So thank you Paul for both reaching out and helping all of us with your work on this free open source project.

2) I should also mention that the R wiki exists and is open for contribution. And naturally, every thing that will help the R wikibook will help the R wiki as well.

3) Copyright notice: I hereby release all of the writing material content that is categoriesed in the R category page, under the cc-by-sa copyrights (date: 20.06.2011). Now it’s your turn!

———-

List of R bloggers who have joined: (This list will get updated as this “group writing” project will progress)

R-statistics blog (that’s Tal…)
Decisionstats.com (That’s me)
……………………………………………………………………………….
3) Copyright notice: I hereby release all of the writing material content of this website, under the cc-by-sa copyrights (date: 21.06.2011). Now it’s your turn!

https://decisionstats.com/privacy-3/

Content Licensing-
This website has all content licensed under
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
You are free:
to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix — to adapt the work

Google Chrome- Unites All Blog Readers across the world

D'où vient le logo de Google Chrome ?
Image by Emilie Ogez via Flickr

ever wondered what Pakistani blogs are saying about UBL. What Libyan bloggers go through to send you a piece.

Dont trust Ne-ew York Times or Fox-y News and /or both.

Read directly using breakthrough machine learning algorithms.

The Boys in Stanford and friends – bring Google Chrome Languages-

Now available at 0 cost. No viruses. Just annoying ads. Superbowl style.

Google Realtime Live Updates on Egypt Yemen Tunisia Jordan..

Using Google RealTime, a small icon on the left margin, you can monitor the latest uprisings. Apparently you can still get shot in most of the world to ask for freedom. What a trillion dollars of industrial arms complex could not do in Iraq or Afghanistan, hackers at Wikileaks, Bloggers in Middle East and Media people at Al Jazzera are doing right now. I am probably too young in 1989 when communists fell, but watching dictators fall by people power than external arms is good, no.

Now if only a few more people could listen to some Chinese Democracy

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