"Funny thing is, if this future came to pass and the market were nothing but self-published autonomous authors either writing without editorial or paying out of pocket for it, if we were flooded with good product mixed with bad like gold in a stream, it would be about five seconds before someone came along and said: hey, what if I started a company where we took on all the risk, hired an editorial staff and a marketing staff to make the product better and get it noticed, and paid the author some money up front and a percentage of the profits in exchange for taking on the risk and the initial cost? So writers could, you know, just write?

And writers would line up at their door."

"But how do you present that disclosure? A link in each web article that jumps to a spreadsheet of donors and dollar signs, and let the reader judge? Conversely, many people trust NPR and PBS as a news source, but are satisfied by the simple roll call of sponsors and slogans.

So how do we present this information and context honestly and tactfully? It reminds me of a discussion at ScienceOnline2010 promoting fact-checking policy disclosures. What if you could only afford to fact-check 10% of your reporters’ articles? Does that disclosure give your readers more or less confidence in your service?"

"Several alert readers sent me links to this article from the New York Times. It's a weirdly chipper "pick up some money in your spare time by adjuncting!" piece, written for (and apparently by) people who aren't terribly conversant in higher ed.

Depending on your angle to the universe, it could be read as refreshing, bizarre, or deeply offensive. (I fall into the 'bizarre' camp, with sympathies for the 'deeply offensive.')"

"The 'Primer' is a well-known Life pattern used to calculate prime numbers. The pattern expands in two directions, resembles a breeder, and emits a stream of spaceships representing prime numbers. The presence or absence of a spaceship at a particular generation indicates whether the number is prime or composite. It works by testing whether each integer is divisible by any smaller integer, apart from itself and 1. This is similar in principle to the Sieve of Eratosthenes."

"As Microsoft, Apple, and Google go to war in mobile, search, and on the desktop, expect to see more of this cash deployed through acquisitions. (And one of these days, one of these companies may actually buy something big.)"

"Next time you hear someone invoke "information wants to be free" as a justification for demanding free-as-in-no-payment-expected content, ask them: precisely what content have you released for free lately?"

"If the Internet has a motif, it is rock 'n' roll's Protestant Reformation thrashing against the orchestral One Church. Rock 'n' roll gets lots of wee kirks built in every hill and dale in which parishioners can find religion in their own ways; choral music erects majestic cathedrals that humble and amaze, but take three generations of laborers to build.

The interesting bit isn't what it costs to replicate some big, pre-Internet business or project.

The interesting bit is what it costs to do something half as well as some big, pre-Internet business or project."

dodecahedral LED cap

"The Big Shift suggests we are moving away from a world where stocks of knowledge and short-lived transactions are the key to success. In its place, we find a world where participation in many, diverse flows of knowledge and long-term, trust-based relationships determine success. In this new world, shy people can be at a significant disadvantage. We run the risk of becoming increasingly stressed and marginalized by the extroverts who welcome the opportunity to broaden and deepen relationships. They thrive in crowded rooms while we are deeply uncomfortable with exposing and sharing."

"In their analysis, the old world order based on the imperialist division of the globe into spheres of influence has been superseded by "Empire", a diffuse power emanating not from any one place but, rather, from the network itself."

"While most people don't realize this, they've given Facebook a license to use any content they upload onto Facebook for whatever purpose they choose and the power to transfer that that right as long as the content remains within your profile. They try to make clear what sorts of uses they currently put this license to in order to make their users at ease with posting their content on the service."

"Note that his findings regarding pricing is interesting: he dropped his prices, and is still selling the same number of games, just making half as much money."

"Under the new plan, EWA will immediately shift from a traditional membership organization to an open community, embracing a wider net of people concerned about the quality of education information. The organization will create 21st century mechanisms for supporting traditional writers in real time while adopting creative advocacy on behalf of first-rate sustainable journalism."

"I've used blogs in my classes for five years with university graduate students. I've found them to be extremely helpful in certain circumstances but only when there is clarity for students in their use. Students who object to the inclusion of blogs in a course are usually objecting to what they perceive will be just one more task on top of a myriad of others or simply some busy work that will not benefit their learning. Older students can also reject the notion of "publication" that is inherent with blogging. Each of these objections can be addressed by an effective and innovative instructor by careful planning and skillful management. There are, however, several common mistakes that should be avoided when using blogs in instruction. I have made all of these mistakes and have learned how to address each one proactively."

Want to breed replacements for the models in Section 4

"The problem is that such control makes us all less safe. Whether the eavesdroppers are the good guys or the bad guys, these systems put us all at greater risk. Communications systems that have no inherent eavesdropping capabilities are more secure than systems with those capabilities built in. And it's bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police state."

"If you don’t multi-RAW process, you can take photos with immediacy—but you are losing out on a great part of the richness of digital photography.

Let me back up a second to explain what I’m talking about. If you have a DSLR, it can probably be set to save your photos as RAW files, as JPEGs, or as both. RAW files have different file extensions (for example, NEF for Nikon and CR2 or CRW for Canon)—what they have in common is that these files store all the information from the time of exposure.

Essentially, a RAW file is a potentiality rather than a final rendition. Ansel Adams said of his work that a negative was a score, and the print the performance. In much the same way, a RAW file is the score, and what you do with it in the digital darkroom is the performance."

"Finally, the senior NCO said that the private’s rifle was also something else; that because of the biblical quote on the ACOG gunsight it had been “spiritually transformed into the Fire Arm of Jesus Christ” and that we would be expected to kill every “haji” we could find with it. He said that if we were to run out of ammo, then the rifle would become the “spiritually transformed club of Jesus Christ” and that we should “bust open the head of every haji we find with it.’ “He said that Uncle Sam had seen fit not to give us a “pussy ‘Jewzzi’ (combination of the word ‘Jew’ and Israeli made weapon ‘Uzi’) but the “fire arm of Jesus Christ” and made specific mention of the biblical quotes on our gunsights. He said that the enemy no doubt had quotes from the Koran on their guns but that “our Lord is bigger than theirs because theirs is a fraud and an idol”."

"NPR has a nice graphic for where job growth will occur in the next decade based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics data (the NPR site is much cooler than the graphic above). Now, operations research is a little small to appear as a dot on its own, but if you look at that little dot far to the right, showing the most job growth? That is “Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services”. And what field is all of “management, scientific and technical”? Operations Research, of course! The projection is for 82.8% growth."

"As of January 2010, the duration of the current recession stands at 25 months and counting. By lasting this long, it has vaulted into 5th place on the career list, surpassing the 24-month long recession of January 1910 to January 1912. It’s the Ken Griffey of recessions. Next one in our sights is the 32-month long post-Civil War recession that ran from April 1865 to December 1867."

"Email is still the easiest way to collaborate with a group of people.
We built tgethr in response to the increasingly complex world of online collaboration. Why set up a project management site or an entire social network when all you need is to correspond by email more efficiently?"

"We're planning a Pivotal Tracker upgrade on Jan 23. As part of this release, we will be introducing a new API version (V3), which will make it easier to follow project activity, allow you to add file attachments, move (re-prioritize) stories, associate source commits with stories, and more."

"The goal is not to make your user interface as realistic as possible. The goal is to add those details which help users identify what an element is, and how to interact with it, and to add no more than those details. UI elements are abstractions which convey concepts and ideas; they should retain only those details that are relevant to their purpose. UI elements are almost never representations of real things. Adding too much realism can cause confusion."

"That insight led Mr. Martin to begin advocating what was then a radical idea in business education: that students needed to learn how to think critically and creatively every bit as much as they needed to learn finance or accounting. More specifically, they needed to learn how to approach problems from many perspectives and to combine various approaches to find innovative solutions."

"The row that developed around the Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer tête-à-tête was sadly misguided. Mainly pushed by media outlets who don’t understand the whole point of The Daily Show and the subversive reality of the show’s irony. The Daily Show succeeds because it is the only show on which views from outside the sphere of legitimate debate can be aired and find an audience. It’s comedic basis disarms the critics."

"The Commission’s resolution also included a call for ODOT to attend their next meeting on February 2 (9 am at City Hall) to discuss the benefits of a bike/ped path included in the bid process. ODOT will release the RFQ that same day, so Brown pointed out that the resolution and alternative technical specification in the RFQ will have to be sent to ODOT this week. ODOT will host a meeting for parties interested in designing the Innerbelt Bridge on Feb. 9. Kuri asked if this was a public meeting (and offered after that a group of advocates might consider forming as a design ‘firm’ to bid on the project – for at least the purpose of attending the Feb. 9 meeting. The guidlines for bidding on the Innerbelt Bridge can be found here.)"

"The idea is that the researchers that rely on computational techniques as part of their day-to-day activities need an entire "reproducible research system" that will make it easier for them to document the sources of their data and the analyses performed on it. The system they've designed shares features with rapid application development environments, as it graphically represents modular computational tools, which can be ordered to create an analysis pipeline, and the individual settings for each can be tweaked. Once complete, the user can trigger the analysis to run; the system documents all of the relevant settings and software information."

"Every user who participated in the meme is represented by a gray circle (Matt, whom first started the meme, is shown in yellow). Edges represents the person who most likely influenced the other to first participate."

"What does this mean to you?

If you currently receive Time Inc. or Forbes periodical content electronically from Gale or any provider other than EBSCO, you and your patrons will lose access to that content over the next year. While there will remain alternative, high-quality titles in all information providers' products, there will be an impact on users, especially those who access content through long-term statewide subscriptions."

"How can we control quality on the Internet?"

"Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher's Weekly that "publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy" comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry. Apparently, over 2 billion books were "loaned" last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself."

"This looks a whole lot like the initializer block in Rails 2.3, but the Application object, not a global configuration object, now has the configuration information. Similarly, routes.rb now begins YourApp::Application.routes.draw. The application object lives in the center of Railties in Rails 3, providing a core object that the rest of the frameworks can build on."

"Since the launch of DataSF last summer, the City’s clearinghouse of government datasets, we have seen our tech community create new services and products never dreamed of within the walls of government. And now we are giving people access to technology systems like our 311 call center through open source, so they can decide how and when they interact with government.

We face many challenges today, none more urgent than the economic crisis, but with it comes an opportunity to seek new ways of governing. In San Francisco, like other cities, we are using this opportunity to engage our greatest resource, the public, to build a government that works better for all of us."

"Each of the presenters gave a nice, thoughtful, 5-minute talk about their views on the issue, but what everyone was waiting for was the fireworks when open discussion began. For a while the discussion was tame enough, with everyone exchanging platitudes about how they view the issues. But then things got a LOT more heated…."

"Creation spaces have the potential to generate increasing returns — the more participants that join, the faster new knowledge gets created and the more rapidly performance improves. They bring into play network effects in the generation of new knowledge. In contrast, traditional knowledge management systems are inherently diminishing returns propositions. Since existing knowledge is by definition limited, it requires more and more effort to squeeze the next increment of performance improvement as existing knowledge gets more broadly distributed."

"See SVG Overview for lots of good reasons that you should use SVG."

"In this post I present the development model that I’ve introduced for all of my projects (both at work and private) about a year ago, and which has turned out to be very successful. I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while now, but I’ve never really found the time to do so thoroughly, until now. I won’t talk about any of the projects’ details, merely about the branching strategy and release management."

"In the age of mass media, the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized– connected "up" to Big Media but not across to each other. And now that authority is eroding. I will try to explain why.
It’s easily the most useful diagram I’ve found for understanding the practice of journalism in the United States, and the hidden politics of that practice. You can draw it by hand right now. Take a sheet of paper and make a big circle in the middle. In the center of that circle draw a smaller one to create a doughnut shape. Label the doughnut hole “sphere of consensus.” Call the middle region “sphere of legitimate debate,” and the outer region “sphere of deviance.”"

"In 1903, Crayola had eight colors in its standard package. Today, there are 120, along with special packs like Gem Tones and Silver Swhirls. What happened? Above, from Weather Sealed, shows the growing color selection (and a few color retirements) in the standard package from 1903 to now."

"Lovers of literature, grammar and language, this is the place where you can work together to improve future generations of technology. By indicating relationships between words and phrases you will help to create a resource that is rich in linguistic information.
Simply register a username and password and you can get started."

"Why? No one makes money off of creating private communities in an era of "free." It's in Facebook's economic interest to force people into being public, even if a few people break up with Facebook in the process. Of course, it's in Facebook's interest to maintain some semblance of trust, some appearance of being a trustworthy enterprise. I mean, if they were total bastards, they would've just turned everyone's content public automatically without asking. Instead, they asked in a way that no one would ever figure out what's going on and voila, lots of folks are producing content that is more public than they even realize. Maybe then they'll get used to it and accept it, right? Worked with the newsfeed, right? Of course, some legal folks got in the way and now they can't be that forceful about making people public but, guess what, I can see a lot of people's content out there who I'm pretty certain don't think that I can."

"It’s a dramatic and human experience. The kind of experience that they make movies about.

So let’s make a movie.

It’s tentatively titled Acro Camp. Four pilots from different walks of life and around the country gather in Michigan in May or thereabouts to take over a Part 61 flight school for four days and fly aerobatics for the first time."

"Until and unless Western executives begin to aggressively challenge these assumptions and awaken to the potential of institutional innovation, they will remain vulnerable to attack. They must begin to recognize that the most promising forms of innovation emerging in developing economies are not at the level of individual products or services but rather at a much deeper level – novel approaches to scalable peer learning shaped by institutional innovation."

"Western executives (think CEO) may be having difficulty grasping the changes that Hagel describes because they run counter to cultural trends emerging among this generation of transnational elites ( not just big business). Increasingly, formerly quasi-meritocratic and democratic Western elites in their late thirties to early sixties are quietly embracing oligarchic social stratification and use political or institutional power to “lock in” the comparative advantages they currently enjoy by crafting double standards through opaque, unaccountable authorities issuing complex and contradictory regulations, special exemptions and insulating ( isolating) themselves socially and physically from the rest of society. It’s a careerism on steroids reminiscient of the corrupt nomenklatura of the late Soviet period."

"Florida assured Tessa that Detroit's plight "is not something I'm particularly happy about." He told her his wife is from Detroit. And then he told her that his friends who live in Detroit are making it as "freelancers" who "commute on an irregular basis" to work on projects somewhere else. He had recently given a speech to Detroit airport officials, who told him that the airport would remain viable. "That airport provides connective fiber," he told her. "Finding local employment is going to be a lot harder. So you either have to say, can I commute to work, by plane perhaps, or do I have to look for a place that has a better set of opportunities for me?"

There was no way to know if the answer was satisfactory: Tessa from Detroit was off the air."

"The system in which they are relevant is not called the market economy, not the financial system or capitalism, but democracy. Democracy is about a community shaping its future together. And the media, in all its forms – print, broadcast and digital – is one of its most important creative forces. The proof of the relevance of the press is 177 years old, begins in 1832 and continues right up to the present day. It arises out of the entire history of German democracy."

Elisabeth Hendrickson builds a suite of diorama scenes based on her WordCount Simulation of project management, a great exercise I've had the pleasure to participate in, and which I recommend to anybody working in "knowledge work".

"And yeah, almost none of it was funny — and as much as I wish I could, I'm not sure I can make it funny. Taken as a whole, it was too dispiriting, infuriating and flat-out exhausting to be funny.

So, maybe the only way to go — the best parting shot to take — is to simply say a hearty "fuck you, 2009" and look only forward.

I'll begin doing that in a couple of days. For now, though, I'm crawling back under my desk and hiding. I just don't trust this year; it's still got some fight left in it and, like I said, 48 hours is a long time."

"Lawyers representing Demi Moore sent a threatening letter to Boing Boing over the holidays which demanded that we remove a post I published in November, or face legal consequences. In the referenced Boing Boing post, I published photographer Anthony Citrano's speculation that a recent W Magazine cover image of the actress may have been crudely manipulated by magazine staff to alter her hip, and appear thinner."

"On a distributed Scrum project, individual team members need to meet each other face to face. If the whole team cannot get together, one or two members from each team, at least, should spend time visiting team members in other cities. Think of them as ambassadors. I’ve found that the personal relationships established by ambassadors can be extremely valuable even long after the ambassador returns to native soil."

"Now we can add to all the backslapping and self congratulatory rhetoric about avoiding a full-blown crisis, another financial milestone – Australia’s debt to GDP ratio has now broken through 100%. That’s right, Australian households collectively hold more debt than the entire Australian economy earns in a year. Let the good times roll!"

"[T]he broad impact of the recession is clear in hundreds of thousands of new cases across the judicial system, including people challenging their real estate taxes, home foreclosures, contract disputes and family offenses."

"There’s a kind of perverse joy that comes from watching a truly awful movie musical."

"Looking at these, you would hope to achieve a low lefthand starting point (low cost), a high righthand point (high longevity), and a thick line (lots of doctor visits.)

The USA line looks like it was drawn by someone who got the instructions backwards — a very high lefthand starting point (huge cost), a mediocre righthand point (middlin' longevity), and a hairlike line thickness (scanty doctor visits, less than 4 per year.)"

"There are a number of ways to “solve” mazes but there’s a wide scope for you to be as straightforward or as clever as you like with this challenge (tip: I’d love to see some clever/silly solutions!). Your “solvable?” and “steps” methods could share algorithms or you might come up with alternate ways to be more efficient in each case. Good luck!"

"This “highly sophisticated investor” argument has been used by Goldman, other banks and a remarkably high number of journalists (in my opinion just repeating the crap they have been fed by their sources) as a way of getting the banks off the hook. But it is a fundamentally flawed argument. The CDO bonds that AIG insured were rated AAA. If you have to be a rocket scientist to understand the investment and if anything short of perfect analysis of the bonds means you will be blown up – then by definition the bonds are not AAA."

"And for those who keep looking to biology for an answer, the fundamental yet rarely asked question is why natural selection designed our brains so that we’re in tune with our fellow human beings and feel distress at their distress, and pleasure at their pleasure. If the exploitation of others were all that mattered, evolution should never have got into the empathy business. But it did, and the political and economic elites had better grasp that in a hurry."

"We've been meaning to post this list of links to the language essays of Robert Cumbow for ages. He's a lawyer in our home town of Seattle. Enjoy!"

"When producing a movie, everything stems back to this box: IDEA. In the 1940s, these were the sources of ideas: "Play," "Short Story or Novel," "Newspaper Story or Current Event," "Original Story," "Magazine Article," or "Historical Incident." Way off on the left, however, there's one additional source that's not shown above: "Vice President in Charge of Production." If you want something unoriginal done that isn't in print or in the history books, go talk to the VP, he'll get it done. On another note: this particular flowchart is one of the few places the words "Restaurants," "Mimeograph," "Arsenal," "Publicity," and "Bits & Extras" fit together so well. From the 20th Century Fox flowcharts collection."

"Franken's amendment is driving the Republicans crazy because they basically voted to protect rapists and are now paying a political price for that. And now they are whining that Franken was somehow "uncollegial" because the amendment put them in an embarrassing position (which makes me wonder how many other things issues are swept under the rug because it would make members of the opposition uncomfortable.)"

"The point is that there was indeed a huge CA bubble in the 80s, which burst painfully. Nor was this an obscure bit of knowledge: in fact, people like Calculated Risk and yours truly were quite explicitly using the great California bubble of the 80s as a model for what was going to happen nationally.

This whole episode makes me think considerably worse of my former department head."

"Yet this apparently uneventful transfer of power concealed profound alterations in the relationship between the English crown and its subjects, and set into motion the formation of a new kind of modern state, whose characteristics – vigorous promotion of economic development, broad religious tolerance, and free competition among political interests – still define liberal democracies today.

In his magisterial new book (for once, this overused adjective is warranted), the historian Steve Pincus takes aim at the traditional narrative of the Glorious Revolution, and sets out to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it was more than worthy of the name: a revolution that was contentious, sometimes violent and even bloody, that pitted two radical factions against one another and transformed England."

"Of course, it’s not uncommon to see the term “rank hubris” applied in the general vicinity of Larry Summers. But let’s be clear, here: what Summers did could in no way be considered a hedge, under any common definition of the term. He was indulging in interest-rate speculation, just like Robert Citron. I think it’s fair to say that no previous Harvard president would ever have considered himself qualified to do such a thing, but Summers never let such considerations stop him. And his alma mater is now paying the 10-digit price."

"The use of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) in scientific computing is becoming increasingly common. GPUs are low cost parallel processors that can readily be exploited for many types of general purpose computation. Recently, the computational intelligence community has started to develop for the GPU platform. This web page is primarily dedicated to the use of GPUs as a platform for Genetic Programming. "

"The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack."

"In fact, there has been only one top nation that ever avoided the habit, and that was the United States. Upon finding itself the dominant power at the end of World War II., the United States had the opportunity to impose its own vision of international trade. And it did.
At this crucial moment, something special happened. At the behest of Marshall and his advisers, America became the first power in history to deliberately establish countermercantilist commerce flows. Nations crippled by war or mismanagement were allowed to maintain tariffs, keeping out American goods, while sending shiploads from their factories to the United States. Each administration since Marshall's time, regardless of political party, has abided by this compact—to such a degree that the world's peoples now simply take it for granted!"

"It doesn’t have to be science, though that is where I found these refugees from the aristocracy, most often. It might also be the arts, or starting a new company from scratch, in a completely different field. Any way you look at it, this trend has to be viewed with admiration.

Alas, it may also be one of the principal reasons that American capitalism is going down the toilet. Because… who is left behind, minding the store? Oh. Yeah. I already answered that question. "

"Perhaps by coincidence, three new papers in this week’s issue of the NEP-DGE report deal with forecasting. Kolasa, Rubaszek and Skrzypczyński says that DSGE models perform remarkably well. Bache, Jore, Mitchell and Vahey claim that VAR models with structural breaks do better, but of course structural breaks cannot be predicted with a VAR. Gupta, Kabundi and Miller show that DSGE models of real estate markets are better with turning points, which are the most difficult statistic to forecast."

"Last month 52,000 temps were added, greater than the number of new workers in any other category. Not even health care and government, stalwarts through the long recession, did better.

“Sometimes we’re asked by a company to bring back ex-employees as temps,” said Joanie Ruge, a senior vice president of Adecco. Some are even ex-employees who have been laid off. “That does happen,” she said."

"Rich is right that Americans have grown cynical. But the extremists of right and left have exploited that cynicism, have raised big money by distorting the truth, have denigrated the slow, tortuous compromise that is at the heart of progress in any real democracy. Obama's is the least cynical of the seven presidencies I've covered. It is a presidency that took effective action to prevent a depression, that has refused to engage in arrogant jingoism in its dealing with the rest of the world and–most important–spent its political capital on the most important piece of social legislation, health care reform, of the past 45 years."

"More than that, it represents a rejection of the view that the solution for all problems is to cut some taxes and remove some regulations. In that sense, what’s happening now, for all the disappointment it represents for progressives, is a historic moment.

And let’s also not fail to take note of those who had a chance to join in this historic moment, and punted."

"WebSockets in HTML5 change all of that as they were designed from the ground up to be data agnostic (binary or text) with support for full-duplex communication. WebSockets are TCP for the web-browser. Unlike BOSH or equivalents, they require only a single connection, which translates into much better resource utilization for both the server and the client. Likewise, WebSockets are proxy and firewall aware, can operate over SSL and leverage the HTTP channel to accomplish all of the above – your existing load balancers, proxies and routers will work just fine."

"We can add the inadequate funding of unemployment compensation programs to the ever growing list of things that the crisis has revealed need to be fixed."

"We continue this protocol until the future date (1 May 2010) at which time we upload our final version of the master document. For this final version, we include the URL of a web site where the .pdf documents of all of our past forecasts can be downloaded and independently checked for consistent MD5 and SHA-2 hashes. For convenience, we will include a summary of all of our forecasts in this final document."

"Suppose you are given a simple closed curve in the plane. (“Simple” means the curve does not intersect itself, “closed” means the curve ends at the same point where it begins.) Can you always find four points on the curve which form the vertices of a square?"

"What makes my job really interesting is that these clients are in different industries and are using different technologies. So we have pulled together a set of 28 tools for creating graphs, Gantt charts, diagrammers, calendars/schedulers, gauges, mapping, pivot tables, OLAP cubes, and sparklines, in Flash, Flex, Ajax or Silverlight."

"Up until World War I, the archetypal manufacturing CEO was production oriented—usually an engineer or inventor of some kind. Even as late as the 1930s, business school curriculums focused mostly on production. Khurana notes that many schools during this era had mini-factories on campus to train future managers."

"This meant that I would have to edit the .xslt files. The best way to do this is to install your own copy of MultiMarkdown from Fletcher. This installs MMD in ~/Library/Application Support/MultiMarkdown. There, in the XSLT folder, you will find all the .xslts we will be messing with. Anyway, here were the four things I wanted to do, and a present at the end:
Get MMD to use XeLaTeX
Get MMD to use biblatex / MLA
Get MMD to let me type LaTeX straight into the Scrivener window
Get MMD to double space for me
GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE FILE!"

"The mean spectra were provided as input sequences to the Implicit Context Representation Cartesian Genetic Programming algorithm (IRCGP)[14,15]. IRCGP uses evolutionary computing methodology to learn classifiers that are capable of distinguishing between data classes. Induced classifiers take the form of programmatic expressions applied to particular offsets within the input data sequences. These expressions are composed from a set of simple mathematical functions. Both the choice and connectivity of the functions, and the choice of offsets used within the input sequences, are determined by the algorithm's evolutionary process. The input sequences were divided equally into training and test sets. To prevent over-learning, training of the classifiers was stopped once classification accuracy of the test sequences started to fall."

"Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up – What is open source hardware? These are projects in which the creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and "board" files to recreate the hardware – they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source software like Linux, but this hardware centric."

" This memo defines the format for specifying iCalendar object methods.
An iCalendar object method is a set of usage constraints for the
iCalendar object. For example, these methods might define scheduling
messages that request an event be scheduled, reply to an event
request, send a cancellation notice for an event, modify or replace
the definition of an event, provide a counter proposal for an
original event request, delegate an event request to another
individual, request free or busy time, reply to a free or busy time
request, or provide similar scheduling messages for a to-do or
journal entry calendar component. The iCalendar Transport-indendent
Interoperability Protocol (iTIP) defined in [ITIP] is one such
scheduling protocol."

"IndieVest Pictures evaluates vast numbers of packaged feature film projects and scripts developed by well-known filmmakers and industry professionals. Those projects that we believe are truly unique and compelling are selected for further development by IndieVest Pictures. Of these, only the very best are ultimately admitted into the Premiere Portfolio.

As an IndieVest Member, you’ll gain ‘first look’ access to the Premiere Portfolio, and be able to view all the independent feature films under development by IndieVest Pictures."

"It's not the CG that looks weird; if you shot an ordinary scene with the same 3d technique it would look boring and flat in 2d (indeed, the difficulty of emphasizing depth by adjusting focus on a consumer video camera is a big part of what makes it 'look like video'). So the primary reason Avatar is a Big Deal for Hollywood is that Cameron seems to have succeeded in developing a 3d photographic technique that is much more compelling and realistic than the standard fixed-angle 3d which has been used until now, which actually emphasizes the separation of the audience from the action. And in order to fully appreciate this…yes, you'll need to go to the theater."

"Email has become more like a habitat than an application. It is used for a wide range of tasks such as information management and for coordination and collaboration in organizations. Our research shows that email is the place in which a great deal of work is received and delegated and is a growing portal for access to online publications and information services. Indeed, users have been seen to co-opt email as a personal information management (PIM) tool. This follows from what we have found to be a common tendency of knowledge workers, which is to embed personal information management directly into their favorite workspaces. In this article, we explore further these new and unanticipated uses that are made of email, and suggest potential design ideas to support them better. We present the findings from four months of fieldwork conducted at three companies."

"There are important uses for financial products, even complicated ones, so I don't want to impugn innovation generally, but I also don't want to adopt the position that it was all useful – it clearly wasn't and stronger regulatory oversight is needed. As for the defense of financial models and innovation described above, the statement that innovation generally is the source of economic growth, therefore financial innovation must also be good, isn't much help. Similarly, if saying "models benefit many fields, such as airline safety, and not only financial markets" is the best defense of risk models available, that's telling."

"Although much comes in, there is still plenty for us to seek out and acquire. We are omnivorous in our appetite for material printed in the United States before 1877—if we don’t already have it, we want it, and even if we do have it, we might want another copy if it is slightly different or in better condition than the one we have. We also add secondary materials to the collections to support research here."

"The best way to approach auction type situations like this is often to simply list the maximum price you can afford. Your instance(s) will get run if and when the spot instance price reaches that price and you will regularly get charged less depending on what other users are bidding for their instances.

Though I don’t recommend trying to chase the spot instance price around, it is natural to be curious about what others have been paying and whether or not you might have a chance to get in with your bid."

"Spot Instances are a new way to purchase and consume Amazon EC2 Instances. They allow customers to bid on unused Amazon EC2 capacity and run those instances for as long as their bid exceeds the current Spot Price. The Spot Price changes periodically based on supply and demand, and customers whose bids meet or exceed it gain access to the available Spot Instances. Spot Instances are complementary to On-Demand Instances and Reserved Instances, providing another option for obtaining compute capacity."

"But health care is not zero-sum villainy. This post is not arguing that insurers are better than you think and providers worse. This post is arguing that nature of both groups is beside the point. They work within the market the government constructs. And both the market for insurance and the market for health care need reform. But we're comfortable reforming only the market for insurance, and so we are leaving half — or maybe more than half — the job undone."

QOTW: "There's a reason so many super-villains have graduate degrees."

"I can understand why a retailer would want to use my copyright as bait to lock in readers—but exactly how is this good for me? This is why I'm not selling digital downloads of the professional readings of With a Little Help. With so much friction and goofiness in the marketplace, I'd rather give the MP3s away under a Creative Commons license and solicit donations through PayPal. My listeners don't want DRM. They want to get their books with a minimum of hassle. But, for the record, I'd put my books in Audible and the iTunes Store in a hot second if only they'd sell them on the same terms that I'd be willing to buy them: no DRM and no license agreement except “don't violate copyright law.”"

"Protovis composes custom views of data with simple marks such as bars and dots. Unlike low-level graphics libraries that quickly become tedious for visualization, Protovis defines marks through dynamic properties that encode data, allowing inheritance, scales and layouts to simplify construction.
Protovis is free and open-source, provided under the BSD License. It uses JavaScript and SVG for web-native visualizations; no plugin required (though you will need a modern web browser)! Although programming experience is helpful, Protovis is mostly declarative and designed to be learned by example."

Grammatical Evolution Ruby Exploratory Toolkit

"Faro Measuring System's Laser ScanArm might bring back bad memories of the dentist, but in fact it's another 3D scanning solution–this one mounted to an articulated arm that not only helps you hold it steady, but records the scanner's position in space. Faro's Orlando Perez shoots and captures a mini Lady Liberty:…"

"This is the best and most amazing thing we saw at the conference that wasn't directed by James Cameron: Zebra Imaging boldly proclaims that they "produce the most innovative holographic products and technology in the world," and after an in-person demo, you walk away convinced. Words can't describe what you need to see with your eyes, so check it out (demonstrated by Zebra's Michael Klug):…"

"We’re still in shock asking why Microsoft would even stoop to this level of wilfully plagiarising a young and innovative upstart’s work rather than reach out to us or innovate on their own terms. Of course, it just hits that much closer to home when all your years of hard work and effort to create something unique are stolen so brazenly. All the more ironic considering Microsoft has often been leading the charge on fighting for stronger IP laws and combating software piracy in China."

"Fuse* is unlike any Keynote theme you've ever used before. We began with a structured, layer-driven framework – vibrant color infusing translucent panels from beneath, balanced against high-visibility focal accents – all set into a striking side-dominant arrangement that only hints at the potential energy hidden underneath."

http://www.p22.com/ihof/stickley.html for the actual family

"You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country."

Been here, met these people, and laughed in their faces: "This is just like when teachers ask their students to model or code parts of a system that will be used in the teachers own research eventually. this is really bad for academia in general. Never again propose such things, please." I'm looking at you, winning bidder on the Erdös auction

"Most of Gowers recommendations seem to focus on alignment and cohesion, but point 8, for example, is about separation: one member should not jump onto another's idea with a full proof until there is group support for that. It would be worthwhile to examine the list in detail from the perspective of the three rules of flocking, I bet."

"During the night before the Christmas morning on which Wedge-Wheskit was carried off to the asylum, in 1852, leaving behind a weeping wife and hysterical children, he apparently banged out the designs for a series of six cards, in a frenzy of Victorian sensibility. (He screamed “legs and ligatures, the hideous ligatures!” most piteously, according to an orderly who assisted in restraining the patient.) Tuck and Sons commissioned their man, Haeckel, to add extra legs. Sales were as brisk as the creator’s madness ran deep."

"As I scan the list of popular DSLRs that have been purchased it’s clear that Canon and Nikon lenses have dominated the list once again. However instead of listing them in a mixed list in order of popularity I thought it’d be more useful to list them by manufacturer. Afterall – if you’ve got a Canon DSLR you’re not going to be interested in a Nikon or Pentax lens."

"Pick up a document, turn it over and see what’s on the back. If you find diagrams, that suggest the need for clarity as people were drawing on it to explain things."

"I mean, we all know that major labels are supposed to be venal masters of hiding money from artists, but they’re also supposed to be good at it, right? This figure wasn’t insulting because it was so small, it was insulting because it was so stupid."

"Scientists may not be able to tell a good book by its cover, but they now can tell the condition of an old book by its smell. In a report in ACS' Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal, they describe development of a new test that can measure the degradation of old books and precious historical documents based on their smell. The nondestructive "sniff" test could help libraries and museums preserve a range of prized paper-based objects, some of which are degrading rapidly due to advancing age, the scientists say."

"But we must also remember that the Afghans, menaced even though they are by the evil of the Afghans, are not blameless here. Have they sufficiently appreciated our efforts to kill them? No, they have not. Have they effectively and efficiently rebuilt their nation whenever we've had cause to blow it up? No, they have not. Have they become full and effective participants in the ongoing mission to kill them? No, they have not."

"Inventors and practitioners will need to take these developments into account when preparing and prosecuting applications. For example, it may be necessary to review a broader cross-section of prior art than was previously necessary, or to consider filing evidence of unexpected results earlier rather than later in the course of prosecution. By being proactive, practitioners will expedite prosecution and avoid unnecessary fees and RCE filings. "

things to do

"There you have it. The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses."

"To make that clear, rather than having the consumer pay off the full loan over 4 years with 100% certainty at 6% and no fees, it’s more profitable to charge 30% interest and fees for 2 years and then simply forget about the $1,250 that is still on the balance when the consumer finally goes under. Anything more you could get out of them, in court or with a few more minimum payments, is gravy."