What role does popular science play in society? Well, I've woken up this morning thinking about electromagnetic field theory and how this is extended to field theories in general. There is not rosy way of explaining it. Yet, there are numerous popular science books and documentaries, about physics in particular …
I've just completed the O'Reilly course on Reactive Python for Data Science, a wonderful course only hampered by the fact that it is based on an outdated API. I'm still coming to grips with the key concepts because it's all so new. I'll list below (for my future self) …
In order to realise true autonomy, a system will require to abide by the following principles:Existence of state - the system must exist in distinct states with clear state transitionsAwareness of state - the system should know the current state; a system should be capable of self-observationDecoupling …
I now base most of my thinking on data upon the following premise: data consists in only two forms - sequences or measures. Sequences are assemblies of symbols defined a priori by some social convention to convey meaning while measures are numerical estimates (whole or fractiona) of the attributes …
"Features are always and everywhere aspects of integration, not implementation."---Righting Software, Juval LöwyWhen I was a graduate student, I once ventured to acquire a toy helicopter for two reasons: 1) I could finally afford such seemingly useless distractions and 2) I had always been curious about toys that …
I recently received a request from a friend to advise him on how to hire a bioinformatician. Having been through an interview process quite recently, I thought I'd put this here as a record of what I believe is a useful approach to hire at the right skill level.By …
This is a work in progress. It will undergo continual revision.There is a fundamental flaw in how we conceive software, which has drastic effects on how we work with it. As its name suggests, the name 'software' implies that software is intangible. This is not correct. I would like …
Non-lineary is everywhere. Faults in a machine are not uniformly distributed but are interdependent on one another leading to a power relation or even an exponential relation. This is the case in virtually every system. The solution to addressing these problems is to prioritise the order in which problems will …
Written on a phone. Expect typos. I’m presently reading Taiichi Ohno’s inimitable Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production, which is such a pleasant read. It’s crisp and concise with unique insights into the development of the keys ideas of TPS. It also serves as a poignant historic of …
Computer processors (CPUs) are not brains and are in no way similar to them. I hear it time and time again and I can see why it is such a pervasie non-truth. However, repetition is not an avenue to truth.There is a direct analogue between Charles Babbage's analytical engine …
User interfaces are the points of the highest variability in usage. Therefore, the most prudent approach to design is to exhaustively explore the user space and thereby present as natural and simple as possible a set of interfaces which mediate the intended use. This may even involve inventing new types …
I'm only putting this here because I will have to refer to it repeatedly in the future. There is no way I'll memorise this.
One of the most enduring ways to present software tools is through command line interfaces (CLIs). They are the bread-and-butter of most scientific computing and core software tools such as Git are built around them. CLIs have, over the years, converged on a pseudogrammatical style consisting of the following components: …
When Claude Shannon came up with his treatise on information theory, the one thing that was absent from his mind was the notion of semantic information. Information, he surmised, is in the eye of the beholder. The resulting technological revolution has always been grounded on these presuppositions: the utility of …
"By information I mean the specification of the amino acid sequence in the protein... Information means here the precise determination of sequence, either of bases in the nucleic acid or in amino acid residues in the protein."- Francis CrickYesterday, I got hit by a bus. A big, fat, …
Data science has become such a promiment field that it is almost impossible to get an answer that resonates across multiple sources. Typically, there will be a mention of statistics, data, coding, machine learning and, quite often, AI but occasionally sources toss in 'scientific computing' and 'the …
When we talk about data, we have in mind the raw digital representation associated with one or more events. This we must distinguish from knowledge itself and information, which I will not attempt to define here.There are three main types of data:Media.Measurements.Sequences.The type of data …
Two examples: ImageMagick and iTermHere are ImageMagick's `convert` options:convert -h Version: ImageMagick 7.1.1-11 Q16-HDRI x86_64 21206 https://imagemagick.org Copyright: (C) 1999 ImageMagick Studio LLC License: https://imagemagick.org/script/license.php Features: Cipher DPC HDRI Modules OpenMP(5.0) Delegates (built-in): bzlib fontconfig freetype gslib heic jng jp2 jpeg jxl lcms lqr ltdl lzma openexr png …
I've always wanted to run my own servers. The first 'server' I bought was a €20 PC with 2GB RAM, which I attached to my home network and set up as a webserver. I was able to SSH home from work and fool about but did not do anything more …
The fate of a game is decided on the practice court. When the players step onto the court they are not merely availing their raw talent, however awesome that is. Instead, they are there to present the effectiveness of their practice sessions to overcome the competitor's practice sessions. At the …
By far, the biggest way to design for failure is in the social dynamics of the team. Broken teams, where personal egos are an essential production component, are by far the fastest way to crash. It is painful to be in a team where the structure of the team precludes …
Any situation in which there is a preponderance of positive affirmations while maintaining the exclusion of criticism inevitably leads to false consensuses. False consensuses are the renunciation of truth.If a society foster true freedom then false consensuses are unlikely to exist. For example, free markets allow for both profits …
It's not news that Alphabet (Google's parent company) has, time and time again, flogged some of its services. In fact, there is a graveyard of services it has left in its wake. I suppose this is all part of its entrepreneurial pursuits to develop new services. The problem is …
My thoughts on software are taking a new direction. I now think that producing high quality software involves three key stages:DesignEngineeringOperations, which can further be broken down into Production Operations and Support OperationsDesignThe design stage results in a design---an architectural representation of the proposed system …
This is something new that’s just occurred to me. Typically we are used to thinking of systems as static entities whereby all components are present simultaneously in space time hence the notion of stasis. However, it is possible that system components may occur temporally so that the systems effect is …
1996 was a seminal year. It was the year that I began life away from home. This was the year that I began high school. As you can imagine, I was as excited and my mid mind filled with all the possibilities of what life away from home would be. …
I have previously written about the myth of the software life cycle. My problem is the use of the term 'cycle' implying a return to the beginning. While I stand by that article, I am aware of the progression of a software project through various stages. Therefore, it should …
Software breeds a pervasive subtlety that accommodates mediocrity in spades. This subtlety makes its presence felt by the fact that working software can be fashioned along a wide spectrum of quality. But given that quaity is a cost that must be borne by the producer of the software, the average …
It goes without saying that there is a difference between being aware and actually knowing that something is the case. What must be said, though, is that the preponderance of information in its various forms has made us lean more towards awareness than knowledge; that is, we are far more …
It is the responsibility of leaders to build world-class teams. There are two principle features of a world-class team:productivityprocessTo build a such a team we must go through the following stages:define the aimoutline the system to accomplish the aimspecify the process/methodology by which to …
I have a growing dissatisfaction with search engines that I have resorted to relying on published curated content (e.g. books) for reliable knowledge. Increasingly, I find that search engines do not satisfy my queries though I’ll readily admit that I’ve resorted to reading quora pages, which are more attuned to …
Teams are social structures that like any other experience various stages of being. Just as we are born, go through various stages of development into adulthood, mature in our contribution to the world then eventually retire and die, so do teams and the tasks they go through. If teams perpetually …
Capitalism is synonymous with money or credit. That is wrong. Capitalism has to do with an abundance of valuable resource under exclusive control. Money or credit is not a valuable resource—merely the capacity to complete transactions. Therefore, it is possible to have a capitalistic economy without any money …
When we think of ordinary intelligence we are bound to think of the intelligence quotient (IQ). The IQ is a measure of ‘brain power’—your capacity to extract form from perception, usually visual perception. It is a power measure because it factors in time. Therefore, an individual with a high IQ …
I have previously written about productivity. However, I feel that the list of points I outlined were all incrementally influential on productivity--you can only make superficial and volition-based gains in productivity. Instead, what is needed is to think of productivity, not as a volitional attribute (he is productive), but …