Being Wells

The internet-of-things will use a mobile embedded SIM chip. Notebook apps include Simplenote, Org-Mode and alternatives. Aviary added an HTML5 Photo Editor. Formstack eases editing. Mastermind allows hands-free game play. Search considers serendipity. Feds aim for cloud option. Trusted Secure Computing is presented in Europe. API usage is clarified. Kaggle aggregates datamining competitors. Data Compression is based on a card trick.

The health industry expects more networks, bots, ad artifacts. Biotech reviews ramifications of ID implants. A mobile camera drone has bird’s eye view. Bots rescue the battle-ridden. Communities reevaluate economics. Futurist Bill Gates discusses progress. Nanoparticles have environmental impact. Journalism uses more social media.  Philosophy uses field experiments. AI attends to when computers will take over and Numenta hierarchical temporal memory. Human Enhancement: Bioliberation shown on video.

There were about twenty-eight recent links.

Book Reviews:

Data Analysis with Open Source Tools, Philipp K. Janert, 2010
This book discusses how to make models and mine data. The author provides caveats that that appearances often override data, decision makers use data for support rather than reasoning, ethics outweigh data, and many things cannot be measured yet. Realtime means right this minute rather than up to date. Data is cleaned prior to analysis. There are a couple of dozen software tools discussed. It uses math examples rather than code, for data analysis and calculus, and has a statistics refresher. There are interesting styles of plots. Some case studies are detailed. Each chapter has workshop exercises, an intermezzo for related topics, and further reading. There are four parts, eighteen chapters and three appendices. The reader interested in data filtering might need additional sources beyond the time series presented here.

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Sam Harris, 2010
This book proposes that science can address moral absolutes. If right and good relate to human and animal wll-being, then there are answers. The title is an analogy to a texture that has peaks for well-being and depths for suffering. Mental experience and values can be measured. Facts of the world can be assembled into knowledge. There can then be rational argument that results in the highest amount of well-being. This is an interesting discussion also presented in video lectures. There are five chapters which also include belief, religion and the future of happiness. There is heavy emphasis on topics related to brain science and structures and neuroimaging. The author likens the method to medicine or economics yet, while these are considered sciences, they are subject to significant errors, so there is also a need to understand how to improve the practice of the principles. The reader may also wonder if the brain will be the best processor for these types of decisions. The Monty Hall problem is discussed as a demonstration of the wisdom of switching, but this seems to be neutralized if contestants are split half on one side and half on the other so both would be better off switching.

Location/location/location

In order to add depth to a discussion of visualization, verification and validation, take a snapshot of 3D CAD. Digitized renditions of places, appliances and actors result in a natural interface that exploits user capacities for mobility, navigation, and prediction. Identification, position and metadata are features of the framework. Models may vary in definition, accuracy and manageability, but tend to benefit from the web trends of linking, collaboration and interoperability. A brisk pace of improvements adds user designs to more situations over time such as conference, games and science. Time itself is a parameter in this context since it can be represented as an axis, cycle, or movie-like special effects. It can alternatively be transformed into other mappings such as durations, derivatives, or distributions. Slices of depictions can be juxtaposed for comparison, interaction or animation. (Okay, okay, okay, the triplets theme is becoming trying.)

Familiar applications include architecture and vehicle manufacturing. Design costs are lower since versions can be exercised and discarded without waste. Users are watching more video and doing more drawing on tablets or touchscreens. They do photography on webcams or phones which also have built-in GPS and compass. Symbolism is second nature via avatars in virtual worlds and augmented reality. Graphics run locally or on distributed platforms using flash. CAD adds a degree of control to a world where surveillance seems to witness chaotically runaway effects, and invites efforts to find ways to turn more information into knowledge. Models themselves form a datawarehouse which can be used as reference. This is useful when the scales approach infinity, e.g. nano or cognitive. As consumers expect more 3D video, CAD branding becomes generally applicable.

Also see resource links 3D CAD.

Astrocite

Time-keeping rapidly reaches its limits when applied to social networks so there may be a need for more innovative utilities to allow organization of distributed elements in real-time.

Am importing Test Info Space bibliography into Google books to allow user content search, e.g. “unit test“. This is a form of local search which has previously been done on data and documents across synched mobile devices and servers prioritizing relevance with respect to the web. Wider topics can still be reviewed using multimedia search engines such as new Bing. Dedicated video search engines require transcripts or audio phonetic search, and metadata.

Incremental reading this week was Fry 2009 on security and Mirlas 2009 on web commerce. Videos included Sullivan 2009 on CSS, Smith 2008 on Ajax, Reyelts 2007 on unit test, Norton 2007 on usability, and Monroy 2008 on graphics.

Image: Sundial.

Test Distance

Popular media is awash in sci-fi. Summer is an optimistic season. The final year of the decade is seen as a pivotal manifestation of change in approaches to issues. Human history is treated as a runaway which various groups are scrambling to deal with in order to define and position themselves for whatever is ahead. Depending upon perspective, one may simultaneously be experiencing growth on the order of multiples of previous levels of experience, as well as a disconcerting collapse of structures which had previously been relied upon for responsibility. In a time series, this can be portrayed as a changing of the guard, or alternatively considered as transition from nationalist vertical to globalized flat, or other domains may see length of time shift to height of relevance, or orthogonal rotation of moments, and so on. The next decade may attempt to maintain part of this through economics. Optimistically, an inclusive balance sustains the good, realistically society continues to cater to a market of might, and pragmatically, correlations of ideas across previous boundaries connect various people in unexpected ways.

Titles from the reading list were Hibbs 2009 and Pezzè 2008 on software testing, Singer 2009 on military robotics, Wolf 2008 on VLSI design, and Aezel 2001 on quantum physics.

Image generated using GIMP 2.6.6 on original compass logo darkening background, filtering map/fractal trace, and uploaded as twitter background image.