“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
— Bertrand Russell

Only marginally related: Dunning-Kruger effect

DreamPie: the Python shell you’ve always dreamt about!

• Type your code in the lower pane of the window. To execute, press Ctrl+Enter. One-liners can be executed by simply pressing Enter; If you don’t want them executed, press Space and then Enter.

• Use Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down to navigate between code segments you’ve already executed. You can write a few letters before pressing Ctrl+Up, and DreamPie will only search through code segments starting with those letters.

• Press Tab or Ctrl+Space to show a list of completions to the current expression. It will also complete file names!

• Your results are stored in variables named _0, _1, and so on.

• Type a function name and press the space key and DreamPie will automatically add parentheses for you!

Tools for conversion of IDs in genomics

I definitely enjoyed this high-quality book. It provides enough details to vividly imagine all the people and events, but that is not the main reason I like it. The main reason is duty (or, to be more precise, military duty, albeit highly civil-oriented). Due to high level of details, some may find this book boring – but not those who can remember all the details of what they’ve ever seen.

I would even call this a heroic novel, as heroism (together with duty, persistence and high morals) best describes the actions of Captain Honor Harrington.

I found both a PDF version here (provided by World Public Library Association), and an audio-book here, although I’m not sure those copies are legitimate (i.e. not pirate copies violating international copyright treaties). Use at your own discretion, or just buy a paperback.

This book happens to be the first in Honor Harrington series. I haven’t yet seen other books or reviews thereof, but this one is definitely worth reading on its own.

Will be useful to anyone dealing with more than 1 piece of computer hardware: Disk failures in the real world: What does an MTTF of 1,000,000 hours mean to you?

To get the essence quickly – just scan the tables and figures, and read conclusions.

You might want to read what google engineers tell about HDD failures.

Just found a really nice, “almost interactive” TED talk about digital/real-world interfaces. The ideas aren’t new – they have been around for quite a while, as exemplified both by Sci-Fi movies and several digital implant enthusiasts – but this time it comes with a seemingly-tested implementation, which is – WOW! – both cheap and working. Moreover, here ideas are taken to a level of example applications with functional prototypes – which gives hope to have at least some of those market-ready within 5-10 years
Read the rest of this entry »

Last updated: 2010-05-19

• DeaDBeeF (as in 0xDEADBEEF) is an audio player for GNU/Linux systems with X11 (though now it also runs in plain console without X, in FreeBSD, and in OpenSolaris) with CUE sheets support
• AudioPlayer51 is a free, open-source, cross-platform audio player written to handle FLAC files and CUE sheets (exclusively). If you don’t use FLAC files and CUE sheets, you won’t find AudioPlayer51 very useful.
• Amarok: only for WAV+CUE, doesn’t currently support FLAC+CUE; version 2.3.1 is promised to fully support CUE sheets
• Audacious (through the .cue plugin)
• QMMP (haven’t tested this one)
• XMMS through mp3cue (also untested)

Some extra links:

• split lossless multiple-track files by CUE sheets
• mp3split

Up or Out: Solving the IT turnover crisis is an in-depth analysis of the “best employees quit, mediocre employees stay” paradox, with a focus on the culture of quitting.

• R time series tutorial (2010, a website of the “Time Series Analysis and Its Applications: With R Examples” book)
• Statistics with R (2007)
• R for programmers PDF (2008, 104 pages, linked to from here)
• Brief R tutorial (2004)
• Statistical computing with R: a tutorial (2004)
• An introduction to R (from the official r-project website, should be always up-to-date)
• R tutorial (date unknown, definitely newer than 2005)

Building Skills in Python: A Programmer’s Introduction to Python by Steven F. Lott (© 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008 Steven F. Lott).