Asterisk

J. B. Lightfoot was a great 19th century scholar of the early church; he is still widely cited.

Fascinating speculations

NT criticism

Aug 13, 2026

Eusebius of Caesarea(c260-339) wrote, among other works, a history of the church until that point, usually called the Ecclesiastical History (EH) — 316-326 AD.

Eusebius, Papias, Polycrates, Alexander

NT criticism

Aug 12, 2026

Church tradition has the apostle John as the author of the Gospel according to John, and the three letters of John (1 John, 2 John, 3 John).

Irenaeus and the author of John’s Gospel

NT criticism

Aug 1, 2026

Or: ignorance of physiology can lead to misinterpretation of the New Testament.

Blood and water

NT criticism

Jul 16, 2026

Kratopistia is a Greek term I have just invented, for the irrational belief in the effectiveness of force to solve problems.

Kratopistia

misc

Jul 14, 2026

The sides were unequal in the gunfight at OK Corral.

An unfair fight at OK Corral

misc

Jul 13, 2026

I have just finished reading Musa Al-Gharbi’s book We Have Never Been Woke.

isms and AI

politics

Jun 3, 2026

Lucy Letby is a nurse who worked in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital. She was accused, tried and convicted of murdering seven infants…

It’s quite obvious that Lucy Letby is innocent

misc

Apr 24, 2026

I found myself watching the first episode of the original (1978) Battlestar Galactica. Early on, the naïve peace-loving humans are sailing into a trap set by the dastardly…

They hate us for our freedom

misc

Apr 23, 2026

These are some notes on the Greek word εὐσέβεια (eusebeia), and its roots εὐ- (eu-) and σέβομαι (sebomai).

Eusebeia

NT criticism

Apr 1, 2026

There is an important translation error in many English versions of the New Testament. Consider, for example, 1 Timothy 4 verses 7 and 8, in the New International Version

Not godly

NT criticism

Apr 1, 2026

I use the Vim text editor. I have used it for many years, my fingers know where to go and what to type, to do what I want to do.

Attachment to AI

misc

Mar 17, 2026

Quoting from Aimé Césaire’s “Discourse on Colonialism” (1950) (as translated by Joan Pinkham):

Barbarism

politics

Mar 7, 2026

From Henry J. Kaiser: Western Colossus by Albert P. Heiner (1991), pp 283-4.

Pile it on

organizations

Jan 17, 2026

I suppose the United Kingdom will not collapse completely in my lifetime, but it’s hard to imagine it can keep going much longer.

NHS snapshot

management

Oct 21, 2025

In a CNN interview in September 2024, Hillary Clinton said that, without moderation and monitoring of social media content, we would “lose total control”.

Lose total control

politics

Mar 4, 2025

From Rob Henderson’s Nov 2024 interview at Wellesley College, transcribed in Henderson’s substack post:

Co-opting suffering

politics

Dec 1, 2024

This is John Kerry, no less, in a World Economic Forum discussion, no less, saying that:

Win the election, then hammer disinformation

Sep 30, 2024

Nietzsche’s publisher, Ernst Schmeitzner, expressed his frustrations at Wagner and his circle at Bayreuth:

Love and warmth

literature

Sep 5, 2024

[The United Nations] owns the science, and we think the world should know it.

We own the science

information

May 29, 2024

John Gage was at Berkeley during the student protests in the sixties.

Saw that everywhere

organizations

May 7, 2024

Trinh Nhoc is 90 years old. He rather sweetly describes himself (in French) as a “un bon cordonnier vietnamien” — a good shoemaker from Vietnam.

The shoes were still there

organizations

Mar 31, 2024

Christopher Lasch wrote a book called The revolt of the elites and the betrayal of democracy (1996).

Meritocracy and valor

organizations

Mar 13, 2024

Following links from a New York Times article on cars and privacy, I confirmed the surprising fact that Nissan’s December 20th 2023 USA privacy policy contains the following…

Nissan knows what you did last summer

information

Jan 1, 2024

From “National Defense” (1981) by James Fallows, pages 110-111.

Candor, commitment, courage and competence

organizations

Jul 27, 2023

This is a question about debate in science.

Where do we disagree?

information

Jul 5, 2023

The AI impacts survey records responses from researchers in artificial intelligence and machine learning. When asked, 50% of the researchers who responded thought there was…

Risk from artificial intelligence

misc

May 1, 2023

As I walked home from my job as a lecturer in Birmingham University, I often noticed this banner on the fences of the all-surface sports pitches:

Achieve!

organizations

May 1, 2023

A friend of mine was interested in the way that the Google Bard AI would reply when asked about masking in Covid-19. This is an interesting topic because someone’s attitude…

Google Bard appears to admit it was directed what to say about masks for Covid-19

information

May 1, 2023

Benny Goodman and his band were struggling to break out with their new music. From the link above:

Die playing our own thing

organizations

Apr 21, 2023

Pierre Sprey was a major contributor to the design of two of the most successful aircraft in US military history — the F-16 and the A-10. He was very critical of the current …

Corrupt all the way down

organizations

Mar 29, 2023

This is Rob Montz in an interview with Glenn Loury. Montz describes his experience of his undergraduate education in Brown University:

Core goal of undergraduate education

teaching

Nov 11, 2022

Milan Kundera, in the essay “The Day Panurge No Longer Makes People Laugh”, published in “Testaments Betrayed” (1993):

Novel morality

misc

Sep 11, 2022

This is an extended version of a fairly well-known quote from the essay “Paths in the Fog”, by Milan Kundera, published in his essay collection “Testaments Betrayed” (1993).

No fog

misc

Sep 11, 2022

What would happen if it became easy to remove anyone you choose by using ad-hominem attacks with weak and subjective evidence?

Covid school closures, and other deviations

politics

Aug 22, 2022

A group of “public health practitioners, educators, students, advocates, and allies” has written an open letter demanding that the American Public Health Association (APHA)…

Unscientific, unsafe, ableist, fatphobic, and unethical

politics

Aug 17, 2022

From Dominic Cummings’ blog: On the referendum #20 — the campaign, physics and data science:

Interested in politics? Study mathematics.

politics

Aug 9, 2022

Warning : this page refers in a general way to a legal case involving sex with children. Though the facts are ugly, I believed it important to document some reactions to the…

Postmodern consent

misc

Aug 9, 2022

Dominic Cummings, writing on the failures of UK government, reminded me of my career as a junior doctor:

Calm capable women

politics

Aug 7, 2022

Tara Henley, quoting William Deresiewicz’s forthcoming book “The End of Solitude”:

To be an individual

organizations

Aug 7, 2022

Karl Popper argues that two-party first-past-the-post democratic systems are superior to other forms of government, in that they make the representatives and their parties…

Popper against proportional representation

politics

Aug 6, 2022

Dominic Cummings on the irrationality of the well-educated:

Better educated, more irrational

politics

Aug 6, 2022

Charles Marlow is the narrator in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. For those of us who remember the film Apocalypse Now, Marlow corresponds to Martin Sheen’s character…

Going at it blind

Aug 6, 2022

Dr Wyatt Tee Walker was a pastor, civil rights leader and anti-apartheid campaigner. Among many other roles, he served as chief of staff to Martin Luther King. Walker and…

Education of the heart

politics

Aug 2, 2022

These are from the standard work “Critical Race Theory: An Introduction”, Third Edition, by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic (2017).

What is Critical Race Theory?

politics

Jul 28, 2022

Here is a quote about American intellectual liberals from “No name in the street” by James Baldwin, pages 29-31.

Wicked and dangerous fraud

politics

Jul 16, 2022

A while ago, a friend pointed me to the reasoned discussion at Google of their decision to switch development of their TensorFlow machine-learning library from Python (with…

Swift downfall

coding

Jul 9, 2022

The Julia language has stalled

teaching

open source

programming

Julia isn’t growing fast enough to compete with Python

Jul 9, 2022

Here is another quote from “Fumbling the future: how Xerox invented, then ignored, the first personal computer”, by Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander (1988).

Who do the work

organizations

This is another notable quote from “Fumbling the future: how Xerox invented, then ignored, the first personal computer”, by Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander (1988).

Because it hurts

organizations

I recently bought and read “Fumbling the future: how Xerox invented, then ignored, the first personal computer”, by Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander (1988).

Fumbling the future

management

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

Not convinced

misc

Here is C. Northcote Parkinson’s terrifying and utterly convincing explanation of uncontrolled expansion in bureaucracy:

Parkinson’s law

organizations

May 10, 2022

Also see Not Professional.

Define Professional

Sep 11, 2021

Kit Smart was a religious poet who died in debtor’s prison, aged 49, in 1771.

Malice cured by stupidity

organizations

Sep 8, 2021

A link from a Washington Post article led me to George Orwell’s essay on Politics and the English Language.

Bad writing and sloppy thought

politics

Aug 7, 2021

There are certain phrases that upset me. I’m sure they upset other people too, but the temptation to use them can be strong.

Language hygiene initiative

organizations

Jul 15, 2021

How is Julia doing? June 2021

teaching

open source

programming

The Julia programming language probably isn’t growing fast enough

Jun 11, 2021

Here are two quotes about giving solutions when you don’t understand the problem:

On too-simple solutions

organizations

Mar 4, 2021

There is a very enjoyable Korean comedy drama called The Fiery Priest.

Righteous, disobedient, stubborn and firm

organizations

Mar 3, 2021

I just came across this album.

Die Frau mit dem Fagott

misc

Feb 6, 2021

From a chapter on “Gnosticism” by Henry Chadwick. Chadwick was an eminent historian of the early church.

The eternal return

NT criticism

Jan 31, 2021

Here are some parts of a charming letter (X:96) by Pliny the Younger.

Legally Christian

NT criticism

Jan 17, 2021

What we did on Jan. 6 in many ways was an evolution in consciousness, because as we marched down the street along these ley lines, shouting ‘USA’ or shouting things like…

Quantum realm

politics

Jan 11, 2021

It is shocking to read Max Weber’s talk on Science as a vocation. You can find an English translation of the resulting paper at this link. Wikisource has the original German…

Spiritual damage

teaching

Nov 19, 2020

Nietzsche, predicting the age of social media:

Desire to punish

misc

Oct 30, 2020

Hide! Hide! Witch! The good folk come to burn thee! Their keen enjoyment hid beneath The gothic mask of duty.

Gothic mask

misc

Oct 30, 2020

Among many interesting bits of advice on the BBCs CEO secrets:

Not professional

organizations

Aug 8, 2020

From an interview about Domain Driven Design, with Vaughn Vernon.

Nothing is easy but failure

coding

Jul 29, 2020

Andrew Grove gives a vivid description of the way that Intel finally summoned the courage to give up their core business of making computer memory to concentrate on central…

Why not do it ourselves?

organizations

Jul 26, 2020

A discussion about the direction of JupyterLab led me to some research on the increasing dominance of Visual Studio Code as a development environment. Here are some results…

Visual Studio Code dines out at expense of other editors

misc

Jul 26, 2020

David Shor is a 28-year-old political data analyst who worked for the 2012 Obama campaign. He tweeted about a paper with data analysis suggesting that race riots contributed…

Data no defense

data science

Jul 23, 2020

“The world,” [Dwight Morrow] once wrote to his son, “is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class.…

World divided

misc

Jul 21, 2020

Donald Knuth on the central idea of Literate Programming:

Change programming

teaching

Jul 18, 2020

While chasing down a reference, I came across this paper:

Mosteller and data science

data science

Jul 14, 2020

This is a teaching suggestion I found in this paper:

Mosteller’s classroom hint

teaching

Jul 14, 2020

I have just finished reading The COVID-19 Catastrophe: What’s Gone Wrong and How to Stop It Happening Again by Richard Horton.

COVID and cronies

politics

Jul 6, 2020

As I was reading the book How to take smart notes, I came across a reference to the educational principles of Wilhelm von Humboldt.

Universities and truth

teaching

Jul 6, 2020

UK universities can be tiring and joyless places to work.

Drearification

teaching

Jun 18, 2020

Guido van Rossum gave something like a TED talk on the history of Python. He explains why it is so important that code is easy to read and understand:

Code is for people

data science

Jun 7, 2020

Surgisphere is the company that provided the data to two major COVID-19 papers, that were later retracted.

Immediate dangers from credulity about artificial intelligence.

data science

Jun 7, 2020

In the article Police suspect, Kate Levine discusses agreements that exist to protect many US police forces against the same interrogation methods they use on the rest of us.

US Police protect themselves from their own interrogation methods

politics

Jun 7, 2020

Like the last post, this quote is from “Not can but will college teaching be improved.” by K. Patricia Cross (1977) New Directions for Higher Education 17 pp 1-15.

Lecturers (used to) value teaching

teaching

Mar 13, 2020

Patricia Cross found that 94 percent of a sample of faculty at the University of Nebraska rated themselves as above-average teachers. 68 percent rated themselves as being in…

Lecturers are nearly all above average

teaching

Mar 13, 2020

This page tracks the changes in popularity of the Matlab and Python programming languages.

Popularity of Python and Matlab

teaching

Feb 26, 2020

How is Julia doing? February 2020

teaching

open source

programming

The Julia programming language probably isn’t growing fast enough

Feb 7, 2020

It looks as though Python is starting to dominate as the data science language of choice.

Data science tools over time

teaching

Feb 5, 2020

This quote starts on page 117 of the Kennedy report on the “rogue surgeon” Ian Paterson:

Against data

Feb 4, 2020

From the always-inspiring Despair.com demotivators:

Despair of Twitter

politics

Jan 4, 2020

As of 2014 Python Is Now the Most Popular Introductory Teaching Language at Top U.S. Universities.

Python for teaching computer science

teaching

Dec 6, 2019

The Raspberry Pi is a small cheap computer designed to get children interested in programming.

Chapter 3 of the Raspberry Pi book

teaching

Nov 29, 2019

Every now and again, when I’m listening to Chomsky, I burst out laughing. He is always dry and careful, his delivery rarely changes, and this makes his more devastating…

Chomsky on class war

Nov 17, 2019

Ukraine embassy official David Holmes on a conversation with Gordon Sondland, one of the “three amigos” coordinating the Trump / Giuliani policy on Ukraine.

Big stuff in Ukraine

Nov 16, 2019

My brother pointed me to a painful, well-written article on the collapse of the UK degree: The great university con: how the British degree lost its value.

The great university con

teaching

Sep 11, 2019

There follows a quote from Henry Ford in 1929:

Thinking is the hardest work

teaching

Sep 5, 2019

Serious reading of mathematics is best done sitting bolt upright in a hard chair at a desk. Pencil and paper are nearly indispensable; for there are always figures to be…

Maths and a hard chair

teaching

Sep 4, 2019

“Exploratory data analysis” (EDA) (Tukey 1977) is the term that John W. Tukey gave to the practice of exploring the data with visualizations and summaries. The careful data…

The fall and rise of exploratory data analysis

data science

Sep 2, 2019

I came across this passage in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews from a reference in Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE by E. P. Sanders.

Josephus on a political error by the high priest

NT criticism

Aug 18, 2019

From Towards computational reproducibility: researcher perspectives on the use and sharing of software:

Computer scientists differ little from the rest of us in “best practice” for software development

Jul 10, 2019

Exploring some links, I came across this course site which led me to The Plain Person’s Guide to Plain Text Social Science, by Kieran Healy. He recommends Emacs, RMarkdown…

The Plain Person’s Guide to Plain Text Social Science

teaching

Jul 8, 2019

Hadley Wickham gave a talk with the title You can’t do data science in a GUI.

You can’t do data science in a GUI

teaching

Jul 8, 2019

The fourth sign of an inexperienced engineer is that they usually have a lot of pride, a lot of ego, a lot of arrogance. And this is something that you see in a lot of…

Arrogance and inexperience

Jul 1, 2019

A colleague pointed me to a job advert to teach at a new university in London: the London Interdisciplinary School.

Blueprint for a modern university

teaching

Jun 20, 2019

I tried to estimate the extent to which different countries contribute to the foundations of scientific Python.

Who is building the foundations?

teaching

open source

culture

May 14, 2019

“We have to create a healthy contribution to the network and a healthy conversation. On Twitter right now you don’t necessarily walk away feeling you learned something.”

Learning and Twitter

Apr 17, 2019

A blog post on Perl 6 led me to the description of Worse is better philosophy.

Worse is better

Apr 15, 2019

How is Julia doing?

teaching

open source

programming

Is the Julia programming language growing fast enough?

Apr 11, 2019

The results just came out from the 2019 Stackoverflow Developer Survey.

Python, and R, 2019

teaching

programming

education

open source

free software

Apr 10, 2019

A colleague, Scott White, pointed me to this article in the Guardian: What do you get if you don’t teach stats properly? Farage and Trump.

What do you get if you don’t teach stats properly?

teaching

programming

education

Apr 5, 2019

The Stackoverflow Developer Survey has a section on programming languages called Most loved, dreaded and wanted.

Python, Matlab, R and Julia

teaching

programming

education

open source

free software

Apr 5, 2019

The gulf between her new account and the breathless reaction to the 2015 image points to the difficulty of recalibrating expectations of acceptable decorum in the #MeToo era…

Recalibrating expectations of acceptable decorum

G+ archive

Apr 1, 2019

Saw: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38561883

It's a great story for stroking the organ of self-righteous indignation. It was so good that it made me go search…

Awful indignation

G+ archive

Feb 10, 2019

Lambda calculus, a vignette

G+ archive

Not lambda calculus:

Feb 9, 2019

I don't want to get too meta here, but, I just got an email about the phased shutdown and deletion of Google+ content.

It starts:

I don’t want to get too meta here, but, I just got an email about the phased shutdown and deletion of Google+ content

G+ archive

Feb 1, 2019

Who knew?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46608818

Who knew

G+ archive

Dec 19, 2018

The Joys of the Craft

organizations

open source

free software

programming

coding

The Joys of the Craft

Oct 12, 2018

The NHS sues a small volunteer organization making a Linux distribution for use by the NHS:

https://www.openhealthhub.org/t/nhos-closedown-the-final-straw/1385

The NHS sues a small volunteer organization making a Linux distribution for use by the NHS

G+ archive

Aug 31, 2018

The language hygiene initiative

You can fine me, if I use any of these ugly phrases:

https://gist.github.com/matthew-brett/639c879af9c7426f0b9d3e1c8952c9c8

The language hygiene initiative

G+ archive

Aug 17, 2018

Speaking to a steelworker at the White House in March, Trump informed the man: “Your father, Herman, he’s looking down, and he’s very proud of you right now.”

“Oh, he’s…

He’s still alive

G+ archive

Jul 21, 2018

What is Data Science?

Data Science is about drawing useful conclusions from large and diverse data sets through exploration, prediction, and inference.

What is Data Science

G+ archive

Jul 16, 2018

I call bullshit on this email description of changes in Paypal's legal policy.

I call bullshit on this email description of changes in Paypal’s legal policy

G+ archive

Jun 26, 2018

I've been reflecting from time to time on the mystery of Hadley Wickham's "Readings in Applied Data Science" at Stanford:
https://github.com/hadley/stats337

The mystery is…

I’ve been reflecting from time to time on the mystery of Hadley Wickham’s “Readings in Applied Data Science” at Stanford

G+ archive

Jun 5, 2018

James Shaw Jr. on why he wrestled an assault rifle out of the hands of a man killing indiscriminately in a Tennessee waffle house.

James Shaw Jr. on why he wrestled an assault rifle out of the hands of a man killing indiscriminately in a Tennessee waffle house

G+ archive

Apr 23, 2018

The dirty little secret of the ongoing “data science” boom is that most of what people talk about as being data science isn’t what businesses actually need. Businesses need…

The dirty little secret of the ongoing “data science” boom is that most of what people talk about as being data science isn’t what businesses actually need.

G+ archive

Apr 7, 2018

The Dunning-Kruger effect is "a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than…

The Dunning-Kruger effect

G+ archive

Apr 5, 2018

"We know now that we get it wrong an awful lot of the time".

A lawyer explains why the Texas legal system has become more open to the idea of wrongful convictions. It…

We know now that we get it wrong an awful lot of the time

G+ archive

Mar 22, 2018

Video from Uber car in autonomous mode, that hit and killed a cyclist on a highway.

It's very hard to see the cyclist on the video, before the car hit her. The supervising…

Video from Uber car in autonomous mode, that hit and killed a cyclist on a highway

G+ archive

Mar 22, 2018

Alex Lovell's girlfriend suspected he was cheating, so she waited until he was asleep and attacked him with a Samurai sword. He lost a few fingers, but survived. Speaking…

Alex Lovell’s girlfriend suspected he was cheating, so she waited until he was asleep and attacked him with a Samurai sword.

G+ archive

Mar 16, 2018

The StackOverflow developer survey has a section called most loved / dreaded / wanted languages, where "wanted" means a language that you want to learn.

https://insights.sta…

The StackOverflow developer survey has a section called most loved / dreaded / wanted languages, where “wanted” means a language that you want to learn

G+ archive

Mar 16, 2018

"Science by volume, science by output, by yardage, that has to stop,” Brown said. “The problem is that it’s an awful lot of people’s paychecks and an awful lot of people’s…

Science by volume … that has to stop.

G+ archive

Feb 26, 2018

"Learning outcomes" encapsulate a trivial view of University education:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/opinion/sunday/colleges-measure-learning-outcomes.html

Learning outcomes encapsulate a trivial view of University education

G+ archive

Feb 25, 2018

Python has become the most popular language for teaching introductory courses in computer science.

https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/176450-python-is-now-the-most-popular…

Python has become the most popular language for teaching introductory courses in computer science

G+ archive

Feb 23, 2018

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/13/data_scientist_job_ads_review/

Data scientist wanted: Must have Python, spontaneity not required

G+ archive

Feb 19, 2018

Working more than 40 hours a week causes an overall drop in productivity and increase in errors, as demonstrated by an enormous number of studies:

http://www.igda.org/?page=…

Working more than 40 hours a week causes an overall drop in productivity and increase in errors

G+ archive

Jan 29, 2018

Noam Chomsky on the purpose of education:

Noam Chomsky on the purpose of education

G+ archive

Jan 16, 2018

Just a humble question: I wonder whether it is logically possible for the President of the United States to be incompetent to do the job.

I believe the answer is No, as a…

Just a humble question

G+ archive

Jan 13, 2018

Some evidence that employers want data and coding skills:

http://www.marketing-interactive.com/most-wanted-skills-in-2018-hard-skills-in-marketing-and-data/

Some evidence that employers want data and coding skills

G+ archive

Jan 13, 2018

http://news.codecademy.com/why-learn-python/

Why I’m Learning Python in 2018

G+ archive

Jan 13, 2018

I had not thought that I would read this opinion on Pinochet, but here it is:

I had not thought that I would read this opinion on Pinochet, but here it is

G+ archive

Dec 30, 2017

I propose this as topical, for the shame we made and watched and typed, in 2017.

Do not love the system

G+ archive

Dec 30, 2017

The growth of Julia seems to be pretty slow. https://madnight.github.io/githut/ has, among other things, values for the percentage of all Github pull requests in each…

The growth of Julia seems to be pretty slow

G+ archive

Dec 9, 2017

Python overtook R in a poll of languages used for data analytics:

https://www.kdnuggets.com/2017/05/poll-analytics-data-science-machine-learning-software-leaders.html

Python overtook R in a poll of languages used for data analytics

G+ archive

Dec 9, 2017

In his famous essay "On Bullshit", Harry G. Frankfurt argues that a bullshitter is someone who does not care about the difference between true or false, but will use…

In his famous essay “On Bullshit”, Harry G. Frankfurt argues that a bullshitter is someone who does not care about the difference between true or false, but will use whatever comes to hand in order to persuade.

G+ archive

Nov 10, 2017

I wrote up the argument for switching to Python from Matlab : http://asterisk.dynevor.org/python-matlab.html

It seems to me that we have reached the stage where this case…

I wrote up the argument for switching to Python from Matlab

G+ archive

Nov 9, 2017

Comparing Python and Matlab for teaching in science

teaching

programming

education

open source

free software

Comparing Python and Matlab for Psychology teaching

Nov 8, 2017

The seeker after truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects…

The seeker after truth

G+ archive

Oct 30, 2017

A study comparing standard teaching with Arts Integrated (AI) teaching of science subjects:

A study comparing standard teaching with Arts Integrated (AI) teaching of science subjects

G+ archive

Oct 25, 2017

The derisive local nickname for Amazon employees is "Amholes" — pugnacious and work-obsessed.

The derisive local nickname for Amazon employees is “Amholes” — pugnacious and work-obsessed

G+ archive

Oct 21, 2017

I am trying to work out how to teach statistics to undergraduates in life-science disciplines such as Biology and Psychology. I decided to use simple Python programming to…

I am trying to work out how to teach statistics to undergraduates in life-science disciplines such as Biology and Psychology.

G+ archive

Oct 4, 2017

I am reading a 2006 paper by Kirschner, Sweller and Clark on "Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery…

I am reading a 2006 paper by Kirschner, Sweller and Clark on “Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work

G+ archive

Oct 2, 2017

Douglas Crockford got uninvited from a conference, apparently because he as a reputation for being rather rude about things he doesn't like.

"We will also be removing…

Douglas Crockford got uninvited from a conference, apparently because he as a reputation for being rather rude about things he doesn’t like

G+ archive

Sep 25, 2017

Analysis of StackOverflow views shows that interest in Python is growing fast, and at an increasing rate. It is one of the fastest growing languages on StackOverflow, and of…

Analysis of StackOverflow views shows that interest in Python is growing fast, and at an increasing rate.

G+ archive

Sep 8, 2017

Data Engineering

I'm just reading the report "Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Programs in Data Science":

http://www.amstat.org/asa/files/pdfs/EDU-DataScienceGuideli…

Data Engineering

G+ archive

Sep 4, 2017

How to deal with an armed kidnapper, 1974 UK style

A man named Ian Ball tried to kidnap Princess Anne in 1974. He stopped Princess Anne's car with his Ford Escort and…

How to deal with an armed kidnapper, 1974 UK style

G+ archive

Sep 3, 2017

I had previously noticed that most people that do teaching believe that they are pretty good, including people I would have rated as bad teachers. Patricia Cross studied…

I had previously noticed that most people that do teaching believe that they are pretty good, including people I would have rated as bad teachers.

G+ archive

Aug 30, 2017

Training data scientists is hard work

From: http://www.clomedia.com/2016/06/09/booz-allen-hamilton-builds-data-scientists-from-scratch

A management consultancy firm found…

Training data scientists is hard work

G+ archive

Aug 30, 2017

Eminent teachers of statistics discussing the future of statistics education: https://nhorton.people.amherst.edu/mererenovation

The main article is by George Cobb (2015)…

Eminent teachers of statistics discussing the future of statistics education

G+ archive

Aug 28, 2017

I just read the now famous Google memo, that got the author fired. Here it is: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3914586-Googles-Ideological-Echo-Chamber.html

I was…

I just read the now famous Google memo, that got the author fired.

G+ archive

Aug 10, 2017

I just watched "An American Radical" about Normal Finkelstein.

This is Noam Chomsky talking in the film: https://youtu.be/5pDqTKdFCTM?t=1337

"Norman is a very careful…

I just watched “An American Radical” about Normal Finkelstein

G+ archive

Jul 29, 2017

What does real data analysis look like? Hilary Mason and Chris Wiggins set out these stages, as the OSEMN model ("which rhymes with possum"):

* Obtain;
* Scrub;
* Explore;
*…

What does real data analysis look like?

G+ archive

Jul 20, 2017

Excellent 10 minute argument about the horrors of standard statistical theory compared to the joys of resampling methods. Thesis "If you can program a computer, you have…

Excellent 10 minute argument about the horrors of standard statistical theory compared to the joys of resampling methods.

G+ archive

Jul 20, 2017

Apparently, a "gender reveal" party is where you can announce the sex of your child.

Wikipedia has a greater vision:

Gender reveal parties

G+ archive

Jul 9, 2017

UK science has declined compared to the US in terms of Nobel prizes, but is catching up in terms of number of papers and citations. The decline in Nobel prizes has been the…

UK science has declined compared to the US in terms of Nobel prizes, but is catching up in terms of number of papers and citations.

G+ archive

Jul 6, 2017

Is the UK research excellence framework doing more harm than good

G+ archive

Is the UK research excellence framework doing more harm than good?

In 2015, the government published the Research Excellence Framework Review by Nicholas Stern. In the…

Jul 6, 2017

Student ratings of satisfaction have very little relationship to their performance in the final exam.

Boring et al 2016 analyze an interesting set of data on student…

Student ratings of satisfaction have very little relationship to their performance in the final exam

G+ archive

Jul 5, 2017

Hadley Wickham on "big data":

He starts with: "Big data is extremely overhyped and not terribly well defined. Many people think they have big data, when they actually…

Hadley Wickham on “big data”

G+ archive

Jul 1, 2017

Smetative

"Bad feature ideas can be argued for months and rationalized because smart people, lacking any sort of compelling real world data, are great at debating and…

Smetative

G+ archive

Jun 3, 2017

Wasting money on mapping the brain

Interview with Marvin Minsky in 2013:

Wasting money on mapping the brain

G+ archive

May 27, 2017

"At a recent workshop on mixed-effects models, a prominent psycholinguist [G. T. M. Altmann] memorably quipped that encouraging psycholinguists to use linear mixed-effects…

Shotguns to toddlers

G+ archive

May 24, 2017

Bundle it up and send it off

Bundle it up and send it off

G+ archive

May 24, 2017

Big data and (not) knowledge

"In any discussion of massive data and inference, it is essential to be aware that it is quite possible to turn data into something resembling…

Big data and (not) knowledge

G+ archive

May 18, 2017

What is data science?

An excellent summary by Zoubin Ghahramani in a 2015 panel discussion at the Royal Statistical Society. Below is a Youtube link starting with his…

A panel discussion on the nature of data science

G+ archive

"... academic statistics may have lost its way."

See my previous post on the statistician Leo Breiman, and his background in consulting for industry : http://asterisk.dynevo…

Academic statistics may have lost its way

G+ archive

Industry as the origin of "data science".

Leo Breiman was a statistician who was interested in algorithmic models. He invented, among other things, the random forest…

Industry as the origin of “data science”

G+ archive

Tukey (1965) on the importance of computing in the education of statisticians:

Tukey (1965) on the importance of computing in the education of statisticians

G+ archive

In 1965, Tukey predicted the rise of computer science at the expense of statistics:

In 1965, Tukey predicted the rise of computer science at the expense of statistics

G+ archive

This figure is a diagram of a system to analyze phone call data from Chambers (1998) "Computing with data: Concepts and challenges": http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summ…

“Computing with data” in 1998

G+ archive

To be a mature data analyst, you must also be a programmer:

To be a mature data analyst, you must also be a programmer

G+ archive

Hatred in America

I was talking to a Republican friend of mine, when we were both a little drunk. He said that liberals hated America, and I was surprised. Watching the…

Hatred in America

G+ archive

A rather depressing snapshot of the visitors to St Peter's in Rome:

A rather depressing snapshot of the visitors to St Peter’s in Rome

G+ archive

Apr 28, 2017

I have a memory, that is probably false, of a 1980s Private Eye cover, with a picture of Cecil Parkinson, a reviled Thatcherite. It was during the aggressive wave of…

I have a memory, that is probably false, of a 1980s Private Eye cover, with a picture of Cecil Parkinson, a reviled Thatcherite.

G+ archive

Apr 23, 2017

I have found it very hard to work out the meaning behind the term "data science", but I think I have solved it now.

The scales fell from my eyes after reading John Tukey's…

I have found it very hard to work out the meaning behind the term “data science”, but I think I have solved it now

G+ archive

Mar 11, 2017

Looking out a link for the Anaconda Python distribution, I found the main web page at https://www.continuum.io .

The motto or mission written there is "Superpowers for…

Looking out a link for the Anaconda Python distribution, I found the main web page at

G+ archive

Feb 27, 2017

I got sick, so took to following Wikipedia trails, which brought me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Birch_(cryptographer). Some of the details here come from the…

I got sick, so took to following Wikipedia trails, which brought me to

G+ archive

Feb 23, 2017

A love-song to Cuba, with beautiful and evocative images of Havana (that I know) and the Cuban countryside (that I don't know):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqdWaWAlZ0s

A love-song to Cuba, with beautiful and evocative images of Havana (that I know) and the Cuban countryside (that I don’t know

G+ archive

Feb 11, 2017

In the 1820s, the Society for Progressive Education in New York introduced a system of redeemable tokens as rewards for correct school work and a system of fines for various…

In the 1820s, the Society for Progressive Education in New York introduced a system of redeemable tokens as rewards for correct school work and a system of fines for various offenses in the school.

G+ archive

Jan 25, 2017

Inauguration day

G+ archive

Inauguration day:

Jan 20, 2017

Here I have made a small change to another quote from Marcus Aurelius:

Here I have made a small change to another quote from Marcus Aurelius

G+ archive

Jan 13, 2017

This is more of the story of cell culture contamination and striking indifference in the scientific community. This post follows on from: http://asterisk.dynevor.org/how-much…

This is more of the story of cell culture contamination and striking indifference in the scientific community.

G+ archive

Jan 13, 2017

Terry Speed remembering George E. P. Box, and the huge advances in statistics that resulted from work during the second World War:

Terry Speed remembering George E. P. Box, and the huge advances in statistics that resulted from work during the second World War

G+ archive

Jan 12, 2017

Courses on imaging often assume a huge amount of technical background that the participants do not have, and the course on SPM software used to be particularly bad in this…

Let them eat Gauss

G+ archive

Jan 7, 2017

Teaching easy, teaching simple

teaching

coding

We should teach for the long term using simple tools

Dec 9, 2016

Kent Beck is interesting on the change in culture from the old days, where programmers wrote code and the quality assessment people tested it, to the current practice, where…

Kent Beck is interesting on the change in culture from the old days, where programmers wrote code and the quality assessment people tested it, to the current practice, where the programmer takes responsibility for the quality of their own code

G+ archive

Dec 3, 2016

How much do scientists care whether their results are correct?

The story of cell culture contamination is an interesting one. For example:

How much do scientists care whether their results are correct

G+ archive

Nov 25, 2016

I hope you will enjoy the irony as I quote this fragment from Plato, Letter 7:

"And this is the reason why every serious man in dealing with really serious subjects…

I hope you will enjoy the irony as I quote this fragment from Plato, Letter 7

G+ archive

Sep 18, 2016

There's an interesting discussion going on at the Research Software Engineers mailing list.

Sadly you have to sign yourself up (for free) to see the archive, but the thread…

There’s an interesting discussion going on at the Research Software Engineers mailing list

G+ archive

Sep 13, 2016

On getting basics right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1rk8pW-tK4

On getting basics right

G+ archive

Aug 29, 2016

"Data Scientist (n.): Person who is better at statistics than any software engineer and better at software engineering than any statistician."

http://courses.csail.mit.edu/1…

Data Scientist (n.)

G+ archive

Aug 24, 2016

Who is reading?

NT criticism

History

Academia

Bad smells from New Testament studies

Aug 22, 2016

I wrote a blog post on whether we should go out of our way to stop students having installation or maintenance problems with the software they use for class.

http://asterisk…

Blog post on sheltering students from install problems

G+ archive

Aug 19, 2016

How should we teach students to use computers?

teaching

coding

Teaching students for the long term

Aug 19, 2016

I get regular fund-raising emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They are very tiring and unpleasant to read. Here's a screenshot of the title and…

I get regular fund-raising emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

G+ archive

Jul 22, 2016

"In the years between 1974 and 2014, the frequency of the words “innovative,” “groundbreaking,” and “novel” in PubMed abstracts increased by 2500% or more (Vinkers, Tijdink…

In the years between 1974 and 2014, the frequency of the words “innovative,” ”groundbreaking,” and “novel” in PubMed abstracts increased by 2500% or more (Vinkers, Tijdink & Otte, 2015)” From

G+ archive

Jun 6, 2016

TODD talks : "Trends, Observations and Dangerous Drivel" :

https://youtu.be/0Rnq1NpHdmw?t=949

TODD talks

G+ archive

May 30, 2016

"At the theory lunch, we do not believe in using slides, waiting until the end to ask questions, or stopping the speaker when he or she runs out of time."

http://theory.eecs…

At the theory lunch, we do not believe in using slides, waiting until the end to ask questions, or stopping the speaker when he or she runs out of time

G+ archive

May 4, 2016

http://www.dailycal.org/2016/04/14/uc-berkeley-student-questioned-refused-service-speaking-arabic-flight/

UC Berkeley student questioned, refused service after speaking Arabic on flight | The Daily Californian

G+ archive

Apr 15, 2016

I found that I didn't understand the Fourier transform very well, and I'm weak on my complex number algebra, so I wrote a tutorial explaining the Fourier transform using cos…

I found that I didn’t understand the Fourier transform very well, and I’m weak on my complex number algebra, so I wrote a tutorial explaining the Fourier transform using cos and sin rather than the traditional e^ix notation

G+ archive

Apr 13, 2016

In "Guess who's coming to dinner" (1967), Joey Drayton, a young white woman, wants to marry John Prentice, a black man. Joey's father Matt worries about the world that…

In “Guess who’s coming to dinner” (1967), Joey Drayton, a young white woman, wants to marry John Prentice, a black man.

G+ archive

Apr 3, 2016

A flash-bulb illumination of a moment in history:

"Although short-lived, one of the first empires known to history was that of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed practically…

A flash-bulb illumination of a moment in history

G+ archive

Apr 3, 2016

Which programming language should we use for scientific computing?

Here are some results from a large survey of opinion on the features of different languages:

http://hamme…

Which programming language should we use for scientific computing

G+ archive

Mar 27, 2016

An occasional cure for injelititis

As you may know from your reading of C. Northcote Parkinson, "injelitance" is the substance that you get when you fuse jealousy and…

An occasional cure for injelititis

G+ archive

Mar 21, 2016

"Every error is a jewel that can be used to uncover weaknesses in systems and individuals, which in turn can be improved."

http://drmikemerrill.typepad.com/dr_mike_merrill/2…

Every error is a jewel that can be used to uncover weaknesses in systems and individuals, which in turn can be improved

G+ archive

Mar 7, 2016

"One evening [Thomas Carlyle and Alfred Tennyson] met in [Carlyle's] house, and smoked continuously for three hours, neither of them saying a word, opening their mouths only…

One evening [Thomas Carlyle and Alfred Tennyson] met in [Carlyle’s] house, and smoked continuously for three hours, neither of them saying a word, opening their mouths only to emit floods of smoke, and when Tennyson rose to depart, he said “This has been a blessed evening, Thomas”, and Thomas replied “Alfred, I have never enjoyed your company more than tonight

G+ archive

Feb 11, 2016

"Sea-Lioning is an Internet slang term referring to intrusive attempts at engaging an unwilling debate opponent by feigning civility and incessantly requesting evidence to…

Sea-Lioning is an Internet slang term referring to intrusive attempts at engaging an unwilling debate opponent by feigning civility and incessantly requesting evidence to back up their claims

G+ archive

Feb 7, 2016

An interesting before and after picture.

Uncontested: large white army reservist Graham Harper is stabbed by smaller Asian man Jarred Ha after Ha had been in a fight with…

An interesting before and after picture

G+ archive

Feb 7, 2016

http://suegardner.org/2011/02/19/nine-reasons-why-women-dont-edit-wikipedia-in-their-own-words/

Nine Reasons Women Don’t Edit Wikipedia (in their own words)

G+ archive

Jan 27, 2016

"Thus structurelessness becomes a way of masking power, and within the women's movement is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they…

Thus structurelessness becomes a way of masking power, and within the women’s movement is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not).

G+ archive

Jan 26, 2016

Stefan van der Walt pointed me to this:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1516564

"A second concern held by some is that a new class of research person will emerge…

Stefan van der Walt pointed me to this

G+ archive

Jan 22, 2016

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/5/524

Researchers are surprisingly likely to admit to questionable research practices.

Researchers are surprisingly likely to admit to questionable research practices

G+ archive

I wrote a blog post about "makes-sense epistemology":

http://asterisk.dynevor.org/makes-sense.html

I wrote a blog post about “makes-sense epistemology

G+ archive

Why do researchers write sloppy code?

teaching

coding

A love letter to the computer

Makes-sense epistemology

teaching

Something that looks like understanding

The American Academy of Sciences wrote this paragraph in 1989:

"Scientific habits of mind can help people in every walk of life to deal sensibly with problems that often…

The American Academy of Sciences wrote this paragraph in 1989

G+ archive

Jan 10, 2016

https://web.archive.org/web/20110604012735/http://www.sfgate.com/news/special/pages/2002/campusfiles/documents/6b1.shtml

Here we see a 1969 memo from the deputy director of…

Here we see a 1969 memo from the deputy director of the FBI Cartha De Loach

G+ archive

Jan 9, 2016

Stanford's Jordan Hall is named after the first president of Stanford, David Starr Jordan, and home to the Department of Psychology : https://psychology.stanford.edu/

This…

Stanford’s Jordan Hall is named after the first president of Stanford, David Starr Jordan, and home to the Department of Psychology

G+ archive

Jan 9, 2016

http://www.nature.com/news/the-unsung-heroes-of-scientific-software-1.19100

But - it is only Python and R, measures code contribution by number of commits, and doesn't…

But - it is only Python and R, measures code contribution by number of commits, and doesn’t (can’t) analyze journals for which text is not freely available

G+ archive

Jan 5, 2016

I read this quote from a book written by a friend of mine:

"I have learned that when you say anything controversial, you are likely to be blamed not so much for what you…

I read this quote from a book written by a friend of mine

G+ archive

Sep 23, 2015

I believe these lines from the pope's homily show a deep understanding of the way Cubans think of themselves:

"God’s holy and faithful people in Cuba is a people with a…

I believe these lines from the pope’s homily show a deep understanding of the way Cubans think of themselves

G+ archive

Sep 20, 2015

Jon Stewart on bullshit :

"Bullshit is everywhere. There is very little that you will encounter in life that has not been in some way infused with bullshit".

Here is his…

Jon Stewart on bullshit

G+ archive

Sep 7, 2015

A UK report on research culture found that:

"Among all the relevant stakeholders, concerns about the culture of research are often on matters that they think are outside…

A UK report on research culture found that

G+ archive

Aug 21, 2015

Excellent and relevant quote from Confucius in a comment on a nature news article:

http://www.nature.com/news/online-debate-erupts-to-ask-is-science-broken-1.17156#comment-1…

Excellent and relevant quote from Confucius in a comment on a nature news article

G+ archive

Aug 21, 2015

Nancy Kanwisher on how to evaluate FMRI studies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=35&v=oCvqVPrh958

Nancy Kanwisher on how to evaluate FMRI studies

G+ archive

Aug 13, 2015

http://www.nature.com/news/bibliometrics-the-leiden-manifesto-for-research-metrics-1.17351

Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics

G+ archive

Aug 6, 2015

Sourceforge went down heavily and is only slowly coming back up. That's bad because there are still some important projects there, but it's good in that it reminds us how…

Sourceforge went down heavily and is only slowly coming back up.

G+ archive

Jul 21, 2015

The BBC bowed to pressure from the government to suppress a film about nuclear war and claimed they did this because the film was a failure. It won an Oscar the following…

The BBC bowed to pressure from the government to suppress a film about nuclear war and claimed they did this because the film was a failure.

G+ archive

Jul 3, 2015

Are preclinical drug studies becoming less replicable at a rapid rate?

"Phase II [clinical drug trial] success rates for new development projects have fallen from 28%…

Are preclinical drug studies becoming less replicable at a rapid rate

G+ archive

Jul 2, 2015

Here is a picture of the strangely informal world of the British Government during the war.

Alan Turing and others at Bletchley park were having trouble getting the…

Here is a picture of the strangely informal world of the British Government during the war

G+ archive

Jul 1, 2015

"The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities."

Edsger W.Dijkstra "How do we tell truths that…

The tools we use have a profound (and devious!)

G+ archive

Jun 22, 2015

"APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums."

E…

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection.

G+ archive

Jun 22, 2015

"The work on satisfactory formulation of technical patents was a true blessing for me. It compelled me to be many-sided in thought, and also offered important stimulation…

The work on satisfactory formulation of technical patents was a true blessing for me.

G+ archive

Jun 10, 2015

"I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today — and even…

I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science.

G+ archive

Jun 10, 2015

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fninf.2015.00012/abstract

Results for standard neuroimaging analysis pipelines differ somewhat when run on two very similar…

Results for standard neuroimaging analysis pipelines differ somewhat when run on two very similar Redhat-based Intel Linux clusters.

G+ archive

Jun 8, 2015

http://deevybee.blogspot.com/2015/05/will-traditional-science-journals.html

Authors should submit their proposed study for peer review. Nearly all the work of review would…

Authors should submit their proposed study for peer review.

G+ archive

Jun 4, 2015

Please sign this:

http://act.credoaction.com/sign/Bernie_Sanders_TPP_openmedia/

Please sign this

G+ archive

Apr 21, 2015

I was reading about Joe Strummer (Clash singer / guitarist), and found this vivid echo from Britain in the 1980s:

http://www.theclashblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/stru…

I was reading about Joe Strummer (Clash singer / guitarist), and found this vivid echo from Britain in the 1980s

G+ archive

Mar 28, 2015

Fred Brooks on "The Joys of the Craft" in the book "The Mythical man-month"

Fred Brooks on “The Joys of the Craft” in the book “The Mythical man-month

G+ archive

Mar 24, 2015

Suggestive evidence that women in technical jobs are more likely than men to get negative personal criticism in performance reviews, regardless of the gender of the reviewer:

…

Suggestive evidence that women in technical jobs are more likely than men to get negative personal criticism in performance reviews, regardless of the gender of the reviewer

G+ archive

Mar 23, 2015

" Software engineering had emerged as a compelling solution to the software crisis in part because it was flexible enough to appeal to a wide variety of computing…

Software engineering had emerged as a compelling solution to the software crisis in part because it was flexible enough to appeal to a wide variety of computing practitioners.

G+ archive

Mar 13, 2015

I just watched this episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_More,_with_Feeling_(Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer)

I had no warning of what was about…

I just watched this episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer

G+ archive

Feb 7, 2015

Thomas Caswell just mentioned this article in a post to the matplotlib mailing list:

http://www.nature.com/news/programming-pick-up-python-1.16833

Thomas Caswell just mentioned this article in a post to the matplotlib mailing list

G+ archive

Feb 4, 2015

My impression is that most scientists feel that they don't make very many errors in reporting their results. My own experience from coding tells me that I make many simple…

My impression is that most scientists feel that they don’t make very many errors in reporting their results.

G+ archive

One reason that people don't want to share data is that other people might find mistakes or bias in the analysis:

"We related the reluctance to share research data for…

One reason that people don’t want to share data is that other people might find mistakes or bias in the analysis

G+ archive

Psychiatry / psychology papers support the tested hypothesis 90% of the time. This is the highest rate of any branch of science, as reviewed here:

http://journals.plos.org…

Psychiatry / psychology papers support the tested hypothesis 90% of the time.

G+ archive

Living in the danger zone.

I have seen this data science Venn diagram a few times now:

http://drewconway.com/zia/2013/3/26/the-data-science-venn-diagram

Here is the…

Living in the danger zone

G+ archive

Dijkstra was not impressed by Ada:

"At one of his visits, Andrei asked my opinion about Ada. I told him that Ada was such a mess that I shuddered at the thought that…

Dijkstra was not impressed by Ada

G+ archive

The last sentence of Edsger Dijkstra's report on the "green" proposal for what would later become the Ada programming language:

"When I came down for dinner and my wife…

The last sentence of Edsger Dijkstra’s report on the “green” proposal for what would later become the Ada programming language

G+ archive

Jan 23, 2015

Max Weber on "Science as a vocation":

"If the young scholar asks for my advice with regard to habilitation [academic tenure], the responsibility of encouraging him can…

Max Weber on “Science as a vocation

G+ archive

Jan 23, 2015

"The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work."

Donald Knuth, quote from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth cited as Vol. II…

The enjoyment of one’s tools is an essential ingredient of successful work

G+ archive

Jan 21, 2015

"Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of…

Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things.

G+ archive

Jan 21, 2015

The BBC has a page on the outbreak of Christmas goodwill between the allied and German trenches in 1914.

"I remember a note written by German soldiers which reached the…

The BBC has a page on the outbreak of Christmas goodwill between the allied and German trenches in 1914

G+ archive

Jan 20, 2015

US department of defense on open- vs closed- source software:

"Imagine if only the manufacturer of a rifle were allowed to clean, fix, modify or upgrade that rifle. The…

US department of defense on open- vs closed- source software

G+ archive

Jan 19, 2015

Chomsky - you can only be "concise" if you saying something everyone believes already.

<quote>
Or suppose I'm talking about international terrorism, and I say that we ought…

Chomsky - you can only be “concise” if you saying something everyone believes already

G+ archive

Jan 8, 2015

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Live-Programming

Paul Ivanov mentioned this talk in his Scipy presentation.

The main idea that struck me was the idea of writing…

Paul Ivanov mentioned this talk in his Scipy presentation

G+ archive

Oct 18, 2014

https://github.com/blog/1826-follow-up-to-the-investigation-results

The founder that Julie Ann Horvath refers to in her interview was Tom Preston-Werner. He resigned after…

The founder that Julie Ann Horvath refers to in her interview was Tom Preston-Werner.

G+ archive

Jul 4, 2014

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes-sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/

Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism And Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit | TechCrunch

G+ archive

Jul 4, 2014

This is a self-conscious rant about the Perl programming language:

ancient languages perl | steveyegge2

It has one heading of "Because insanity is not good business…

This is a self-conscious rant about the Perl programming language

G+ archive

Jun 24, 2014

This blog post argues that BSD licenses make it more likely that projects will lose developers when they get hired by companies:

http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2006/09/01/#gpl…

This blog post argues that BSD licenses make it more likely that projects will lose developers when they get hired by companies

G+ archive

Jun 8, 2014

Frederick Herzberg points out that satisfaction at work is not the opposite of dissatisfaction. The graphic below is from:

Frederick Herzberg "One More Time: How Do You…

Frederick Herzberg points out that satisfaction at work is not the opposite of dissatisfaction.

G+ archive

May 16, 2014

http://www.avaaz.org/en/egypt_call_in/?cBCGUgb

Egypt wants to execute how many people?

G+ archive

Apr 29, 2014

http://gowers.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/elsevier-journals-some-facts/

Elsevier journals – some facts

G+ archive

Apr 24, 2014

A poem by Ivor Cutler, in "Is that your flap, Jack?"

CHEATED

Timid I contorted myself to fit into society. My outraged self fought
back, and, although it has taken a…

A poem by Ivor Cutler, in “Is that your flap, Jack

G+ archive

Mar 21, 2014

I wrote a tutorial on how Mac binaries find their libraries at run-time:

http://matthew-brett.github.io/pydagogue/mac_runtime_link.html

Mac binaries find their libraries at run-time

G+ archive

Feb 27, 2014

For the quote at the top from Steve Gilhooey:

http://scientific-misconduct.blogspot.com/2007/05/on-decorum-in-medicine.html

For the quote at the top from Steve Gilhooey

G+ archive

Feb 17, 2014

I spent a while trying to understand the detail of "Why most published research findings are false" by John PA Ioannidis:

http://nbviewer.ipython.org/urls/raw.github.com/mat…

I spent a while trying to understand the detail of “Why most published research findings are false” by John PA Ioannidis

G+ archive

Nov 8, 2013

A confused crowd shouting at Sinead O'Connor or each other, and then she sings, bravely.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21p6v_sinead-o-connor-war_music

A confused crowd shouting at Sinead O’Connor or each other, and then she sings, bravely

G+ archive

Oct 5, 2013

A science journalist sent 304 random variations of a deliberately and severely flawed paper to open access journals.

157 got accepted, 98 rejected with 49 pending. "...…

A science journalist sent 304 random variations of a deliberately and severely flawed paper to open access journals

G+ archive

Oct 4, 2013

...we urge future researchers to exercise caution in the use of advanced mathematical tools, such as nonlinear dynamics, and in particular to verify that the elementary…

we urge future researchers to exercise caution in the use of advanced mathematical tools, such as nonlinear dynamics, and in particular to verify that the elementary conditions for their valid application have been met

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Oct 4, 2013

Summary of a study of code review techniques:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/11-proven-practices-for-peer-review/

Summary of a study of code review techniques

G+ archive

Sep 27, 2013

Quoting from page 32 of Eichmann in Jerusalem, by Hannah Arendt:

Before Eichmann entered the Party and the S.S., he had proved that he was a joiner, and May 8, 1945, the…

Quoting from page 32 of Eichmann in Jerusalem, by Hannah Arendt

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Aug 31, 2013

Another danger is that commercial pressures of one sort or another will divert the attention of the best thinkers from real innovation to exploitation of the current fad…

Another danger is that commercial pressures of one sort or another will divert the attention of the best thinkers from real innovation to exploitation of the current fad, from prospecting to mining a known lode.

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Aug 28, 2013

Since the Romans have taught us "Simplex Veri Sigillum" —that is: simplicity is the hallmark of truth— we should know better, but complexity continues to have a morbid…

Since the Romans have taught us “Simplex Veri Sigillum” —that is

G+ archive

Aug 28, 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23663350

Computer coding for children

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Aug 12, 2013

Honest, and later on, wise.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/08/fail-week-mark-suster/

Honest, and later on, wise

G+ archive

Aug 11, 2013

"This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting…

This experience has taught me one very important lesson

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Aug 9, 2013

A reflection on the the problems of paying for work on open source projects.

http://www.advogato.org/article/844.html

A reflection on the the problems of paying for work on open source projects

G+ archive

Jun 26, 2013

The XFree / X.Org fork and open source governance

organizations

management

open source

free software

A short history of the XFree86 / X.org fork and some interpretations

Jun 25, 2013

The core melts down

organizations

management

open source

free software

NetBSD developers on death by leadership vacuum

Jun 25, 2013

Thinking of the depressing (lack of, blocking of) discussion about governance on the numpy mailing list, I came across this email explaining why making XFree86 governance…

Thinking of the depressing (lack of, blocking of) discussion about governance on the numpy mailing list, I came across this email explaining why making XFree86 governance more open was a waste of time

G+ archive

Jun 24, 2013

Paying people for work they are doing for the common good can make them angry:

"More recently, we [editors] were told of Elsevier’s new policy that editors would receive…

Paying people for work they are doing for the common good can make them angry

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Jun 2, 2013

The page tells the sad story of Admiral Sir Dudley North. North sent a letter to the Admiralty strongly objecting to his orders to sink French ships with around 1300…

The page tells the sad story of Admiral Sir Dudley North.

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Jun 2, 2013

The editors of PLoS responding as editors to the article "Why most published research findings are false".

"Too often editors and reviewers reward only the cleanest…

The editors of PLoS responding as editors to the article “Why most published research findings are false

G+ archive

May 29, 2013

A hint as to why an older generation of scientists might be more prone to believe that scientific sofware need not be written by scientists.

http://blog.nipy.org/science-joi…

A hint as to why an older generation of scientists might be more prone to believe that scientific sofware need not be written by scientists

G+ archive

May 27, 2013

"I gave desperate warnings against the obscurity, the complexity, and over-ambition of the new design, but my warnings went unheeded. I conclude that there are two ways of…

I gave desperate warnings against the obscurity, the complexity, and over-ambition of the new design, but my warnings went unheeded.

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May 24, 2013

The mysterious belief that we don't make many mistakes in scientific computer programs:

http://blog.nipy.org/ubiquity-of-error.html

The mysterious belief that we don’t make many mistakes in scientific computer programs

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May 23, 2013

Why many scientists think reproducible science is desirable but not necessary.

http://blog.nipy.org/unscientific-programming.html

Why many scientists think reproducible science is desirable but not necessary

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May 23, 2013

A characteristic summary of the British idea of being British:

"There will be a few voices from the margins attempting to exploit the events in South London for various…

A characteristic summary of the British idea of being British

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May 23, 2013

"Don't expect too much in the early days; [...]. The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good." The Director General, Sir John Reith, on the opening…

Don’t expect too much in the early days; […].

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May 9, 2013

Some more vivid phrasing from the introduction to: "Javascript, the good parts" (Douglas Crockford, 2008, O'Reilly)

"In JavaScript, there is a beautiful, elegant, highly…

Some more vivid phrasing from the introduction to

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May 1, 2013

Excellent quote from the end of the introduction to "Javascript, the good parts" (Douglas Crockford, 2008, O'Reilly)

"But we will succeed in avoiding most of the bad parts…

Excellent quote from the end of the introduction to “Javascript, the good parts” (Douglas Crockford, 2008, O’Reilly

G+ archive

Apr 30, 2013

http://asterisk.dynevor.org/disapproval-of-heart.html

Disapproval of heart

G+ archive

Apr 30, 2013

http://asterisk.dynevor.org/a-bad-time.html

A bad time

G+ archive

Apr 30, 2013

Disapproval of heart

organizations

History

China

Sima Qian on the dangers of a wry smile

Apr 22, 2013

A bad time

organizations

History

China

Sima Qian on decay

Apr 21, 2013

Evidence of very low statistical power and high risk of false positive findings in neuroscience:

http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nrn3475.pdf

Evidence of very low statistical power and high risk of false positive findings in neuroscience

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Apr 18, 2013

Matthew Brett hung out with 1 person.Nolan Nichols

Matthew Brett hung out with 1 person.Nolan Nichols

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Apr 11, 2013

Message in banner at top of page confirming I had paid for a book on the SpringerLink website:

"Thank you for your order
Message to the user what happens next. You will…

Message in banner at top of page confirming I had paid for a book on the SpringerLink website

G+ archive

Apr 6, 2013

I wrote a tutorial on how Python installs scripts on Windows and Unix. I think I found a better way to do it.

http://matthew-brett.github.com/pydagogue/installing_scripts.h…

How Python installs scripts on Windows and Unix.

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Feb 1, 2013

Quoting from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20293487

"My simple philosophy is to make all the staff happy," he says. "It has been my golden rule since I founded…

Quoting from

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Jan 12, 2013

Fast forward tracking branch to latest remote commit

I often find myself doing:

git fetch --all

Then maybe at some later time, maybe without network:

…

Fast forward tracking branch to latest remote commit

G+ archive

Dec 31, 2012

TED talks on vulnerability, shame and courage

I was moved by the description of the 'wholehearted' people that Brené Brown describes in her first TED talk : http://www.ted.c…

TED talks on vulnerability, shame and courage

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Dec 10, 2012

my niece is so awesome!!!!! from his niece

my niece is so awesome!!!!!

G+ archive

Oct 4, 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/13/scientific-research-fraud-bad-practice

Some useful references, including this paper in PLoS: http://www.plosone.org/article/inf…

Some useful references, including this paper in PLoS

G+ archive

Sep 14, 2012

I need to use Yahoo messenger web app. It's difficult to describe the feeling of relief when all that noise and foolishness disappears. Adblock, thank you, with a bow so…

I need to use Yahoo messenger web app.

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Aug 21, 2012

Then the question ; what happens when this breaks down? Or does not yet exist?

Then the question ; what happens when this breaks down?

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Jun 29, 2012

"Last year, in a seven-month period there were two explosions inside factories where iPads were being produced that killed four people and injured 77 others. Both of those…

Last year, in a seven-month period there were two explosions inside factories where iPads were being produced that killed four people and injured 77 others.

G+ archive

May 8, 2012

This is a continuous functional MRI activation map. It shows the raw effect size (not the t statistic) of a particular experimental condition. Red means that condition A had…

This is a continuous functional MRI activation map.

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May 5, 2012

In this study, the researchers pretended that they needed recommendation to the ethics committee for an experiment that would cause severe emotional distress. The subjects…

In this study, the researchers pretended that they needed recommendation to the ethics committee for an experiment that would cause severe emotional distress.

G+ archive

Apr 29, 2012

I wonder whether there is a large difference between people in what they see. For example, some people see power struggles everywhere, and some do not. The summary below…

I wonder whether there is a large difference between people in what they see.

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Apr 29, 2012

I realized that I was still confused about floating point error, and I found it hard to understand the explanations I could easily find, so I wrote my own: http://matthew-bre…

I realized that I was still confused about floating point error, and I found it hard to understand the explanations I could easily find, so I wrote my own

G+ archive

Apr 23, 2012

I have twice now run into links to articles by Peter Lawrence. He has strong and interesting things to say on scientific culture, publishing and careers: http://www.labtimes.…

I have twice now run into links to articles by Peter Lawrence.

G+ archive

Apr 23, 2012

Do functional MRI papers replicate? I guessed that about 70% won't but then someone asked me to justify my guess.

Do functional MRI papers replicate?

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Apr 11, 2012

Forensics on a paper published in Science, but likely to be substantially or entirely wrong.

http://www.genomesunzipped.org/2012/03/questioning-the-evidence-for-non-canonica…

Forensics on a paper published in Science, but likely to be substantially or entirely wrong

G+ archive

Apr 4, 2012

Blog post with some basic forensics of an open-source software fork: http://nipyworld.blogspot.com/2012/03/fresh-fork.html

Blog post with some basic forensics of an open-source software fork

G+ archive

Mar 28, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html

Then, on the BBC report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17366552 - this comment from…

Then, on the BBC report

G+ archive

Mar 14, 2012

I visited this link: http://www.bmj.com//content/330/7496/904.1

This is a letter from Iain Chalmers to the British Medical Journal. You may be at a University with…

I visited this link

G+ archive

Mar 4, 2012

I wrote a discussion of culture on the numpy mailing list: http://nipyworld.blogspot.com/2012/02/numpy-culture.html

- and meritocracy in open source culture: http://nipyworl…

I wrote a discussion of culture on the numpy mailing list

G+ archive

Feb 20, 2012

The photo that JB sent to Neuroimage, celebrating finishing our somewhat late paper.

The photo that JB sent to Neuroimage, celebrating finishing our somewhat late paper

G+ archive

Feb 20, 2012

I never felt I had quite grasped floating point, so wrote a tutorial to explain it to myself:

http://matthew-brett.github.com/pydagogue/floating_point.html

I never felt I had quite grasped floating point, so wrote a tutorial to explain it to myself

G+ archive

Oct 7, 2011