👓 How 4,000 Physicists Gave a Vegas Casino its Worst Week Ever | Physics Buzz

Read How 4,000 Physicists Gave a Vegas Casino its Worst Week Ever (physicsbuzz.physicscentral.com)
What happens when several thousand distinguished physicists, researchers, and students descend on the nation’s gambling capital for a conference? The answer is "a bad week for the casino"—but you'd never guess why. The year was 1986, and the American Physical Society’s annual April meeting was slated to be held in San Diego. But when scheduling conflicts caused the hotel arrangements to fall through just a few months before, the conference's organizers were left scrambling to find an alternative destination that could accommodate the crowd—and ended up settling on Las Vegas's MGM grand.
Totally physics clickbait. The headline should have read: “Vegas won’t cater to physics conferences anymore because they’re too smart to gamble.”

👓 Project Gutenberg blocks German users after court rules in favor of Holtzbrinck subsidiary | TeleRead

Read Project Gutenberg blocks German users after court rules in favor of Holtzbrinck subsidiary by Chris Meadows (TeleRead)
The global Internet and highly territorial real world have had a number of collisions, especially where ebook rights are concerned. The most recent such dispute involves Project Gutenberg, a well-respected public domain ebook provider—in fact, the oldest. It concerns 18 German-language books by three German authors. As a result of a German lawsuit, Project Gutenberg has blocked Germany from viewing the Gutenberg web site. The books in question are out of copyright in the United States, because at the time they passed into the public domain US copyrights were based on the period after publication rather than the author’s life. The three authors involved are Heinrich Mann (died in 1950), Thomas Mann (1955) and Alfred Döblin (1957).
Some interesting thoughts on cross border intellectual property and copyright. Even if a site blocks the content, there are easy enough means of getting around it that local jurisdictions would need to enforce things locally anyway. Why bother with the intermediate step?

👓 Analysis | Trump is implicated in his attorney’s Stormy Daniels payment for the first time | Washington Post

Read Analysis | Trump is implicated in his attorney’s Stormy Daniels payment for the first time by Aaron Blake (Washington Post)
The Wall Street Journal buried the lead.
This is the type of scandal that would have completely unseated any politician just a few years ago and certainly ruined a presidency. Where has our national morality gone?

👓 Science’s Inference Problem: When Data Doesn’t Mean What We Think It Does | New York Times

Read Science’s Inference Problem: When Data Doesn’t Mean What We Think It Does by James Ryerson (nytimes.com)
Three new books on the challenge of drawing confident conclusions from an uncertain world.
Not sure how I missed this when it came out two weeks ago, but glad it popped up in my reader today.

This has some nice overview material for the general public on probability theory and science, but given the state of research, I’d even recommend this and some of the references to working scientists.

I remember bookmarking one of the texts back in November. This is a good reminder to circle back and read it.

👓 The Silicon Valley elite’s latest status symbol: Chickens | The Washington Post

Chickened The Silicon Valley elite’s latest status symbol: Chickens by Peter Holley (Washington Post)
Their pampered birds wear diapers and have personal chefs — but lay the finest eggs tech money can buy
I’m so glad I’ve got the ability to make chicken posts on my website now! I love the irony of being able to add this to my chicken feed.

🎧 This Week in Tech 655 Banana Is Phone | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Tech 655 Banana Is Phone by Leo Laporte, Amy Webb, Brianna Wu, Michael Nuñez from TWiT.tv
Samsung announces 2 new phones as Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona. iCloud keys are stored in China. All 150 new emojis for 2018 revealed. Nokia's newest phone is a nod to The Matrix. GDPR and H.R. 1865 and their implications. Intel knew about flaws in chips but didn't mention it. Dropbox announces its IPO. Kylie Jenner's tweet takes down Snapchat and AT&T is taking advantage of the end of Net Neutraility.

Great panel this week. Nice diversity of ideas and conversation here.

Following KT Pickard

Followed K. Thomas “KT” Pickard by KT Pickard (GenomeDad Blog)
Big data: From medical imaging to genomics In 2006, a Scientific American article written by George Church, “Genomics for All,” rekindled my interest in genomics. I went back to school in 2009 to contemplate the business of genomic medicine, and celebrated my MBA by writing a Wikipedia entry for the word, “Exome.” I was hooked. We started our odyssey by genotyping our family using 23andMe, and later my wife and I had our whole genomes sequenced. Realizing that genomics were starting to yield clinically useful information, we crowdsourced the sequencing of our kid’s genomes to look for genetic clues in their autism. We found interesting results, gave talks and wrote papers. Along the way, I realized that medical imaging and genomics are highly complementary: genomics informs or identifies conditions, and radiology localizes them. Sarah-Jane Dawson pointed this out at a Future of Genomic Medicine conference in 2014.
Someone who’s also into some of my favorite topics: genomics, medical imaging, and bread? And bonus points for the blog name https://genomedad.com/.

How could I not follow him?

📺 Japanese Children’s Song – Oni no Pants – おにのパンツ | YouTube

Watched Japanese Children's Song - Oni no Pants - おにのパンツ by Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com from YouTube

Want to instantly make a connection with any Japanese person you meet? Just hum this classic children's song and you're sure to get a reaction! https://goo.gl/ENv4Lc This is your path to Japanese fluency!

Oni no Pants is the song of an Oni (demon) and his pants. The simple lyrics make it easy and the catchy music makes it fun.

Challenge yourself! Use the Japanese you've studied up to this point and see how much you understand! If you've watched our Kantan Kana series you can try to sing along. Making the jump to real-life Japanese is a scary one, but friendly children's songs are a great place to start!

Did this video inspire you to learn more Japanese? Come to https://goo.gl/ENv4Lc today and get your Free Lifetime Account! See you there!

📺 “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Donald Glover/Omarosa/Ibeyi | CBS

Watched "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" Donald Glover/Omarosa Manigault-Newman/Ibeyi from CBS
With Stephen Colbert, Donald Glover, Omarosa Manigault, Ibeyi. Actor Donald Glover (Atlanta (2016)); reality-TV personality Omarosa Manigault-Newman (Celebrity Big Brother (2018)); Ibeyi perform.

📺 “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Malcolm Goodwin | CW

Watched "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Malcolm Goodwin from CW
With Aisha Tyler, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady. Great comedy brains are at work with a guest appearance by iZOMBIE's MALCOLM GOODWIN. Hosted by comedian Aisha Tyler, cast members Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady and Colin Mochrie, along with guest comedian Gary Anthony Williams, put their comedic skills to the test through a series of spontaneous mprove games that are prompted only by random ideas supplied by the studio audience. The four performers ...

📅 RSVP No to Innovate Pasadena: Women in Blockchain

RSVPed Unable to Attend Innovate Pasadena-Friday Coffee Meetup: Women in Blockchain
Blockchain is poised to become one of the seminal developments in technology, and some talented women are leading the way in adapting blockchain technology across a wide array of industries. Blockchain spending is expected to grow 81.2% annual from 2016 – 2021. $945 million was spent on blockchain solutions in 2017, with the spending expected to skyrocket to $2.1 billion this year. Women in Blockchain and Crypto want to enable women to thrive in the booming blockchain space by growing our network of like-minded women to create opportunities for networking, education, and professional advancement in the blockchain space. Two female leaders in blockchain will give a presentation on the current landscape of blockchain, the applications of blockchain technology across a variety of industries, and also discuss their own projects including putting AI on the Project PAI blockchain and exploring uses for blockchain in healthcare. Sho Guo is the VP of Marketing and Partnerships at ObEN, an artificial intelligence company developing Personal Artificial Intelligence (PAI), a 3D intelligent avatar that looks, talks and behaves uniquely like its human counterpart. ObEN is an early adopter of Project PAI, a fully decentralized blockchain based network designed to give people trackable ownership and management rights to their PAI. Prior to ObEN, Sho was the Director of International Marketing for Caesars Entertainment and spent 5 years working in television and production, including work on the Beijing Olympics for NBC. Sho is an Emmy award winner with an MBA from UCLA Anderson, B.S. in Management Science and B.A. in Film from UC San Diego. Stacy Jain is a Director of Strategy and Program Execution at Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s largest and most innovative integrated health care providers. An experienced executive consultant with a demonstrated history of delivering large, complex healthcare systems and programs in the hospital & health care industry, Stacy has continuously driven business solutions via technological innovations along with her exceptional leadership in building trusting partnerships across multi-disciplines. Previously she has worked with other healthcare organizations such as Dignity Health, Catholic Healthcare West, and L.A. Care Health Plan. Part of her current mission is to execute an agile transformation strategy to enable the business to quickly adapt, make investments at the right places and to improve speed to market. With more than 15+ years in defining, shaping and evolving the delivery of patient care, she has a relentless passion to stretch and advance digital healthcare, especially in mental/behavioral health care. Stacy has recently been looking at applications of blockchain in healthcare with an emphasis on security, medical record sharing and humanistic information economy. Stacy is also working on building women-led communities in AI and blockchain. Her goal is to build communities in the Los Angeles area which would empower more women to participate in the blockchain industry. Twitter Handles: @ObenMe @ProjectPAI Speaker emails: Sho Guo: sho@oben.com Stacy Jain: Stacy.Jain@gmail.com
Sadly, it looks like a deadline is going to prevent me from attending.

📅 RSVP yes to WordPress Pasadena General Meetup, March 2018 Edition! on 3/27

RSVPed Attending WordPress Pasadena General Meetup, March 2018 Edition!
Oh man! 2018! Welcome!!!! Who'd a thunk it? We made it out of 2017!! 2018 is another chance to see if we can ply our knowledge in the ever changing world of web tech. We're back at it again for our monthly WordPress user meetup. Come curious with your wonderful questions.
My Fall/Winter math class is over and I’m free to catch up with the gang again.

Reply to ravisagar on Twitter

Replied to ravisagar on Twitter (Twitter)
@ChrisAldrich Just found your blog after searching more about implementing #POSSE and #Webmention Great content. Thanks for sharing.
If you’re building in Drupal, I’m sure you’ll also find some valuable help from @hongpong, @mlncn@dries, and @swentel.

🎧 This Week in Google 446 Kardashassinated | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Google 446 Kardashassinated by Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Stacey Higginbotham from TWiT.tv
Net Neutrality Gone, Comments Sections are Next What is Vero and why should you delete it? Google Clips takes pictures you wouldn't. Amazon buys Ring. Waymo takes you for a ride. Google and the Right to Be Forgotten. YouTube brings back Logan Paul. Google betas Flutter. Facebook and ther death of Little Things. Net Neutrality is officially over - now the real fight begins.

https://youtu.be/LygyDBNdQBU