Marissa Meyer is back at Google ('s old offices.) Microsoft announces IoT security Azure Sphere. Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer. Netflix vs. Cannes. Google AIY is the new Heathkit. Grasshopper teaches kids to code. Google's new Gmail. Google Maps tells you to turn right at the Taco Bell. Tesla puts its bumper to the grindstone. Android P gets some ideas from iPhone X. Yahoo and AOL start scanning your email. Will the real President Obama please stand up?
- Jeff's Pick: Kanye's Twitter philosophy book
- Stacey's Pick: Ecobee Switch Plus with Alexa
Month: April 2018
🎧 ‘The Daily’: California vs. the E.P.A. | New York Times
An auto emissions battle is brewing between the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of California. Separately, James Comey tore into the president on national TV.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Trump’s Fixer | New York Times
For months, the federal inquiry into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia focused on Washington. Now, it has led back to New York, and to Michael D. Cohen.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Fired Over an Instagram Post | New York Times
The dismissal of a professional cheerleader has drawn attention to the sports industry, which seemed to be operating outside the #MeToo movement. Until now, that is.
Holy crap! Radicals in the US decry Sharia law as making its way into our system–little did they know that it has apparently taken root within the NFL first. I always thought the whole professional cheerleader bit was horrible and generally pathetic from a broader social perspective, but with the types of workplace repression and environment cheerleaders are apparently working within, prostitution almost sounds like a Sunday picnic. Given what they do for the NFL and what they go through to have their jobs in the first place, I’m appalled that they’re making minimum wage–or less really since very little of their wardrobe and direct needs are covered by the organization.
There are a myriad number of additional social reasons to do so, but I’m going to boycott the NFL until they can manage to remedy this kind of toxic environment.
❤️ AP tweet Bill Cosby convicted of drugging and molesting a woman in first big celebrity trial of #MeToo era
The Associated Press (Twitter)BREAKING: Bill Cosby convicted of drugging and molesting a woman in first big celebrity trial of (hash)MeToo era.
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 26, 2018
👓 Large Cache of Texts May Offer Insight Into One of Africa’s Oldest Written Languages | Smithsonian Magazine
Archaeologists in Sudan have uncovered the largest assemblage of Meroitic inscriptions to date
This is a cool discovery, in great part because their documentation was interesting enough to be able to suggest further locations to check for more archaeological finds. This might also be something one could apply some linguistic analysis and information theory to in an attempt to better pull apart the language and grammar.
h/t to @ArtsJournalNews, bookmarked on April 17, 2018 at 08:16AM
Trove Of Inscriptions In Sub-Saharan Africa’s Oldest Written Language Discovered:
“Archaeologists in Sudan have uncovered a large cache of rare stone inscriptions at the Sedeinga necropolis along the Nile River. The collection of funerary texts are ins… https://t.co/8qb3gkkpsa
— ArtsJournal (@ArtsJournalNews) April 17, 2018
🔖 camelcamelcamel for Amazon Price tracking
Amazon price tracker, Amazon price history charts, price watches, and price drop alerts.
🔖 actualham tweet about interactive glossary/encyclopedia for challenging technical/academic jargon that can be layered into textbooks
Robin DeRosa on Twitter (Twitter)Just Skyped with a math student @UofR who has built (beta) an interactive glossary/encyclopedia for challenging technical/academic jargon that can be layered into textbooks. He wants to develop it as an #opensource resource for #OER. More soon, but the future is SO OPEN!
— Robin DeRosa (@actualham) April 27, 2018
🔖 The Theory of Quantum Information by John Watrous
To be published by Cambridge University Press in April 2018.
Upon publication this book will be available for purchase through Cambridge University Press and other standard distribution channels. Please see the publisher's web page to pre-order the book or to obtain further details on its publication date.
A draft, pre-publication copy of the book can be found below. This draft copy is made available for personal use only and must not be sold or redistributed.
This largely self-contained book on the theory of quantum information focuses on precise mathematical formulations and proofs of fundamental facts that form the foundation of the subject. It is intended for graduate students and researchers in mathematics, computer science, and theoretical physics seeking to develop a thorough understanding of key results, proof techniques, and methodologies that are relevant to a wide range of research topics within the theory of quantum information and computation. The book is accessible to readers with an understanding of basic mathematics, including linear algebra, mathematical analysis, and probability theory. An introductory chapter summarizes these necessary mathematical prerequisites, and starting from this foundation, the book includes clear and complete proofs of all results it presents. Each subsequent chapter includes challenging exercises intended to help readers to develop their own skills for discovering proofs concerning the theory of quantum information.
h/t to @michael_nielsen via Nuzzel
John Watrous's excellent quantum book just came out. It's still available free on his webpage: https://t.co/D2rr5FTly6
— michael_nielsen (@michael_nielsen) April 28, 2018
Setting up WordPress for IndieWeb use
I spent some time this morning doing a dry run through setting up a suite of IndieWeb plugins on a fresh WordPress installation. Going off of a scant outline I talked for almost two hours describing IndieWeb functionality as I set it all up. Hopefully it will provide a useful guide to newcomers to the space until I can write up a more solid outline and take a more polished approach. Apologies in advance for the roughness of the audio, lack of quality, and even live mistakes. Hopefully folks won’t mind suffering through until we can come up with some better tutorials.
As prerequisites, I assume you’ve already got your own domain and have installed WordPress on a server or other host. I actually finish setting up the WordPress install as I start the video and then sign in for the first time as we begin.
While many of the core plugins are straightforward, there is a huge amount of leeway in how folks can choose (or not) to syndicate to sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others. Here I make the choice to use the Bridgy Publish plugin and only demonstrate it with Twitter. With one example shown, hopefully other silos can be set up with Brid.gy as well. The IndieWeb wiki details other options for those who want other methods.
At the end I walk through creating and syndicating a post to Twitter. Then I demonstrate commenting on that post using another CMS (WithKnown) from a separate domain.
I do my best to provide verbal descriptions and visual examples, but these can certainly be supplemented with further detail on the IndieWeb wiki. I hope to come back and add some diagrams at a later date, but this will have to suffice for now.
For those who would like an audio only version of this talk, you can listen here (.mp3):
❤️ akaDashan tweet about swinging cradle for your phone
大山 Dashan (Twitter)Seen at a Harbin restaurant: swinging cradle for your phone, I’m told to cheat the “10k steps/day” test & qualify for health insurance discounts, presumably while you relax, eat & drink more, or have another cigarette. pic.twitter.com/LV0leTduAU
— 大山 Dashan (@akaDashan) April 28, 2018
👓 OER 18: Reclaim Video & Cloudron | Lauren Brumfield
Now that I’m on the tail end of this trip, I feel like I can finally wrap my head around the last 10 days and gather my thoughts for a blog post. Last week, the Reclaim team met in Bristol for the OER 18 Conference. The entire experience was definitely a mix of ups and downs, but that’s not a result of OER’s doing; I got sick and had to back out of the second day of the conference & my presentation slot. (Ugh, talk about timing.) It was a huge bummer to prepare so hard for something to then not have a chance to share it, but I’m incredibly grateful to be apart of such a solid team that was able to step in for me. Apparently, they rocked the house!
👓 Keeping track of how you discovered books | Matt Maldre
Goodreads has a poll asking about where you heard about the previous book you read. Here are the results: I voted for “blog post” because I heard about “Shape of Design” from Craig Mod’s post “Hack the Cover.” Although I had to think about it for awhile, because I read a bunch of books at …
👓 How teachers can support students during Ramadan | PBS
If students have the right accommodations and support from teachers and their peers during Ramadan, it can turn a challenging month into the most rewarding.
👓 Real People Are Turning Their Accounts Into Bots On Instagram — And Cashing In | BuzzFeed
Verified accounts turning themselves into bots, millions of fake likes and comments, a dirty world of engagement trading inside Telegram groups. Welcome to the secret underbelly of Instagram.
Eventually there will be so much noise on these platforms that they will cease to have any meaning for the business purposes that people are intending to use them for.
Worse, they’re giving away their login credentials to outsiders to do this.