Week 8
Another huge development: a new technology, iPython Notebooks, are making waves in research, education and publication.
Notebooks are HTML based documents which can be edited through a browser (as well as other means) and they can combine math formulas, rich media, as well as code. By code, we dont just mean only the "text" of code. We mean actual, running code. Yes, the document can run a piece of code, in-place, and show its output right there on the document itself. The author simply needs to enter code in a cell, and press the key.
Code can be any numerical, scientific computation.
Output could be a string, a table of strings, numbers or entire 2D / 3D graphs (as seen above) - static or animated. Notebook technology is a first among its kind to allow all content to be combined in one place, and moreover, do it based on established open source technologies.
Code is written mainly in language called Python that is fast becoming the de-facto language of scientific computing. This language's ability to act as a glue to other languages such as C, Fortran, and its ease-of-use, expressive syntax made it indispensible in numerical computing environments, and now in education.
Notebooks require a server which can simply run on a student's machine, or on a seperate server (even on a cloud) that is shared, serving many requests. One for general use already exists - nbviewer.ipython.org
Research can easily be conducted through notebooks. A notebook in-progress can be shared with a colleague who can view it, copy it, modify it, rerun it. Through the new tech, data / numerical exploration / prototyping, research and final publication are all in one place, the document is the unit of collaboration.
Education can greatly benefit from this technology. As documents get smarter, transmitting ideas through documents become simpler, hence we take one more step toward teacherless classrooms and 3W education which means good-bye to factory style schools.
News: Sloan Foundation awarded a $1.15M grant to the iPython project. The proposal for the grant is here.
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Actually it was
You are slippin old man..
With blunt instruments typically used by governments, such as this "rebalancing" etc, can one say military matters cannot, ever be part of the act and the message? C'mon. At least you'd ruffle some feathers and hint some stuff.
Well - while we are at it, here are some other things that are happening at the same time. 1) US of A, through fracking, thinks it will be self sufficient in natural gas and oil production. 2) And rebalances towards Asia. Then: does that mean less US involvement in Middle East? Since US of A produces its own oil, can it now affort to get out of ME?
Then, is ME being left to EU to "manage"? Are geographically close regions to EU such as North Africa now officially EU backyard? Case in point France (and German) involvement in Mali. US inaction in Syria.
Does EU want to strenghten its military involvement in this new backyard?
Did EU ask Britain to get involved more in that effort since it has a more experienced in such matters? Did Cameron use this opportunity to renegotiate his relationship with EU (you need me more, you give me more)? Is that why Turkey wants more leeway in its progress on EU membership because it sees it would be an important stepping stone to manage Middle East, in this brave new world?
Just brainstorming here on some strategery. In the end though, this is all small-time stuff. Much larger forces are in play now.
But, I do agree we are in a way, in the Post-Hegemonic Age.
Brezinski: "Matters have been not helped by the American media’s characterization of the Obama administration’s relative rebalancing of focus toward Asia as a “pivot” (a word never used by the president)"
#softwarehumor
Rogue state
"On Monday night, NBC News’s Michael Isikoff published a Justice Department memo justifying the “targeted killings” — without due process — of U.S. citizens who are leaders in al-Qaeda or “associated forces” but are “outside the area of hostile activities,” such as Afghanistan. The document is based on a still-classified memo on targeted killings of U.S. citizens prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
The summary memo is a chilling document, full of twisted definitions, gaping loopholes and hints that the White House still isn’t sharing its full justification for killing citizens without due process"
"Yesterday a bi-partisan group of legislatures [..] introduced legislation that would require federal agencies that fund scientific and medical research to make works they fund available to the public. This bill – known as the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act of 2013, or FASTR, is a better version of legislation introduced in previous Congresses"
I actually remember my first experience with these systems, when I went back to school and coming from the tech sector, I was unpleasantly surprised that I wasnt able to search and accesss all the world's academic knowledge through a simple search engine. JSTOR and related systems were very cumbersome to use. Universities having to pay thousands of dollars every year to read their own research online? This has to be the stupidest system mankind ever devised.
Looking at the recent progress of tech, one can say we are building the world pictured in Star Trek slowly but surely. Mobile communication: check, handheld computing devices: check, walking talking intelligent android: coming along slowly, voice recognition: check. But, in ST people could also search through shit very easily, access all the world's knowledge through simple interfaces. In fact this was the least glamorous part of the show, well, you need to learn stuff, sure, you just sit down on that machine, and start learning.
Duh!
"Universities have to pay thousands of dollars every year to read their own research online [..].
Step back and think about this picture. Universities that created this academic content for free must pay to read it. Step back even further. The public -- which has indirectly funded this research with federal and state taxes that support our higher education system -- has virtually no access to this material, since neighborhood libraries cannot afford to pay those subscription costs. Newspapers and think tanks, which could help extend research into the public sphere, are denied free access to the material. Faculty members are rightly bitter that their years of work reaches an audience of a handful, while every year, 150 million attempts to read JSTOR content are denied every year"
Why didnt we have decentralized tech, such the Internet, before centralized tech, such as nuclear weapons? The answer to this question has to do with the natural progression of tech. There is no way you can jump from steam engines to microprocessors and AI in a decade. You need to develop in steps. Along the way, naturally, you will have half-baked tech which requires manual input at various degrees, hence you have the second wave factory, assembly-line, single channel TV, centrally controlled telegraph. There is no way around this. But one day, you get the transistor, and that changes everything.
What a weird co-existence of concepts: the so-called "French Revolution" brings ideas such as individual rights to the fore, and what do people do with those rights? Join the military so they die more.
One cannot say second wave effects were responsible for the inception of this newfound alligance (at least not for the French -at first-), but throughout the world, it would be industrial tech which would take it to its ultimate and ugly conclusion [1]. WWII, with all its concentrated, centralized war making showed where this weird alliegance could lead - you can replace the despot monarch with a centralized bureucracy and put a "man from people" at its head, but you would get more citizen deaths not less and possibly more repression.
We keep pointing at the twin-headed development of ideas in the past three hundred years. Renaissance and second wave were IMO at odds with eachother; 2W parasite fed off renaissance inspired tech for a good long while but the integrators were given a rope to hang themselves with, and they brilliantly succeeded at this task, and now no centralized organization nowhere can "sell" the old style alligances, organization methods and social mores - anymore. The parallel, parasitic development came to an end with the end of WWII.
"Napoleon had disturbed the the European balance of power fundamentally, and the French ideals of revolution and individual rights threathened the ancient regimes everywhere [..]
Battles of Napoleonic era had a higher ratio of casualties than those of the eighteenth century because the nature of armies had changed. In the eighteenth century, armies were, in effect, royal possession, their officers drawn from the aristocracy with a personal alligence to the monarch. Most wars, therefore, did not involve the great population combatants hardly at all. Troops were professional soldiers, mercenaries, and foreigners. Desertion was high.
Then came the French Revolution and Napoleon. After 1789, for France, war became the "business of people -- a people of thirthy millions, all of whom considered themselves to be citizens". Because now Frenchmen identified with the nation, they allowed themselves to be called to arms in far greater numbers. "Before 1789 an army in the field rarely exceeded 50,000 men. Within a decade or so conscription and militia system was able to raise over 100,000 men, and in 1812 France could assemble 600,000 men for its Russian adventure". With such supply of troops, major battles could be risked more often. "Between 1790 and 1820 Europe saw 713 battles, an average of twenty-three a year compared with eight or nine a year over the previous three centuries"."
"Gov. Jerry Brown wants California’s public institutions to take a hard look at MOOCs. Along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he is encouraging experimentation with MOOC platforms for introductory and remedial courses [..].
San Jose State University on Tuesday announced a deal with Udacity, a major MOOC player, to create a pilot program of three online, entry-level courses that will cost students $150 to take and lead to university-awarded academic credits if passed. San Jose State professors will teach the courses while Udacity contributes the platform and staff support, including mentors who will help track and encourage students’ progress."