, 1 min read
Java is a complicated mess. I just wasted 3 hours figuring out how to use XPath expressions in Java 1.5 without loading the external DTD. Thanks to the absence of any worthy documentation, I had to guess, and guess again, until I came up with this. DocumentBuilderFactory dbfact =…
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Tim Bray suggests that Atom might be the new XML: I find myself pitching Atom to all sorts of different people. What’s different is, instead of me pushing at them, I’m getting asked “Tell me about this Atom stuff.” What’s the same is that pretty well everyone I pitch to says “I could…
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Your Brain and Learning – Five Tips
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Through Downes’, I got to this paper about Your Brain and Learning . The new scientific understanding of our most vital organ can help us improve everything about our learning — from choosing our best times and places to learn, to setting grander goals for how much we can grow. Some key…
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This is fun. This paper on Employers’ preferences for academic letter recommendations shows that the opinion of Computer Information Systems professors is more valued than Humanities professors: A survey was done with 72 corporations to find out the value of professor’s reference letters. The…
, 1 min read
Getting my research back in focus
, 2 min read
This has been long coming. In recent years, I extended my research horizon in many new directions. I think it made me into a better researcher. When you start out in research, you have a very tight focus. You may change your focus as time passes, but you tend to work on only one or, at most, two…
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Word of wisdom from Yuhong
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Yuhong reflects on the different ways people approach research, and she has this conclusion: Anyway, for most of the researchers, research is a career that needs to manage and exploit. Many are hardworking craftsmen, instead of being a master. I would like to suggest that instead of working hard…
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Expert Opinion: The life of an academic
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My recent concerns about being overworked, about being under too much unnecessary pressure found some echo in Expert Opinion: The life of an academic. Here’s what he had to say: We see competitive athletes risking their health with steroids as a relatively new phenomenon, but sacrificing one’s…
, 3 min read
I’m stressed out. I’ve been stressed out for a long time now. I can’t even recall last time I was laid back. Everybody is overworked, everybody complains, but this post is about me deciding to do something about it. Or, at least, trying to decide. The last time I was relaxed dates back to the…
, 2 min read
I didn’t get any silly review this year, but the year is young, I’m sure I’ll get a crappy review like this by the end of the year. Suresh posts an actual paper review: (I assume he got it for one of his papers or it was shared with him) — Comments to the author(s): The paper is technically…
, 2 min read
This is brilliant! ACM Queue is publishing an interview with Tim Bray (of XML fame) done by Jim Gray (of data cube and database transactions fame). Tim now runs Web technologies for Sun Microsystems. Tim Bray basically says that RDF and Semantic Web are a no go but we knew that’s what he…
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ACM Queue – A Conversation with Tim Bray
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The Geomblog: On knowledge for knowledge´s sake
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Wow. According to Marshall, the New York Times reported last year that blogging can be an effective way to get a job: “It’s a trend on the rise right now,” Mr. Gartenberg [industry analyst at JupiterResearch] said, “especially for employers, who get a much better sense of a person this…
, 2 min read
Suresh is complaining against the current for-profit trend in research: The desire for knowledge for its own sake seems almost quaint in these days of interdisciplinary research, justifying one’s bottom line, monetizing one’s research, and so on and so forth. I read him in the following way:…
, 1 min read
In an earlier post, I tried to predict what the next Gutenberg printing press or the next Web would be like. I predicted that ubiquitous massive storage would be the next big technological advance and that it would bring three new challenges: the need to bring data warehousing to the masses, the…
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Mathemagenic discusses research blogging and she found, based on her experience, that research blogging covers the following tasks: publishing / dissemination / announcements (of papers, presentations, events by me and others)- research process reflections emotions event blogging notes-…