, 3 min read
What if you could engineer happiness? What if you could redesign your life so that you are happier? With professors in mind, Brian Martin wrote an essay entitled On being a happy academic with this very purpose. He outlines a few elements that you should take into account if you want to be…
, 2 min read
While mathematically convenient, probabilities can be harmful when solving problems because hardly anyone can think correctly about them. Here is my evidence: The famous Monty Hall problem has confused people for years because it asks us a probabilistic question. To recap the problem is as…
, 3 min read
Most Computer Science textbooks assume that algorithms are written directly into machine language for an idealized machine under a Von Neumann architecture. Alas, at best, these idealized models provide “ballpark” guidance to writing high performance software. They get you to avoid…
, 2 min read
Sanger recently posted a provocative piece where he argues that geeks suffer from anti-intellectualism. His stance is that democratic sites such as Wikipedia (which he co-founded) are founded on anti-intellectualism. He sums up this techno anti-intellectualism using five beliefs: Experts do not…
, 4 min read
People expect that, as you grow older, you give up practical jobs such as programming for more noble tasks such as managing a team and acquiring funding. This especially true in academia where “real professors” delegate the details, keeping only the “big picture stuff”. In other words,…
, 4 min read
I was part of the first generation of kids to receive computers as gifts. I was also part of the first generation of professionals to adopt computer-assisted tele-work: I can work from my bedroom just as efficiently as from my campus office. I routinely organize and attend meetings while I am at…
, 3 min read
Why do I prefer the publish-then-filter system, which dominates social media such as blogs, to the traditional filter-then-publish system used by scientific journals? Because the conventional peer review system (filter-then-publish) has disastrous consequences: In the conventional peer review…
, 1 min read
I feel strongly that the conventional peer review process needs to evolve to a publish-then-filter model. That is, I do not believe that a few select individuals should decide what is worth publishing. But to openly face others, and their criticism, requires a little bit of intelligence and…
, 3 min read
At a glance, office software like Word, PowerPoint or Excel, are great time savers. Nobody would want to go back to the era before Word Processors? Unfortunately, I believe that this same software bears part of the blame for our long working hours: Word processors entice people to create too many…
, 1 min read
Scaling MongoDB
, 1 min read
I have been spending much time thinking about a future where document-oriented databases are the default. Though they have their problems, I think that they are far better suited for what most people want to do than relational databases. MongoDB is one of the best document-oriented database system…
, 3 min read
People design all the time: new cars, new software, new houses. All design is guided by constraints (cost, time, materials, space) and by objectives (elegance, quality). Constraints are limitations: you only have so much money, so many days… whereas objectives are measures that you seek to either…
, 3 min read
In my previous post, I argued that people who pursue double-blind peer review have an idealized “LEGO block” view of scientific research. Research papers are “pure” units of knowledge and who wrote them is irrelevant. Let us take this LEGO block view to its ultimate conclusion. If science…
, 3 min read
Many scientific journals use double-blind peer review. That is, the authors submit their work in a way that cannot be traced back to them. Meanwhile, the authors do not know who the reviewers are. In this way, the reviewers are free to speak their mind. It feels fair because the reviewers cannot be…
, 3 min read
Originally, the term computer applied to human beings. These days, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish reliably machines from human beings: we require ever more challenging CAPTCHAs. Machines are getting so good that I now prefer dealing with computers than bureaucrats. I much prefer to pay…
, 1 min read
The Open Java API for OLAP is growing up!
, 2 min read
Software is typically built using two types of programming languages. On the one hand, we have query languages (e.g., XQuery, SQL or MDX). On the other, we have the regular programming languages (C/C++, Java, Python, Ruby). A lot of effort is spent on the mismatch between these two programming…
, 5 min read
One of my favorite stories is how Greg Linden invented the famous Amazon recommender system, after after being forbidden to do so. The story is fantastic because what Greg did is contrary to everything textbooks say about good design. You just do not bypass the chain of command! How can you meet…
, 1 min read
I conjecture that, everything else being equal, the level of your education is inversely correlated with innovation. At first, a new idea appears interesting, but it carries no prestige. And there are few financial incentives. Think homebrew computers before Apple. Or blogging in 2003. The people…
, 2 min read
Back in 2004, Tim O’Reilly observed that the Web had changed, and coined the term Web 2.0. This new Web is made of several layers which enable the Social Web. Wikipedia and Facebook are defining examples of the Social Web. This sudden discovery of the Social Web feels wrong to me. In the early…