Four short links: 20 October 2011

Earth's Birthday, Messy Data, Evil iOS Apps, and Cooking Chemistry

  1. Earth Turns 6015 — my plan to celebrate on Saturday the amazing thing that is our universe. Scientists know humility, curiosity, and awe. All the scientists I know speak of their awe at the natural world. I’d like to see data scientists take a moment to soak in the complexity of a problem, appreciating it in all its tangled majesty, separate from attempts to unravel it.
  2. Data Jujitsu — Luke Wroblewski took notes at DJ Patil’s Web 2.0 Expo talk, and this caught my eye: Unstructured data is harder to work with. Open text fields in forms are can cause issues. There are between 4 and 8 thousand variations of IBM and “Software Engineer” in LinkedIn’s database.
  3. Secret iOS Business — the dirty innards of iOS apps: phoning home, crap security, and bloated lazy design. My horror grew with every example.
  4. Culinary Reactions: Everyday Chemistry of Cooking — Simon Quellen Field’s new book on the chemistry of cooking. Simon’s the man behind scitoys and his passion for understanding is a force of nature.
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