Category: OpenSource

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Latest Read: Everybody Lies

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz wrote Everybody Lies Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. Seth holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. He is a former quantitative analyst at Google. Seth also writes for the NYTimes. The stories are similar to Freakonomics but are based upon much larger datasets.

Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are

Everybody Lies is able to utilize Google search data that reveals in the opening chapter that we live in a very racist society.

Seth reviews search results from the 2016 Presidential election. Data mining via Google Search revealed hard truths that most would not say in mixed company.

Search at at work or home, Google data clearly indicated racists supported Trump in the 2016 Presidential election.

The outcomes of data mining Google search, Wikipedia, Facebook, Pornhub and Stormfront. The results are somewhat surprising if you simply follow analog driven surveys popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Clearly the mobile revolution and search provides real insights to the sway of the country or just specific sets of groups.

Everybody Lies tackles some interesting topics with vast amounts of data sets:

  • How much sex do people really have?
  • How many Americans are actually racist?
  • What should you say on a first date if you want a second?
  • Is America experiencing a hidden back-alley abortion crisis?
  • Where is the best place to raise kids?
  • Can you game the stock market?
  • Do parents treat sons differently from daughters?
  • How many men are gay?
  • Do violent movies increase violent crime?
  • How many people actually read the books they buy?

Like Freakonomics, the results will surprise you.

One of the more interesting data sets is within chapter three: Bodies as Data and involved a great story of American Pharoah. What makes a great racehorse? Actually the percentile of the left ventricle. Jeff Seder found the way to measure success of a racehorse. A great story is here. Seder, a Harvard trained lawyer took his hedge fund experience and applied it to his love of champion racehorses.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Flat World Globalization Innovation Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: The Undoing Project

Michael Lewis wrote The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Change Our Minds. This story is about the lives of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Honestly I am not sure why it took me so long to read this book. Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow was very enjoyable (my review here) and one that I think about often.

Lewis acknowledged this story was a result of his bestseller Moneyball.

He learned the insights to data he was seeking about baseball was already available from Kahneman and Tversky.

Daniel accepted the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work. He acknowledged it should have been a joint award with Amos, who died from cancer eight years earlier.

Kahneman and Tversky focused on behavioral economics known as heuristics in judgment and decision-making. Their unique collaboration proved how unreliable human intuition can be. The results of their research can be staggering. For over twenty years they worked to prove our minds play tricks on us. This is simply based upon inaccurate memories and false stereotypes.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Network OpenSource Reading

Latest Read: Ghost in the Wires

Kevin Mitnick is one of the most famous hackers. His story, Ghost in the Wires is wonderful to read. His book is very similar to the story of Frank Abagnale Jr. from the movie Catch Me if You Can. Mitnick’s arrest for hacking into DEC and Pacific Bell made international headlines.

Ghost in the Wires

I found his story a common story of addiction. His innocent position is difficult to support after repeated high level corporate hacking continued to grow. Kevin met with international computer criminals and began sharing documents.

Many will enjoy this story. Only briefly is there a deep dive on telephone switch technology. Mitnick actually began ‘hacking’ the LA bus system at age 12. His computer and telephone crimes starting at just 16 years of age.

There is little doubt that from a young age Mitnick was very intelligent. It was Kevin’s interest in ham radios that served has his source for playing with technology.

Ghost in the Wires moves from chapter to chapter with each hack seemingly growing in sophistication and risk. Mitnick lived as a fugitive on the run from FBI. Yet the story of Kevin’s hack of Tsutomu Shimomura, who worked at Sun Microsystems proved his undoing. Sun was acquired by Oracle.

Mitnick is able to deliver impressive details for each company he hacked. These remain very accomplished tasks. Maybe the best reason to read Ghost in the Wires is to learn how social engineering gave Mitnick easy access to systems.

In 2020 the lessons of Mitnick’s story should serve as a legacy view of penalties of computer hacking. The broad law gave the FBI a large brush. Here again Mitnick takes a position of innocence. He stood firm his actions resulted in no sale of stolen data.

His choice to continue hacking throughout his probation reveals he could not control (to some extent) his addiction.

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Cyberinfrastructure Education Innovation Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: Flash Boys

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis is a remarkable Wall Street story. Lewis lays out a series of interwoven stories that result in flaws around High Frequency Trading (HFT). While not the subject of a SEC investigation, the book’s publication has resulted in fines for companies trading in less-than-honest environments.

Flash Boys begins with the story of Sergey Aleynikov. Sergey is a talented programmer who is key to this story. We meet him as he faces prosecution.

The early chapters involve cutting fiber optic cable runs via Spread Networks from Chicago to New Jersey, This was most appealing to me. There was an understanding that trades could be altered in measurements of just milliseconds. 4 milliseconds is the timeframe trading companies needed in order to gain an advantage against their trading competitors. 4 milliseconds!

Enter the ability for large corporate banking firms to trade within their own dark pools. The practice of front running was taken to a new level with millisecond transfers. It adds up to shifts in profits away from smaller traders to benefit Wall Street banks.

The idea of milliseconds sounded strange at first. It is impressive to learn how trading firms and large banks were pouring money into advanced networks. Yet this resulted in the 2010 Flash Crash. Most could not understand how computers could cause the market to crash. It was just the beginning of questionable trading practices.

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3D Printing Design Education Innovation Maker OpenSource Technology

Cetus Extended 3D printer

The Cetus Extended 3D printer, a Rails-based printing technology has been occupying a great deal of my time as of late. This 3D Printer has a build volume of 180x180x280mm and supports 1.75mm PLA filament.
Cetus Extended
A very important consideration for children is a printer’s power source. Many 3D printer kits from GearBest, eBay or AliExpress contain open, live wiring that may prove extremely dangerous to children. This printer is a safe choice for children and schools. Cetus ships a kid-friendly power supply that will put to rest any parental concerns. Remember kids are curious. IMHO the Cetus minimalist design provides a better introduction to real hands-on 3D Printing for my children.

Cetus printers have an active Facebook group providing great feedback from a growing community of owners. I am also pleased to see an active Reddit community.

Popular 3D applications Simplify3D, Ultimaker Cura, Slic3r, and Craftware all connect to the Cetus Extended and run very well on an iMac. USB and WiFi are built in and Cetus has an iPad client. The Cetus app will also convert G-code to native machine code before sending objects to the printer.

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