Archive for the ‘open source’ Category

Reinventing the Shipping Container Part 23

An upcycled, open source (learn how to build this online), creative co-op made of shipping containers has recently been completed by epic software. Check out their blog for further reading.

Images ©2012 - epic software group, inc.

The Art of R by Norman Matloff

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Free download from the Three-Toed Sloth, buy the current book, here.

R is the world’s most popular programming language for statistical computing. Drug developers use it to evaluate clinical trials and determine which medications are safe and effective; archaeologists use it to sift through mounds of artifacts and track the spread of ancient civilizations; and actuaries use it to assess financial risks and keep economies running smoothly. In The Art of R Programming, veteran author Norman Matloff takes readers on a guided tour of this powerful language, from basic object types and data structures to graphing, parallel processing, and much more. Along the way, readers learn about topics including functional and object-oriented programming, low-level code optimization, and interfacing R with C++ and Python. Whether readers are doing academic research, designing aircraft, or forecasting the weather, R is the tool of choice for statistical application development, and The Art of R Programming is the definitive guide to learning R.

Makeshift

Continue reading from the blog of the first issue of Makeshift magazine:

These cases pose an important question: "In the rush to help after a crisis, public and private donors from around the world sometimes give without quite realizing what the needs on the ground are. Do Haitians really need your used yoga mat?

Lucas Werthein’s SuperPong Remake

Up to eight participants can play by walking up to the table and taking control of custom knobs that move the players. The game is simple, elegant, and minimalist and demonstrates that high resolution graphics and complex shapes are not necessary to make people laugh, cheer, high-five or hug total strangers after a match. (Source)

GigaOM RoadMap 2011

At the inaugural GigaOM RoadMap for 2011 conference it was a pleasure to hear influencers in the connected tech arena discuss the new standards that importantly are happening today and will be reaching mass audiences in the next 5-10 years. The value chain of creators and moderators is moving farther and farther away from mega companies (who are squandering to protect licensing rights) to small teams of personalized directional players in places like India. With advances in personalized human health care and easier to use industrial design, there is an increasing thirst for understanding how to humanize a super enthralled society from the waves of recommendations and gifting.

Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame, mentioned a Hakim Bey notion of temporary autonomous zones and how we are moving back to this facilitation. With a big problem being the creative itself, some see the cluttered world as place where a CBS can come out on top out of the muffle of the rising artisan movement. Om Malik noted that if you are in the media business, you might as well have something to sell… It seems as though we are moving from an ownership society to an access society, from a binary world, to somewhere in between. The uncanny valley was a topic of discussion as was the large amount of leverage that intellectual capital can have even for a small company without traditional merit.

Is the professional world going to trump the world of knitting? Is annotation of Second Life like book experiences going to shape future meta-data? The cloud is the mover here folks, and there is much to look forward to as we are still in early days…but will the canary begin to show some life?

Some ideas from the conference with, Om Malik, Mark Rolston, Richard Nash, Hosain Rahman, Matt Mullenweg, Frank Moss, Jack Dorsey- featured by myninjaplease.com:

Robotic Notification Smell Factory

This is pretty awesome, you can make these yourself or wait and buy an already assembled Olly- a robotic smell factory that alerts you with a smell when you get a tweet… and its running arduino, you can buy here.

Open Source Guitar

: Continue reading :

Abandon Your Cake

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However painful it may be, you must acknowledge that if you want to enjoy a great cake, you should toss yours in the garbage, forget about it, and grab one from off the shelf.

Software is the same way. Oftentimes you will find that a solution baked in-house by a colleague you know and respect is not as mature as one that is open source.

.:kristopolous.blogspot.com->

iHub

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Kenya’s first exclusive IT incubation centre marked its first anniversary amid growing interest in tech start-ups and IT innovation in East Africa, with now 3,036 members and the first wave of iHub-fuelled IT products now coming to market in the region. (Source)