Free Tibet

We should all ask China to free Tibet because of the following reasons-

10 Reasons to Free Tibet

1) Replace a system of governance which is giving 12% GDP growth with a 1000 year old belief that one old guy is really a reincarnation of GOD

2) Because it is a romantic idea

3) The average Tibetan is much better economically than most other countries in Asia and Africa. Still freedom is messy- Donald Rumsfield.

4) So we can sell beer, Facebook ads, Internet Pornography to Tibetans which do not have the liberty to do so currently

5) So we can explore that area for mining and minerals

6) Damn it. We need one more ally for the free world. So we can invade more non free countries.

7)  Tibetans girls are hot.

8) Dalai Lama is cool. and he doesnot charge by the hour unlike other yoga Gurus.

9) We need to encircle China just like we did in the 19th Century and Opium Wars

10) So artists like Ai Wei Wei can blog freely

1 Reason not to Free Tibet

1) Tibetans want to be free. If we give them democracy- they will be disappointed to know that the bullets just get replaced by the pepper spray. How silly is that? The desire to be free- when there is no such thing as free anymore.

(This was an article in Sarcasm and meant as literary and not a pseudo-intellectual political article. I have no training in Politics. For details see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

Pune Hackathon

message from Jimmy Wales and friends-

 

Pune Wikimedia hackathon.

Date: 10-12 February 2012
Venue: Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research (SICSR) at
Symbiosis International University, Pune,India
Extremely rough event page, soon to get more details:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Pune_Hackathon_Feb_2012

As you know, a Wikimedia hackathon is a chance to learn how to develop
using MediaWiki, Phonegap, and our other technologies, and to work
alongside experts. Software engineers, designers, and translators are
welcome. We’re tentatively planning to focus on internationalisation and
localisation, mobile Wikipedia access, and the JavaScript-based gadgets
framework.

Registration link: http://is.gd/rjpNOA

If you’re interested, please register to request an invitation, and feel
free to publicize.  Thanks!

Top 7 Business Strategy Models

Some Models I use for Business Strategy- to analyze the huge reams of qualitative and uncertain data that business generates.

1. Porters 5 forces Model-To analyze industries
2. BCG Matrix- To analyze Product Portfolios
3. Porters Diamond Model- To analyze locations
4. McKinsey 7 S Model-To analyze teams
5. Gernier Theory- To analyze growth of organization
6. Herzberg Hygiene Theory- To analyze soft aspects of individuals
7. Marketing Mix Model- To analyze marketing mix.

WordPress 3.3 Sonny

WordPress 3.3 Sonny is out.

http://wordpress.org/news/2011/12/sonny/

Eat your heart out, blogspotters!!

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/07/try-bloggers-new-interface.html

 

On the internet- look and feel and design are the new old new buzzwords again!.

Google Apps Terms of Use- Termination

TERMINATION
You may discontinue your use of Google services at any time. You agree that Google may at any time and for any reason, including a period of account inactivity, terminate your access to Google services, terminate the Terms, or suspend or terminate your account. In the event of termination, your account will be disabled and you may not be granted access to Google services, your account or any files or other content contained in your account. Sections 10 (Termination), 13 (Indemnity), 14 (Disclaimer of Warranties), 15 (Limitations of Liability), 16 (Exclusions and Limitations) and 19 (including choice of law, severability and statute of limitations), of the Terms, shall survive expiration or termination.

Source-

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/user_terms.html

Related-

 

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/BcxRfg96dTQ?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0

 

Chrome Extension- MafiaaFire

The chrome extension MafiaaWire basically gives you an updated list of redirected websites. So the next time , your evil highness shuts down your favorite website- the list promises to give you an update.  While obviously entertainment intellectual property is a very obvious site category for such redirects, in some cases these extensions can be used for simple things like hosting dissents or protesters against govt corruption in non US countries .

Basically under the new SOPA act (an oline version of pepper spray http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act) even browsers like Firefox and Chrome would be liable for any such extension that can be used to download American Intellectual property illegally.

In the meantime – this is an interesting and creative use case of technology and sociology merging in the brave new world.

You can read about it here-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAFIAAFire_Redirector

MAFIAAFire works by downloading a list which contains the names of the “blocked” sites as well as the sites to redirect to. This list is downloaded every time Firefox starts up or every two days on the Chrome version (although the user has the choice to force an update on the Chrome version instead of waiting for two days).

When a user types in a domain name from the list of blocked domains, the add-on recognizes this and automatically redirects the user to the secondary site. Since this happens before the browser connects to the DNS server, this renders any DNS blocks useless.

Although the add-on checks for which sites are entered into the address bar every time (as it needs to check if that site is on its block list), it does not log these requests nor send these requests to any central server. In other words: it does not track the user.

or

Download it from

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hnifiobpjihmmjgiokkaalgomddebhng

Interesting times indeed!

Related-

Encryption

http://poemsforkush.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/encryption/

 

Occupy the Internet

BORN IN THE USA

Big Brother is Watching You

Movie Review: MI 4 Ghost Protocol

Mr Cruise resumes his duties as Ethan Hunt, and man we missed his adventure. Jeremy Renner should play the next version of this series, all the scientology cream cannot hide the wrinkles from Mr Cruise’s face- though he retains his charisma

The plot is superb, Anil Kapoor of Slumdog Millionaire does a cute scene stealing turn, and the rest of the cast is ho hum- compared to earlier movies in same series- it is much better than MI1 but not as good as MI2 (John Woo) and MI3. Lets wait for MI5 or MI6

 

JMP and R – #rstats

An amazing example of R being used sucessfully in combination (and not is isolation) with other enterprise software is the add-ins functionality of JMP and it’s R integration.

See the following JMP add-ins which use R

http://support.sas.com/demosdownloads/downarea_t4.jsp?productID=110454&jmpflag=Y

JMP Add-in: Multidimensional Scaling using R

This add-in creates a new menu command under the Add-Ins Menu in the submenu R Add-ins. The script will launch a custom dialog (or prompt for a JMP data table is one is not already open) where you can cast columns into roles for performing MDS on the data table. The analysis results in a data table of MDS dimensions and associated output graphics. MDS is a dimension reduction method that produces coordinates in Euclidean space (usually 2D, 3D) that best represent the structure of a full distance/dissimilarity matrix. MDS requires that input be a symmetric dissimilarity matrix. Input to this application can be data that is already in the form of a symmetric dissimilarity matrix or the dissimilarity matrix can be computed based on the input data (where dissimilarity measures are calculated between rows of the input data table in R).

Submitted by: Kelci Miclaus	Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins	Analysis: Exploratory Data Analysis

http://support.sas.com/demosdownloads/downarea_t4.jsp?productID=110461&jmpflag=Y

Chernoff Faces Add-in

One way to plot multivariate data is to use Chernoff faces. For each observation in your data table, a face is drawn such that each variable in your data set is represented by a feature in the face. This add-in uses JMP’s R integration functionality to create Chernoff faces. An R install and the TeachingDemos R package are required to use this add-in.

Submitted by: Clay Barker	Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins	Analysis: Data Visualization

http://support.sas.com/demosdownloads/downarea_t4.jsp?productID=110462&jmpflag=Y

Support Vector Machine for Classification

By simply opening a data table, specifying X, Y variables, selecting a kernel function, and specifying its parameters on the user-friendly dialog, you can build a classification model using Support Vector Machine. Please note that R package ‘e1071′ should be installed before running this dialog. The package can be found from http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/e1071/index.html.

Submitted by: Jong-Seok Lee	Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins	Analysis: Exploratory Data Analysis/Mining

http://support.sas.com/demosdownloads/downarea_t4.jsp?productID=110460&jmpflag=N

Penalized Regression Add-in

This add-in uses JMP’s R integration functionality to provide access to several penalized regression methods. Methods included are the LASSO (least absolutee shrinkage and selection operator, LARS (least angle regression), Forward Stagewise, and the Elastic Net. An R install and the “lars” and “elasticnet” R packages are required to use this add-in.

Submitted by: Clay Barker	Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins	Analysis: Regression

http://support.sas.com/demosdownloads/downarea_t4.jsp?productID=110456&jmpflag=Y

MP Addin: Univariate Nonparametric Bootstrapping

This script performs simple univariate, nonparametric bootstrap sampling by using the JMP to R Project integration. A JMP Dialog is built by the script where the variable you wish to perform bootstrapping over can be specified. A statistic to compute for each bootstrap sample is chosen and the data are sent to R using new JSL functionality available in JMP 9. The boot package in R is used to call the boot() function and the boot.ci() function to calculate the sample statistic for each bootstrap sample and the basic bootstrap confidence interval. The results are brought back to JMP and displayed using the JMP Distribution platform.

Submitted by: Kelci Miclaus	Initiative: All
Application: Add-Ins	Analysis: Basic Statistics