Setting up a new Linux install, quickstart guide
This is another post which is designed both to help me as an aide-memoire and also to help anyone else out there who wants to set up a new Linux install quickly and easily. One of the many, many things I love about Linux is the way that you can just tear down your OS any time you like and start using a different one. Having said that, I must admit to having had some long weekends and evenings when my installation has gone kaput fiddling around trying to get everything working.
Buy my book from #Packt in the Buy One, Get One Free sale bit.ly/1j26nPN #Packt2k
My publisher is having a sale, buy one get on free on all ebooks, so if you wish to buy my book or indeed a book about something else, go check it out here.
My PhD thesis is online finally
To my great shame, I never published the findings from my PhD (Daily behavioural ratings: what can behavioural observation tell us about psychopathy, personality disorder and violence risk in secure psychiatric settings?) in any journals, by the time I’d finished I was so busy with my new job that I just never got round to it. The least I can do is host the thesis on my server in case it proves of use to anyone, and I have added it to my website today, link to file here.
Book review: Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline
Book review Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline By Cathy O’Neil, Rachel Schutt Publisher: O’Reilly Media Full disclosure: I received a free electronic copy of this book to review as part of O’Reilly’s Reader Review Program This book seems to be everywhere at the moment, largely, I imagine, because there’s a gaping hole in the market for such a book. Indeed, there’s a gaping hole in the market, it seems, for everything to do with data science, from books and courses to the actual people themselves.
Boss of year of code can’t code- do we all need to be able to code?
As many of you will be aware, the Twittersphere was recently ignited by Lottie Dexter (Year of code boss can’t code) and her car crash performance on Newsnight. I don’t have much to add to what has already been said apart from to note with sadness yet another typical example of a public servant being involved with technology of which they have no comprehension. Jeremy Paxman expressed cynicism within the interview regarding the idea that all people need to be able to code, and by extension that all children need to be taught coding.
Pick up a copy of my book or another ebook for $5 #Packt$5 #ebookbonanza
The publisher of my book, Packt, is having an ebook sale: Following on from the success of last year’s festive offer, the publisher will be celebrating the holiday season with an even bigger $5 Bonanza. From December 19th, customers will be able to get any eBook or Video from Packt for just $5. This sale covers every title in the 1700+ range and customers can grab as many as they like until January 3rd 2014 – more information is available at http://bit.
Clearly Better For Analytics and Graphics (My LondonR talk- Developing with Shiny for the Web)
I gave a talk at the LondonR group last night about using Shiny and particularly about integrating it with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery to go nicely with other web content. Appropriately enough, therefore, I made the whole talk using HTML. Thanks to Romain Francois for his excellent highlight package (surely it should be called highlightR, though?) with which I did the HTML for the highlighting of R syntax and to this website with which I highlighted the HTML, JavaScript and jQuery.
The internet platform of the future
I recently sent the following to the New Statesman in response to a piece they recently carried which weighed up the likely fortunes of Google, Facebook, and Apple, and asked which would be the internet platform of the future. It is quite obvious to me that we already have the internet platform of the future, and it’s called Linux. They ran it, edited, in the letters page, but they don’t publish letters online so here, for the first time, live and unplugged, is the unexpurgated version.
Free and open source software. Come for the free, stay for the awesome
I just wrote this for the Institute of Mental Health blog so I thought I may as well cross-post here. I promise I will talk about something other than Shiny soon 🙂 Open source software refers to software whose code is available for anybody to view, revise and reuse. This should be contrasted with closed or proprietary code which is known only to the manufacturer, and who will often charge a fee for individuals to use the software (for example, Microsoft Word, or Adobe Photoshop).
Quick p-values for publication
I’m afraid this is just from a lecture from the school of the totally obvious, but for some unfathomable reason I’ve never got round to doing it. I’m not even telling you the code so much as just saying “you should definitely do this, it’s very easy”. I got the time back after writing one paper and I constantly have to fiddle around with p-values so I imagine I shall save many hours each year.