Women in Tech Want Your Opinion on Feminism and Other Falsehoods Programmers Believe
July 14, 2017
The collection of articles on Github titled Awesome Falsehood dives into some of the strange myths and errors believed by tech gnomes and the issues that they can create. For starters, falsehoods about names. Perhaps you have encountered the tragic story of Mr. Null, who encounters a dilemma whenever inputting his last name in a web form because it often will be rejected or even crash the system.
The article explains,
This has all gotten to the point where I’ve developed a number of workarounds for times when this happens. Turning my last name into a combination of my middle name and last name, or middle initial and last name, sometimes works, but only if the website doesn’t choke on multi-word last names. My usual trick is to simply add a period to my name: “Null.” This not only gets around many “null” error blocks, it also adds a sense of finality to my birthright.
Another list expands on the falsehoods about names that programmers seem to buy into. These include cultural cluelessness about people having first names and last names that never change and are all different. Along those lines, one awesome female programmer wrote a list of falsehoods about women in tech, such as their existence revolving around a desire for a boyfriend or to complete web design tasks. (Also, mansplaining is their absolute favorite, did you know?) Another article explores falsehoods about geography, such as the mistaken notion that all places only have one official name, or even one official name per language, or one official address. While the lists may reinforce some negative stereotypes we have about programmers, they also expose the core issues that programmers must resolve to be successful and effective in their jobs.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 14, 2017
Google and Indian Government Spar over Authenticity of Google Maps
July 12, 2017
The Indian government has rejected the authenticity of maps used by popular navigation app Google Maps terming them as technically inaccurate.
Neowin in an article titled Indian Government Calls Google Maps “Inauthentic”; Asks Citizens to Use Their Solution says:
In an attack against the service, Surveyor General of India, Swarna Subba Rao said that the maps used by Google weren’t “authentic” and were “unreliable” with limited accuracy. She also stressed on how Survey of India’s own mapping data was qualitatively more accurate.
The bone of the contention seems to be Google’s inaccurate mapping of Kashmir, the northern territory disputed by Pakistan. Google was also denied permissions to map the country at street levels for Street View citing security concerns.
Considering the fact that Google has the largest user base in India, this seems to be a setback for the company. An official of the Indian government is recommending the use of their own maps for better topographical accuracy. However, the government approved maps are buggy and do not have a great interface like Google Maps.
Vishal Ingole, July 12, 2017
Wield Buzzwords with Precision
July 10, 2017
It is difficult to communicate clearly when folks don’t agree on what certain words mean. Nature attempts to clear up confusion around certain popular terms in, “Big Science Has a Buzzword Problem.” We here at Beyond Search like to call jargon words “cacaphones,” but the more traditional “buzzwords” works, too. Writer Megan Scudellari explains:
‘Moonshot’, ‘road map’, ‘initiative’ and other science-planning buzzwords have meaning, yet even some of the people who choose these terms have trouble defining them precisely. The terms might seem interchangeable, but close examination reveals a subtle hierarchy in their intentions and goals. Moonshots, for example, focus on achievable, but lofty, engineering problems. Road maps and decadal surveys (see ‘Alternate aliases’) lay out milestones and timelines or set priorities for a field. That said, many planning projects masquerade as one title while acting as another.
Strategic plans that bear these lofty names often tout big price tags and encourage collaborative undertakings…. The value of such projects is continually debated. On one hand, many argue that the coalescence of resources, organization and long-term goals that comes with large programmes is crucial to science advancement in an era of increasing data and complexity. … Big thinking and big actions have often led to success. But critics argue that buzzword projects add unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and overhead costs to doing science, reduce creativity and funding stability and often lack the basic science necessary to succeed.
In order to help planners use such terms accurately, Scudellari supplies definitions, backgrounds, and usage guidance for several common buzzwords: “moonshot,” “roadmap,” “initiative,” and “framework.” There’s even a tool to help one decide which term best applies to any given project. See the article to explore these distinctions.
Cynthia Murrell, July 10, 2017
Deleting Yourself from the Internet Too Good to Be True
July 4, 2017
Most people find themselves saddled with online accounts going back decades and would gladly delete them if they could. Some people even wish they could delete all their accounts and cease to exist online. A new service, Deseat, promises just that. According to The Next Web,
Every account it finds gets paired with an easy delete link pointing to the unsubscribe page for that service. Within in a few clicks you’re freed from it, and depending on how long you need to work through the entire list, you can be unwanted-account-free within the hour.
Theoretically, one could completely erase all trace of themselves from the all-knowing cyber web in the sky. But can it really be this easy?
Yes, eliminating outdated and unused accounts is a much-needed step in cleaning up one’s cyber identity, but we must question the validity of total elimination of one’s cyber identify in just a few clicks. Despite the website’s claim to “wipe your entire existence off the internet in a few clicks” ridding the internet of one’s cyber footprints is probably not that easy.
Catherine Lamsfuss, July 4, 2017
The Big Problems of Big Data
June 30, 2017
Companies are producing volumes of data. However, no fully functional system is able to provide actionable insights to decision makers in real time. Bayesian methods might pave the way to the solution seekers.
In an article published by PHYS and titled Advances in Bayesian Methods for Big Data, the author says:
Bayesian methods provide a principled theory for combining prior knowledge and uncertain evidence to make sophisticated inference of hidden factors and predictions.
Though the methods of data collection have improved, analyzing and presenting actionable insights in real time is still a big problem for Big Data adopters. Human intervention is required at almost every step which defies the entire purpose of an intelligent system. Hopefully, Bayesian methods can resolve these issues. Experts have been reluctant to adopt Bayesian methods owing to the fact that they are slow and are not scalable. However, with recent advancements in machine learning, the method might work.
Vishal Ingole, June 30, 2017
Maybe Trump Speak Pretty One Day
June 15, 2017
US President Donald Trump is not the most popular person in the world. He is a cherished scapegoat for media outlets, US citizens, and other world leaders. One favorite point of ridicule for people is his odd use of the English language. Trump’s take on the English tongue is so confusing that translators are left scratching their heads says The Guardian in, “Trump In Translation: President’s Mangled Language Stumps Translators.” For probably the first time in his presidency, Trump followed proper sentence structure and grammar when he withdrew the US from the Paris Accord. While the world was in an uproar about the climate change deniers, translators were happy that they could translate his words easier.
Asian translators are especially worried about what comes out of Trump’s mouths. Asian languages have different root languages than European ones; so direct translations of the colloquial expressions Trump favors are near impossible.
India problems translating Trump to Hindi:
‘Donald Trump is difficult to make sense of, even in English,’ said Anshuman Tiwari, editor of IndiaToday, a Hindi magazine. “His speech is unclear, and sometimes he contradicts himself or rambles or goes off on a tangent. Capturing all that confusion in writing, in Hindi, is not easy,’ he added. ‘To get around it, usually we avoid quoting Trump directly. We paraphrase what he has said because conveying those jumps in his speech, the way he talks, is very difficult. Instead, we summarise his ideas and convey his words in simple Hindi that will make sense to our readers.’
Indian translators also do Trump a favor by translating his words using the same level of the rhetoric of Indian politicians. It makes him sound smarter than he appears to English-speakers. Trump needs to learn to trust his speechwriters, but translators should learn they can rely on Bitext’s DLAP to supplement their work and improve local colloquialisms.
Whitney Grace, June 15, 2017
Quote to Note: Hate That Semantic Web Stuff
June 8, 2017
I read “JSON-LD and Why I Hate the Semantic Web. “
Here’s the quote I noted:
I hate the narrative of the Semantic Web because the focus has been on the wrong set of things for a long time. That community, who I have been consciously distancing myself from for a few years now, is schizophrenic in its direction. Precious time is spent in groups discussing how we can query all this Big Data that is sure to be published via RDF instead of figuring out a way of making it easy to publish that data on the Web by leveraging common practices in use today. Too much time is spent assuming a future that’s not going to unfold in the way that we expect it to. That’s not to say that TURTLE, SPARQL, and Quad stores don’t have their place, but I always struggle to point to a typical startup that has decided to base their product line on that technology (versus ones that choose MongoDB and JSON on a regular basis).
There you go.
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2017
Dark Web Notebook Now Available
June 5, 2017
Arnold Information Technology has published Dark Web Notebook: Investigative Tools and Tactics for Law Enforcement, Security, and Intelligence Organizations. The 250-page book provides an investigator with instructions and tips for the safe use of the Dark Web. The book, delivered as a PDF file, costs $49.
Orders and requests for more information be directed to darkwebnotebook@yandex.com. Purchasers must verify that they work for a law enforcement, security, or intelligence organization. Dark Web Notebook is not intended for general distribution due to the sensitive information it contains.
The author is Stephen E Arnold, whose previous books include CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access and Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator, among others. Arnold, a former Booz, Allen & Hamilton executive, worked on the US government-wide index and the Threat Open Source Intelligence Gateway.
The Dark Web Notebook was suggested by attendees at Arnold’s Dark Web training sessions, lectures, and webinars. The Notebook provides specific information an investigator or intelligence professional can use to integrate Dark Web information into an operation.
Stephen E Arnold, author of the Dark Web Notebook, said:
“The information in the Dark Web Notebook has been selected and presented to allow an investigator to access the Dark Web quickly and in a way that protects his or her actual identity. In addition to practical information, the book explains how to gather information from the Dark Web. Also included are lists of vendors who provide Dark Web services to government agencies along with descriptions of open source and commercial software tools for gathering and analyzing Dark Web data. Much of the information has never been collected in a single volume written specifically for those engaged in active investigations or operations.”
The book includes a comprehensive table of contents, a glossary of terms and their definitions, and a detailed index.
The book is divided into 13 chapters. These are:
- Why write about the Dark Web?
- An Introduction to the Dark Web
- A Dark Web Tour with profiles of more than a dozen Dark Web sites, their products, and services
- Dark Web Questions and Answers
- Basic Security
- Enhanced Security
- Surface Web Resources
- Dark Web Search Systems
- Hacking the Dark Web
- Commercial Solutions
- Bitcoin and Variants
- Privacy
- Outlook
In addition to the Glossary, the annexes include a list of DARPA Memex open source software written to perform specific Dark Web functions, a list of spoofed Dark Web sites operated by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and a list of training resources.
Kenny Toth, June 5, 2017
Whirlpool Snaps up Yummly, Recipe Search Engine
June 2, 2017
IBM Watson’s book or recipes may have been a harbinger for foodies. Now Whirlpool, the appliance manufacturer, has taken another step into the future with the acquisition of tech start-up company Yummly, a recipe search engine/shopping list creator with 20 million users. Terms of the deal have not been made public.
Techcrunch reports in Whirlpool Acquires Yummly, The Recipe Search Engine Last Valued At $100M:
Yummly basically can help extend the kinds of services that Whirlpool can offer … it can (generate) more recipes and other suggestions for your food items; Yummly has created a lot of specific parameters for recipe searches which help make results more specific to what users need.
Yummly will maintain its offices and act as a subsidiary of Whirlpool. The acquisition provides Whirlpool with new avenues into technology and Yummly with a source a revenue as it continues to grow.
As tech start-ups continue to spring up and established companies evolve, nothing remains the same. Whirlpool seems to agree with us at Beyond Search. IBM Watson’s recipes are more like kale sandwiches than a trucker’s special.
Mary Pattengill, June 2, 2017
Deep Diving into HTML Employing Semantics
May 31, 2017
HTML, the programming language on which websites are based can employ semantics to make search easier and understanding, especially for those who use assistive technologies.
Web Dev Studios in an in-depth article titled Accessibility of Semantics: How Writing Semantic HTML Can Help Accessibility says:
Writing HTML is about more than simply “having stuff appear on the page.” Each element you use has a meaning and conveys information to your visitors, especially to those that use assistive technologies to help interpret that meaning for them.
Assistive technologies are used by people who have limited vision or other forms of impairment that prohibits them from accessing the web efficiently. If semantics is employed, according to the author of the article, impaired people too can access all features of the web like others.
The author goes on to explain things like how different tags in HTML can be used effectively to help people with visual impairments.
The Web and related technologies are evolving, and it can be termed as truly inclusive only when people with all types of handicaps are able to use it with equal ease.
Vishal Ingole, May 31, 2017
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