Interesting
Reads – 2018-10-26
Contents
Articles
- 100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It
- What the Hell Is a Quantum Computer and How Excited Should I Be?
- Book: Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics
- Networks of the future: What automation and IBN (intent-based networking ) can do for you
- A Data Engineer's Guide To Non-Traditional Data Storages
- Web Accessibility: Why W3C Standards Are Often Ignored
- Common Mistakes in Client Communication: How to Not Frustrate Your Client
- 34 Autocorrect Mistakes 2018 vs. 2012: iPhone Humor Evolution
- Our meat addiction is going to kill our chances of beating climate change
- 18 Bizarre Letters to the Future That Only '70s Kids Will Understand
Events /
Announcements
- CSI & IEEE CS: Presentation on “Current Tech Trends: A Valley Perspective” on 30th Oct 2018
- eWIT: Book Release Event on 2nd Nov 2018
- IITDM, Kancheepuram: Hands-on MOOC course on "DIY Manufacturing Technology" from 5th Nov 2018
- CSI-2018: 53rd Annual Convention of Computer Society of India 2018 at Udaipur during 14-16 Dec 2018
- INDICON 2018: Theme “Harnessing Technology For Humanity” at Coimbatore during 16-18 Dec 2018
- First-ever QS Ranking of India’s Higher Education Institutions
========================================================
Articles
100
Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It
The
World Wide Web is officially old enough for us judge what it’s produced. That’s
right, it’s time for the world to start building a canon of the most
significant websites of all time, and the Gizmodo staff has opinions.
What
does a spot on this list mean? It certainly doesn’t mean “best.” A number of
sites on this list are cesspools now and always have been. We’re not even sure
the internet was a good idea—we’ll need another few decades before we come to
any conclusions. In this case, we set out to rank the websites—not apps (like
Instagram), not services (like PayPal)—that influenced the very nature of the
internet, changed the world, stole ideas better than anyone, pioneered a genre,
or were just really important to us. Some of these sites seemed perfectly
arbitrary a decade ago and turned into monstrous destinations or
world-destroying monopolies. Other sites have been net positives for humanity
and gave us a glimpse of what can happen when the world works together. In many
ways this list is an evaluation of power and who has seized it. In other ways,
it’s an appreciation of the places that still make the web worth surfing.
Next
year will be the 30th anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee’s first proposal to CERN
outlining what he originally called the “WorldWideWeb” (one word). Since then,
Berners-Lee has had a few regrets about what’s become a bit of a Frankenstein’s
monster, and who knows what the future holds. Below you’ll find our somewhat
arbitrary idea of the virtual destinations that mattered most, ranked and
curated by the Gizmodo staff and illustrated with screenshots that exemplify
their history, as we’ve played, shared, fought, and meme’d our way into the
current millennium.
What
the Hell Is a Quantum Computer and How Excited Should I Be?
They
will never sit on your desk, and they will most certainly never fit in your
pocket. Today, they’re fragile, and need to be kept at temperatures close to
absolute zero. Quantum computers aren’t much like the desktop PCs we’re all so
familiar with—they’re a whole new kind of machine, capable of calculations so
complex, it’s like upgrading from black-and-white to a full color spectrum.
Lately,
you’ve been hearing a lot about quantum computing. There are news stories about
how it “could change the world” and “open new dimensions.” Universities are
hyping up their quantum microchip prototypes, demonstrations of quantum
mechanical ideas in silicon, and other devices and theories. But come on, how
does it work? What does it do? Who’s doing it? And, most importantly, why
should you care?
Despite
what you’ve heard, right now, quantum computing is more or less in the era that
classical computing was in the ‘50s, when room-sized hulks ran on vacuum tubes.
But it could revolutionize computing. Potentially. Maybe.
Book: Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and
Radicalization in American Politics
This book examines the shape, composition, and
practices of the United States political media landscape. It explores the roots
of the current epistemic crisis in political communication with a focus on the
remarkable 2016 U.S. president election culminating in the victory of Donald
Trump and the first year of his presidency. The authors present a detailed map
of the American political media landscape based on the analysis of millions of
stories and social media posts, revealing a highly polarized and asymmetric
media ecosystem. Detailed case studies track the emergence and propagation of
disinformation in the American public sphere that took advantage of structural
weaknesses in the media institutions across the political spectrum. This book
describes how the conservative faction led by Steve Bannon and funded by Robert
Mercer was able to inject opposition research into the mainstream media agenda
that left an unsubstantiated but indelible stain of corruption on the Clinton
campaign. The authors also document how Fox News deflects negative coverage of
President Trump and has promoted a series of exaggerated and fabricated counter
narratives to defend the president against the damaging news coming out of the
Mueller investigation. Based on an analysis of the actors that sought to influence
political public discourse, this book argues that the current problems of media
and democracy are not the result of Russian interference, behavioral
microtargeting and algorithms on social media, political clickbait, hackers,
sockpuppets, or trolls, but of asymmetric media structures decades in the
making. The crisis is political, not technological.
Networks of the future: What automation and IBN (intent-based
networking ) can do for you
Automating network management to get away from
time-consuming manual configuration using command-line interface configuration
is at the top of most enterprises' networking wish lists. Within network
automation, intent-based networking, or IBN, is beginning to emerge as a way to
enable network professionals to manage their networks by telling the network
what they want it to do in direct language, then let the automated network take
over and make it so. To find out how enterprises can get to automated
management after decades of relying on manual processes, and keep up with
compute and storage automation, this priority report will walk you through
networks of the future in terms of what network automation and IBN can do for
you, the tools you should consider and the vendors active in the network
automation market.
A Data Engineer's Guide To Non-Traditional Data Storages
With the rise of big data and data science, many
engineering roles are being challenged and expanded. One new-age role is data
engineering.
Originally, the purpose of data engineering was the
loading of external data sources and the designing of databases (designing and
developing pipelines to collect, manipulate, store, and analyze data).
It has since grown to support the volume and
complexity of big data. So data engineering now encapsulates a wide range of
skills, from web-crawling, data cleansing, distributed computing, and data
storage and retrieval.
For data engineering and data engineers, data
storage and retrieval is the critical component of the pipeline together with
how the data can be used and analyzed.
In recent times, many new and different data storage
technologies have emerged. However, which one is best suited and has the most
appropriate features for data engineering?
Most engineers are familiar with SQL databases, such
as PostgreSQL, MSSQL, and MySQL, which are structured in relational data tables
with row-oriented storage.
Given how ubiquitous these databases are, we won’t
discuss them today. Instead, we explore three types of alternative data
storages that are growing in popularity and that have introduced different
approaches to dealing with data.
Within the context of data engineering, these
technologies are search engines, document stores, and columnar stores.
- Search engines excel at text queries. When compared to text matches in SQL databases, such as LIKE, search engines offer higher query capabilities and better performance out of the box.
- Document stores provide better data schema adaptability than traditional databases. By storing the data as individual document objects, often represented as JSONs, they do not require schema predefining.
- Columnar stores specialize in single column queries and value aggregations. SQL operations, such as SUM and AVG, are considerably faster in columnar stores, as data of the same column are stored closer together on the hard drive.
In this article, we explore all three technologies:
Elasticsearch as a search engine, MongoDB as a document store, and Amazon
Redshift as a columnar store.
By understanding alternative data storage, we can
choose the most suitable one for each situation.
Web
Accessibility: Why W3C Standards Are Often Ignored
The
term du jour is web accessibility—in my opinion, one of the most frequently
misunderstood and poorly applied aspects of web design. The common
misconception is that accessibility is designed solely for disabled people. In
fact, everyone benefits from accessible content, and your audience will
increase by gaining access to accessible content on different platforms or in
different ways, because they can use your content with fewer constraints.
Unfortunately,
a lot of web developers do not make their content accessible and do not follow
web accessibility guidelines; thus, many people experience unnecessary
difficulties using their designs and enjoying content. In extreme cases,
certain groups of users can’t use such a website effectively at all.
Building
accessible content should be second nature to any developer, designer, or
content creator, the same way the consideration of ramps, stairways, and lifts
is to an architect designing a new building.
Let’s
take a closer look at what’s behind the scenes and why so many developers seem
to overlook web accessibility standards for no good reason.
Common
Mistakes in Client Communication: How to Not Frustrate Your Client
When someone requests a project, we have to assume that it’s very important and that they deeply care about the product you’ll be working on. So, it is safe to assume that a client is bound to build a lot of expectation around the final product, and therefore may become emotional when it comes to delivery.
Throughout the course of the project, a client might
get super excited about a delivered feature and love you, and on the next day
he or she can discover something doesn’t work and that affection will be gone.
More often than not, it’s just a matter of client communication gone wrong.
Although there are no recipes for success when it
comes to remote software development, I believe there are a few things that
must be avoided to maintain a healthy and productive relationship with clients
that placed so much trust in your hands.
34
Autocorrect Mistakes 2018 vs. 2012: iPhone Humor Evolution
Phone
is a smart phone. When you send a text message, it checks spelling mistakes and
corrects your writing. Like Siri, iPhone autocorrect has a good sense of humor
and often replaces original phases with funny, epic or even scandalous
expressions.
Since
coming to iPhone in 2012 autocorrect got much smarter, but unique textings are
still hilarious. Compare best autocorrect failures of 2012 and 2018!
Our
meat addiction is going to kill our chances of beating climate change
The
case for shifting to a plant-based diet, immediately.
We’re
now more than a week out from when the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change dropped its terrifying report detailing the urgency to dramatically
reduce emissions and stop global warming in the next three decades or so. Meat
eaters, we are sorry to report that we have bad news for you: You’re a big part
of the problem.
New
research from the World Resources Institute finds that, taking into account
trends in population growth and meat consumption, agriculture alone could eat
through the majority of our emissions budget for keeping global warming below 2
degrees Celsius–the point at which climate-change effects would create
wide-scale devastation. Under these circumstances, the real aim–limiting global
warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius–would be impossible to attain.
Related post & Report: Global
Warming of 1.5 °C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of
1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission
pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of
climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty
18
Bizarre Letters to the Future That Only '70s Kids Will Understand
Will the year 2000 be filled with flying cars or polluted air? Push-button lunches or the start of World War III? These were just some of the predictions made by fourth grade kids in 1976, who had trouble deciding if the future was going to be filled with high-tech gadgets or nuclear war. Or maybe both.
The
July 4, 1976 edition of the Grand Prairie Daily News in Texas published letters
written by fourth grade kids that were addressed to the year 2000. Getting
American kids to write letters to the future in the mid-1970s was an incredibly
popular exercise. These examples give us a peek at not only the tech-filled
dreams of tomorrow, but a country struggling with unemployment, pollution, and
political corruption.
Related
post: A New Great Depression and Ladies on the Moon: 1970s Middle School
Kids Look to the Year 2000
Events
/ Announcements
CSI
& IEEE CS: Presentation on “Current Tech Trends: A Valley Perspective” on
30th Oct 2018
CSI
Chennai Chapter and IEEE Computer Society, Madras Chapter jointly organising a
presentation on “Current Tech Trends: A Valley Perspective” by Mr. Rajkumar
Madhuram, CTO, C1X Inc.,.Santa Clara, California, USA on Tuesday, 30th
Oct 2018 at 6.00 p.m. at
Seminar
Hall, CSI Education Directorate, Taramani, Chennai – 600113.
Formal
invite at https://goo.gl/CsiBK3
The
event is FREE to attend. But pre-registration is a must. Please register for
the event on or before 29th Oct 2018 at https://goo.gl/KKXuE5
eWIT: Book
Release Event on 2nd Nov 2018
eWIT
invites you to Role Model Series for the release of the book “The New Plan A” on
Friday, 2nd Nov 2018 at 4.00 p.m. at GAVs Technologies, No: 11, Old
Mahabalipuram Road, Sholinganallur, Chennai – 600119.
Formal
invite is at www.ewit.co.in/rolemodelseries_nov2018.pdf
To
register to this free event, pl. visit https://goo.gl/TE9hwp
IITDM, Kancheepuram:
Hands-on MOOC course on "DIY
Manufacturing Technology" from 5th Nov 2018
National Resource Centre for Design and
Manufacturing Education at IITDM, Kanceepuram will be offering a hands-on MOOC
course "DIY Manufacturing Technology" on MHRD's SWAYAM platform from
Nov 5. The participants will learn the basics of Arduino, CAD, CAM, subtractive
and additive manufacturing, and how to design and develop their own low-cost desktop
CNC machines and 3D printers. The course is open to teachers of engineering
colleges/universities, polytechnics, ITIs, as well as school teachers with
interest in STEM education.
For details pl. visit https://swayam.gov.in/courses/5304-diy-manufacturing-technology
CSI-2018: 53rd Annual
Convention of Computer Society of India 2018 at Udaipur during 14-16 Dec 2018
The
53rd Annual Convention of CSI will be held at Hotel Inder Residency. Udaipur,
Rajasthan, India during 14-16 Dec 2018.
For
details visit the convention website at http://www.csi-2018.org
INDICON 2018:
Theme “Harnessing Technology For Humanity” at Coimbatore during 16-18 Dec 2018
With
the theme of “Harnessing Technology for Humanity”, the 15th IEEE India Council
International Conference (INDICON 2018), being organized by the IEEE Madras
Section during December 15-18, 2018, at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore,
with technical support from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, promises
to be bigger and better than before. With plenary sessions, keynote addresses
by reputed academicians, tutorials, workshops, Student Paper contests, industry
exhibits and stalls and most importantly, high quality presentations from the
best of the researchers in India, no effort is being spared to make INDICON
2018, the best so far.
For
details visit the website at http://indicon2018.in/
First-ever QS
Ranking of India’s Higher Education Institutions
QS
Quacquarelli Symonds, the global higher education think tank responsible for
the world’s most-consulted world university rankings, released their first
standalone ranking of India’s higher education institutions. The inaugural
edition of the QS India University Rankings, is designed to offer an
independent analysis of the performance of Indian institutions. The rankings
include Public Universities, Private Universities and H.E. Institutions or
Deemed Universities. Single faculty specialist institutions or single level
institutions (e.g. teaching principally at postgraduate level) are not
included. IIT Bombay is named India’s leading institution. IITs take up seven
of the top-10 places. IIS Bangalore takes the second spot. Twenty Indian
institutions receive full marks in the Staff with PhD, the indicator designed
to identify the extent to which institutions are cultivating a highly-qualified
faculty body. In the research productivity indicator, nine institutions achieve
a score between 98.4 and 100.
For
complete ranking visit https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/rankings-by-location/india/2019
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