2020#49 Readings of the Week
5 minutes read | 942 words by Ruben BerenguelAn early one: For the first time in… not sure how, I’m going to be a whole week off. Which implies no computer.
From a mapmaking twitter bot by Mewo2
NOTE: Spark (we’ve had Spark Summit this week), Python, Maths and a bit of miscellanea. Expect a similar wide range in the future as well. You can check all my weekly readings by checking the tag here. You can also get these as a weekly newsletter by subscribing here.
The Google ‘vs’ Trick
Smart idea, and has graphs. Fodder for my D3 experiments
The Cartoon Picture of Magnets That Has Transformed Science
Interesting story. Now I want to implement the 2D Ising model…
🍿 Doodling in Math Class: Connecting Dots
This is such a fun video!
Problem Solving with MiniZinc
I’m off next week, which means I will probably learn something new and useless (this and very likely SAT) and/or work on generative stuff
What I learned from looking at 200 machine learning tools
This quote is excellent.
Most companies won’t focus on developing ML models but will use an off-the-shelf model, e.g. “if you want it put a BERT on it.”
And this tidbit:
Since OSS has become a standard, it’s challenging for startups to figure out a business model that works. Any tooling company started has to compete with existing open-source tools. If you follow the open-core business model, you have to decide which features to include in the OSS, which to include in the paid version without appearing greedy, or how to get free users to start paying.
How the Virus Won
An impressive visualization. Beware The Times paywall.
Delta Engine Introduction and Overview of How it Works
Smells of Flare under the scenes…
Hypermodern Python 2: Testing
Covers the basics of pytest, and adds nox, coverage.py and other useful techniques to improve your testing quality.
Travels with John Conway, in 258 Septillion Dimensions
Beware the New York Times paywall. Obituary of a fun loving mathemagician.
Thread by @ptychomancer: “I love maps & their promise of fractal discovery”
I’m trying to create hand-drawn style fantasy map as a generative piece in p5js (not with a lot of movement, for now just a mountain, inspired by the write ups by Here Dragons Abound), and thus have been collecting reading material. Have a look and enjoy the images
Koalas 1.0 Introduction, Overview and Quick How-to Guide
Koalas offers a translation API between Pandas and Spark dataframes. The release of 1.0 is a big milestone!
How to write a (toy) JVM
I was led to this interesting post after finding this toy JVM in AWK (if you know me enough you’ll know I’ll say use AWK every 2 weeks or less)
Generating naming languages
Part of the map generation reading I mentioned. Fascinating stuff.
The Death of Hype: What’s Next for Scala
A post by Li Haoyi, one of the most prolific Scala (library and text) writers. He has recently published a book, haven’t started it yet, but got it on launch: he’s a very good explainer.
Advanced pytest techniques I learned while contributing to pandas
Good list. Beware indirects, they can be hard to read (just recently I cleaned a test suite full of indirects, in exchange of more readability).
Making maps with noise functions
More generative mapmaking goodness.
Redash is joining Databricks
As customers, we’ve seen good improvements in Databricks in-notebook visualisation, I assume with this acquisition they’ll be even better. Great!
PEP 622 – Structural Pattern Matching
Scala 3 is Python 4, or Python 4 will be Scala 3? See Li Haoyi’s comment on twitter.
An Introduction to D3.js
This is a very brilliant introduction and tutorial for D3. I got the book by the author (Amelia Wattenberger), looking forward reading it now.
Eyecomputer
I’m not 100% sure what this is about, but it was interesting.
Random Surfaces Hide an Intricate Order
This is a very intriguing result, and I wonder what implications it can have for graph theory (after all, percolations can be thought of as graph traversals).
Making money as a (digital) artist
Inconvergent is one of the must follow generative artists I know. I’ve seen his pieces for sale (I prefer some he hasn’t for sale). Give them a look, they are not only pretty, but thoughtful
📚 Dynamic Drawing Bible
A short and sweet book on general drawing. It has chapters for several subjects (insects, land animals, birds, vehicles…). Should be perfect as a reference book, only caveat is that the writing is a bit hard to read without zooming in (I wonder how the print edition handles that)
📚 The sketchnote handbook
It’s kind of OK, but I wasn’t super-thrilled with it. Maybe it’s the social distancing and lack of conferences of this year that is putting me down.
Do the Real Thing
Scott H. Young specialises in learning and learning fast. In this piece, he argues for, basically, walking the walk instead of (metaphorically) talking the talk.
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