chl's comments

dminder is a great app to estimate Vitamin D "intake"/production through sun exposure (and also food, albeit this won't matter much for most people):

http://dminder.ontometrics.com/

I only wish the algorithm used to derive the estimates was public/documented somewhere ...

http://dminder.ontometrics.com/Estimation.html

My guess: It might not make _the_ difference whether you _get_ it, but it's not at all unlikely (given all the evidence that has accumulated so far & extrapolation from experience w/ other viral respiratory infections) that it will influence disease severity significantly.

There are now 24 trials (of some kind) listed on ClinicalTrials.gov:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=vitamin+d&cond=C...

At some point, high-quality RCT results will be in.

To learn more about the LINC (and why, in the grand scheme of things, it was so incredibly important):

- "The LINC Revolution", in "Biomedical Computing" by Joseph November: http://www.amazon.com/Biomedical-Computing-Digitizing-Univer...

- "Computing in the Middle Ages" by Severo Ornstein: http://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages-Trenches-1955-19...

- "The Dream Machine" by M. Mitchell Waldrop: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution...

R.I.P.

It _can_ be used for commercial purposes; you have to secure Kx' explicit permission, though.

The list of people who implemented (Quasi-)APLs contains some further illustrious names:

- Ken Thompson (APL\11): https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.lang.apl/u9sl6g...

- Dan Bricklin (Multics APL): http://lowendmac.com/2006/dan-bricklin-inventor-of-the-elect...

- Bill Gates (designed, never published): http://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm#tc30

- Robert Griesemer: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Go_From_Scratch/The_Origin_of_...

- Rob Pike: https://github.com/robpike/ivy

Another great tool to get long(er)-form articles onto a Kindle: http://fivefilters.org/kindle-it/

"The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology" by Horace Freeland Judson; a masterpiece originally published in 1979 and based on ~10 years of research, interviews w/ more than 100 scientists &c.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/science/11judson.html?_r=0

All in all, Eric Lander's 7.00x (Introduction to Biology) probably was the best of all the courses I completed in 2013. Lander is a fantastic lecturer -- it wasn't uncommon that his lectures (or shall I say performances) ended in applause.

Going beyond "just" videos and multiple-choice quizzes, the MITx folks built/assembled an impressive array of mostly web-based tools (e.g. a 3D molecule viewer, a molecule editor, a simplified version of genome viewers used by actual biologists) to support the learning enterprise.

Here's a glowing review that (unlike my scribblings here) starts to do the 7.00x experience justice: http://okazakifragments.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/the-best-mo...

Two excellent technology history books I read in 2013 are _Dream Machine_ by M. Mitchell Waldrop and _Computing in the Middle Ages_ by Severo Ornstein.

_Dream Machine_ in particular tied together many strands that I had previously explored separately; it's a far-ranging, incredibly well-researched work that covers the development of interactive (and, eventually, personal & networked) computing from its origins at MIT's Whirlwind and Lincoln projects, leading, in big part thanks to J.C.R. Licklider's long-term research (management) vision, to the development of the ARPANET, and, maybe even more importantly, the formation of an "ARPA community", where many of the big ideas were first brought to reality and explored in depth (at BBN, SRI, Utah, PARC &c.).

All in all, it's probably the best history of computing-as-we-know-it-today and a clear recommendation for anyone with just the slightest interest in the idea history of the field.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution...

_Computing in the Middle Ages_ is a very personal account, supplying the critically important perspective of someone actually working in the trenches in the time-frame covered by _Dream Machine_.

Severo Ornstein co-designed the ARPANET "Interface Message Processors", essentially the first routers. It's also a wonderful history of the LINC (by Wesley Clark et al.), a remarkable (and remarkably forgotten) machine and the direct philosophical fore-runner of all "personal computers".

http://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages-Trenches-1955-19...

Thanks for taking the time to write it all up!

Brought back some fond memories, and I hadn't heard about Renoise before ...

Ericsson indeed is a notable omission:

"Measured in software revenues, Ericsson is the world’s fifth largest software company."

http://www.ericsson.com/thecompany/investors/financial_repor...

(Further examples would be highly appreciated.)

Even worse: By revenue of the companies on Truffle's Top 100 list, apparently.

I have no idea how tail-heavy the landscape of European software companies is.

BTW, could you supply some examples of the "fantastic software" from Europe you grew up using? Just curious.

You can pre-fill the card, too: http://www.masswerk.at/keypunch/?q=hello+hn!+dont+forget+you...!

They're breaking all kinds of internet laws with that.

Any idea what the "redirecting links" clause means for URL shorteners and other redirect-based services?

"Two years ago we appeared to have discovered an exciting and enigmatic new predictor of success in a first programming course. We now report that after six experiments, involving more than 500 students at six institutions in three countries, the predictive effect of our test has failed to live up to that early promise. We discuss the strength of the effects that have been observed and the reasons for some apparent failures of prediction."

http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/paper3.pdf

More:

http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/

My impression was that the course was designed to give someone with little or no background in machine learning a maximally useful amount of practically relevant information given a multitude of constraints (ergo the focus on Andrew Ng's favourite implementation tricks of the trade, learning curves &c.; each of dozens of such nuggets having the potential to save days, weeks or even months in real projects).

If that was indeed the goal, the endeavour should, in my opinion, be considered an amazing success.

An easy way to make the assignments harder (and maybe more fulfilling), if you have the time, might be to ignore much of the handholding (e.g. by porting everything to a very different programming environment).

Ideally, online courses like that would be "infinite" and personalized, giving everyone as much depth (and breadth!) as desired (with a "baseline" approximately equal to the 2011 class) and taking existing knowledge into account.

Eventually, we'll all get our Primer!

If you are an Instapaper "subscriber", you get access to a "Send to Kindle immediately" bookmarklet.

I use it all the time (and vastly prefer it over the timed, once-a-day-at-most send-a-batch-of-stuff option).

Ah! HN doesn't display [dead] when you're the submitter of the story. Now I only wonder _why_ it was killed ...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3088810