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Google and the future of search: Amit Singhal and the Knowledge Graph. Thinking about Google over the last week, I have fallen into the typically procrastinatory habit of every so often typing the words "what is" or "what" or "wha" into the Google search box at the top right of my computer screen.

Google and the future of search: Amit Singhal and the Knowledge Graph

Those prompts are all the omnipotent engine needs to inform me of the current instant top 10 of the virtual world's most urgent desires. At the time of typing, this list reads, in descending order: What is the fiscal cliffWhat is my ipWhat is obamacareWhat is loveWhat is glutenWhat is instagramWhat does yolo meanWhat is the illuminatiWhat is a good credit scoreWhat is lupus It is a list that indicates anxieties, not least the ways in which we are restlessly fixated with our money, our bodies and our technology – and paranoid and confused in just about equal measure. That rate of change – of how we gather information, how we make connections and think – has been so rapid that it invites a further urgent Google question.

Baana on hyvä alku pyöräpolitiikalle - Pääkirjoitukset - Pääkirjoitus. Helsingissä yritetään päästä eroon vanhoista pyöräteistä, jotka ovat viivalla erotettuja kaistoja jalkakäytävällä.

Baana on hyvä alku pyöräpolitiikalle - Pääkirjoitukset - Pääkirjoitus

A Better Project Model than the "Waterfall" - Jeff Gothelf. By Jeff Gothelf | 8:22 AM July 6, 2012 This happens every day: A “solution” is handed to a team to build.

A Better Project Model than the "Waterfall" - Jeff Gothelf

The team determines the scope of the work, develops a project plan and promises a set of features by a specific date. It is assumed that these features will solve some business problem or meet an executive directive because someone with a paygrade higher than the execution team has blessed the work. And with this set of features and project plan the waterfall cycle begins again. What Is a Data Scientist (and What Isn't)? The perception among organizations over the past five years is that more quantitative methods, with or without Big Data, are critical to success.

What Is a Data Scientist (and What Isn't)?

The problem is that most commercial organizations have little to no depth in these disciplines. On the other hand, businesses where data and data products are their primary revenue stream have an abundance of talent in this area. Phone journalism gives a voice to India's rural poor. As a journalist hailing from the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, the epicenter of a violent Maoist insurgency, Shubhranshu Choudhary was regularly confronted with the shortcomings of his profession.

Phone journalism gives a voice to India's rural poor

The uprising, described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 as India's "single biggest internal security challenge ever," drew much of its strength from the disenfranchised indigenous communities who are a majority in Chhattisgarh. Numbering perhaps as many as 100 million across India, the "tribals" live in impoverished rural conditions comparable to or lower than those prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations. Hack off, Hack on. Let's imagine the future.

Hack off, Hack on

(I know this isn't Kew. You'll have to work with me.) So this week Dave Winer called hack days “nonsense”. No. Wait. His name might not be immediately familiar to you but it’s fitting that he should be mentioned in the first few days of this blog’s life because just as Al Gore invented the internet and the Earl of Sandwich invented lunch, Winer has had a direct impact on something I know for a fact that you are doing right now. Blogs are underpinned by RSS feeds. Unlike John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, who doesn’t get up to much these days, Winer is still a prolific writer online and it’s right we should take his comments on hack days seriously especially since there are bound to be at least a few people reading this and wondering what on earth I’m talking about. In the age of big data, data journalism has profound importance for society.

The promise of data journalism was a strong theme throughout the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting’s (NICAR) 2012 conference.

In the age of big data, data journalism has profound importance for society

In 2012, making sense of big data through narrative and context, particularly unstructured data, will be a central goal for data scientists around the world, whether they work in newsrooms, Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Notably, that goal will be substantially enabled by a growing set of common tools, whether they’re employed by government technologists opening Chicago, healthcare technologists or newsroom developers. At NICAR 2012, you could literally see the code underpinning the future of journalism written – or at least projected – on the walls. “The energy level was incredible,” said David Herzog, associate professor for print and digital news at the Missouri School of Journalism, in an email interview after NICAR. “I didn’t see participants wringing their hands and worrying about the future of journalism.

Economics of Family Life, as Taught by a Power Couple. Model Thinking. The Benefits of Bilingualism. SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world.

The Benefits of Bilingualism

But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age. This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century. Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interference, cognitively speaking, that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development.

To see the full article, subscribe here. Correction: March 25, 2012.