The Elephant was a Trojan Horse: On the Death of Map-Reduce at Google : Paper Trail
Map-Reduce is on its way out. But we shouldn’t measure its importance in the number of bytes it crunches, but the fundamental shift in data processing architectures it helped popularise. This morning, at their I/O Conference, Google revealed that they’re not using Map-Reduce to process data internally at all any more.
crr » Words known by men and women
Some words are better known to men than to women and the other way around. But which are they? On the basis of our vocabulary test, we can start to answer this question (on the basis of the first 500K tests completed). These are the 12 words with the largest difference in favor of men (between brackets: %men who know the word, %women who know the word):
Visualizing Algorithms
Heerlijk — Algorithms are a fascinating use case for visualization. To visualize an algorithm, we don’t merely fit data to a chart; there is no primary dataset. Instead there are logical rules that describe behavior. This may be why algorithm visualizations are so unusual, as designers experiment with novel forms to better communicate. This is reason enough to study them.
De Wever is niet zo onschuldig – Chris Serroyen
Ook rechtvaardige fiscaliteit wordt begraven. De nota heeft het wel over een tax shift. Maar dan richting hogere BTW. Dit is de minst rechtvaardige van alle belastingen want ze treft consumenten met lagere inkomens harder dan de hoge inkomens. Lagere inkomens consumeren immers een groter deel van hun inkomen. Hoge inkomens sparen veel meer. Werknemers betalen die BTW-verhogingen trouwens nog een tweede keer. Want de nota wil het effect van die BTW-verhogingen neutraliseren in de index. Raken aan de vermogens en kapitalen, dat ziet De Wever dan weer duidelijk niet zitten. Want die zijn al oh zo zwaar belast.
Meet Moondog, a Blind Genius in Circus-Freak Clothing and a Great, Forgotten New Yorker | Vanity Fair
Louis Hardin was born in Kansas in 1916, banged a drum on an Arapaho chief’s lap in Wyoming, and lost his sight in a farming accident in Missouri as a teenager. But the world knew him as Moondog. And the world did, for a time, know him. While mostly forgotten today outside the rarified halls of experimental music festivals, Moondog's genius-in-circus-freak’s-clothing story makes him one of the essential characters of American subculture.
The Sharing Economy and the Mystery of the Mystery of Inequality | Op-Eds & Columns
Uber, like Amazon, has allowed a small number of people to become extremely rich by evading regulations and/or taxes that apply to their middle class competitors.