This guide really shows what I think is a big problem with a lot of Node guides, they don't go beyond the first 5 minutes.
There are a ton of guides on how to set up a webserver in 20 lines, but hardly any on how to (properly) handle a lot of async callbacks and requests etc.
It's hard to cover many aspects of it when we talked about getting our feet wet. I try to include as few terms as possible that potentially confused people to start coding Nodejs-MongoDB. It's probably a big problem when you try to get your feet wet on the first day you learn about swimming just by jumping all over the pool. But then, hopefully, we learn.
I'm not sure that both Node.js and MongoDB appeal beginners.
These 2 tools are reserved for people who exactly know what they want out of their tools, not for someone who just jumped in to "web development" and wanted to use buzzword compliant tools.
Sorry for being such a snippy on Monday morning but I'm hoping people around me would become better at fundamental as opposed to combining tools w/o knowing what they're good for.
... and this is a good thing? as opposed to learn proper RDBMS first and learn the lingo of NoSQL (document vs key-value vs column-oriented)?
But I digress, people have different experience. I've seen projects got burned many times by beginners who have lacked of understanding of RDBMS and you may have entirely different experience where your project shines because of MongoDB.
Going into how to handle a lot of async callbacks/requests would be entirely different subject matter, would it not? The blog post is titled "Nodejs and MongoDB, A Beginner’s Approach" and that's the subject matter it tackles.
Agree with this. Was disappointed the guide didn't delve into asynchronous even at a basic level. This is what makes nodejs and mongodb worth using and I don't think the concepts are overly difficult to grasp.
I'm currently a student (in Holland), and I've been to a few recruitment fairs and if I were to get an email or see a flyer about another one I would probably not even read it. Most recruitment fairs are just terrible. Companies will send the prettiest girls they can find in their HR and PR departments with the sole goal of getting your contact info plus some buzzwords so they can add those to their database. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against pretty girls, but they're not actually interested in me as a person nor do they have a lot of knowledge about the company which usually makes recruitment fairs a big waste of time.
On campus presentations on the other hand are a fantastic way of putting yourself on the radar. I don't mean the recruitment fairs that some Uni's will have on campus, but rather smaller events. I recently went to the final presentation of a phd project and there were 4-5 companies giving a short talk what they did in that field and afterwards they had stands with demos and the actual people who get their hands dirty were there to talk to you (extensively). To me the latter (where it's directly related to a topic I might be interested in) is much more interesting and inspiring than some impersonal recruitment fair.
"the European system"? The systems in individual European countries are about as different from each other as any of them are different from the US system.
One attempt to somewhat align the different European systems for higher education was the ECTS [1], but even that isn't quite perfect..
According to this[1] data Honeycomb is <2% of used Android versions. With the versions that 98% of the devices run being open I'd say it's a bit more than just touting about it..
Why did they even bother, then? That info makes this whole thing less understandable to me, not more.
Edit: Actually, that's beside the point. I think the reason they made Honeycomb is because they thought a lot of people would buy Android tablets, because a lot of people were buying iPads. But they were wrong about that.
I'm just saying, if they did it this way one time, there's no guarantee they won't do it again. How "open" it is, is really subject to Google's whim.
"Unsettling" might be a overstating it a bit. The first slideshow[1] explains (on slide 38, Limitations) that face recognition techniques still have a long way to go. More clearly stated on slide 39:
"Face recognition of everyone/everywhere/all the time is not yet feasible.
However: Current technological trends suggest that most current limitations will keep fading over time"
However: Current technological trends suggest that most current limitations will keep fading over time
I'd say that is pretty unsettling, but then I worry about privacy. Given how facial recognition has advanced in the last 5 years, it's plausible that you could have an Android app to do their SSN trick with, say, 50% accuracy in the next couple of years - certainly 5.
No that really isn't plausible. Read their original SSN prediction paper [1] and you will see that the highest they got their SSN prediction (with < 1000 attempts, which is quite a few) was 8.5% for SSN's assigned after 1988. For 1979-1988 that number was 0.8%. Only in the smallest states with issuance after 1996 do they get their best numbers of +60% matches.
That's only the SSN portion. When you add in the facial recognition, the requirement of a facebook account with pictures and a correlation to place of birth, you're going to see those numbers plummet.
At best this is a clever hack that highlights the risks inherent with publicizing your life on places like facebook.
You're still only talking about current technical limitations though. Cameras are getting better, the recognition is getting better, and the trend is for people to have more and more information publicly available online. Maybe it won't happen in 5 years, but I can't see how it won't happen relatively soon.
I think you're missing the fundamental limitation of this: the SSN identification.
Even if I give you the ability to go from picture to real name (which to many is still fairly jarring) given only "open" databases at 100% accuracy you still can't come near your 50% mark. The leap from real name and place of birth to SSN is the limiting factor, and the reason for this is the randomness inherent in the assignment of the last 4 digits of one's social security number. Given the ability to guess > 10% of that range (they have access to all SSNs who are deceased as well), the researchers could still get only 8% nationwide accuracy on recent SSNs.
You would need a fundamental change in that algorithm to get close to the numbers you want. This isn't a technological limitation, it's a algorithmic limitation, and you can't really put time frames on these kinds of breakthroughs.
Remember that this is done using clear full-frontal pictures, FRT drop significantly in accuracy with even the smallest change in angle. Not to mention sunglasses, (facial) hair obscuring parts of the face and different lighting conditions.
Current techniques that try to deal with such variation need several (clear) pictures from different angles to build a model of a face to be able to recognize a face.
I'd go with decades rather than years before the limitations mentioned are resolved.
Try installing Picasa and spend a little time tagging your family photos. It's a little startling how good it is. It consistently tags me regardless of whether I have a beard or my glasses in any given picture. Likewise, it quickly IDed my parents in 40 year old family photos that they scanned and sent, based on recent images. Mrs. Browl and I enjoy photography as a hobby, I'm pretty sure Google could ID either of us with 90%+ accuracy from a photo taken on the street. With Facebook you have both the computers and the crowdsourcing at work, so their tagging may be even better.
I don't have iPhoto, but I'm a little scared by how good Picasa is. I have about a prosumer level of knowledge - not enough to develop image-processing SW, but enough to enjoy reading SIGgraph papers.
They fund a lot of things, but yes, I don't think I'd like to be on the receiving end of "You bear a distinct resemblance to someone we'd like to explode."
Current technological trends suggest that most current limitations will keep fading over time"
That may be so, but history and theory both tell us that the remaining issues (after eliminating "most current limitations") are going to be hard-ass bugs that prevent the technology from actually working, and that isn't even accounting for the Red Queen Syndrome.
I would've loved to hear some more from Harj, he got some good questions in but it seemed to me he had a hard time actually hearing the interviewees (and vica versa). Plus Paul's enthusiasm probably didn't make it easier to get a question in (not meant as critique towards Paul).
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It's really interesting and it has to potential to transfer a lot of startup/business related knowledge in a short amount of time. But it could definitely be optimized (better seating arrangement/better sound). Perhaps it takes away some of the spontaneity, but picking more suitable startups beforehand and perhaps a 5min briefing for the interviewers so you can get to the point more quickly would go a long way.
I've done a bit of research on how to transfer expertise and I feel that this (public office hours) really is an effective way to do just that, you can learn a lot from this, even if you're not the interviewee.
I have yet to find any research that shows that censoring would have the desired effect, which to me shows how dangerous politicians can be. Proposing such extreme measures based on gut feelings rather than sound research could seriously blow up in their face.
