Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions Review

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(More customer reviews)"Beautiful Data" is a collection of essays on data; how people have transformed it, worked within its confines, and offers a glimpse of where we might go. Many of the essays are wonderful snippets into how some people perceive data while others fall flat. Overall its a mostly enjoyable read that helps open up your mind to new potentials.
First a disclaimer; I am not a data person. However I've been involved, fairly heavily, in the data field. In the parlance of the world, I'm a back end person. However I'm always trying to think about the front end; how will things be used and what information can we gleen from the system (or systems). With that in mind, this is a book that speaks to me - its all about the front end.
Some of the best essays in the book would be:
The first essay by Nathan Yau he talks very much about user created data and personal databases (knowledge bases). What's exciting here is how he takes data already out there, data you have provided, and creates something useful and yes, beautiful, out of it.
The Second essay by Follett and Holm really gets down to how if you want the data, you need to present it in a way that brings people into the process. As someone who has a slight crush on the statistics and practices in polling (and designing poll questions) this essay really was a fascinating read.
The third essay by Hughes detailed how he handled images on the Mars mission. There wasn't anything here that wasn't done in embedded systems 15 years ago; still it was a great walk down memory lane since I used to program embedded imaging systems.
Chapter 4 really hit home PNUTShell is cloud storage and data processing in real time. This really is the stuff of the future.
Chapter 5 by Jeff Hammerbacher really didn't offer too many insights but his writing style is fluid and fun plus he offered a glimpse into how Facebook grew.
We then have the slow section of the book - Chapter 8 on distributed social data had promise but it read more like a company white page than an interesting article. Same with Chapter 12 [...].
Thankfully chapter 10 on Radiohead's "House of Cards" video was there - and here we are presented with true beauty in data - beautiful enough to create a music video out of!
I'm still on the fence with Chapter 13 - What Data Doesn't Do. It was an interesting chapter but it felt both too long and too short at the same time. I almost felt that in the author, Coco Krumme, were to write a book on this topic, I'd want to read it. However her essay was not the right vehicle.
Finally, the last chapter - "Connecting Data" was a truly inspiring piece; one that offers up paths for the future. I am sure a few start ups will form over the questions posed in by Segaran (or maybe the questions to the questions).
Overall there were enough strengths to overcome the weak chapters. My main complaints are trivial; poor binding of the book, too many PhD candidate papers and not enough from out in the trenches. I'd love to see something from Stonebreaker here; its hard to talk about beautiful data and not have him in it. Or forget [...]and talk about many eyes. Or map reduce. Still, "Beautiful Data" succeeds. It opened up my mind to different possibilities for data representation and usage.


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In this insightful book, you'll learn from the best data practitioners in the field just how wide-ranging -- and beautiful -- working with data can be. Join 39 contributors as they explain how they developed simple and elegant solutions on projects ranging from the Mars lander to a Radiohead video. With Beautiful Data, you will:

Explore the opportunities and challenges involved in working with the vast number of datasets made available by the Web
Learn how to visualize trends in urban crime, using maps and data mashups
Discover the challenges of designing a data processing system that works within the constraints of space travel
Learn how crowdsourcing and transparency have combined to advance the state of drug research
Understand how new data can automatically trigger alerts when it matches or overlaps pre-existing data
Learn about the massive infrastructure required to create, capture, and process DNA data

That's only small sample of what you'll find in Beautiful Data. For anyone who handles data, this is a truly fascinating book. Contributors include:
Nathan Yau Jonathan Follett and Matt Holm J.M. Hughes Raghu Ramakrishnan, Brian Cooper, and Utkarsh Srivastava Jeff Hammerbacher Jason Dykes and Jo Wood Jeff Jonas and Lisa Sokol Jud Valeski Alon Halevy and Jayant Madhavan Aaron Koblin with Valdean Klump Michal Migurski Jeff Heer Coco Krumme Peter Norvig Matt Wood and Ben Blackburne Jean-Claude Bradley, Rajarshi Guha, Andrew Lang, Pierre Lindenbaum, Cameron Neylon, Antony Williams, and Egon Willighagen Lukas Biewald and Brendan O'Connor Hadley Wickham, Deborah Swayne, and David Poole Andrew Gelman, Jonathan P. Kastellec, and Yair Ghitza Toby Segaran

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A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming Review

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(More customer reviews)Understanding how we know about climate, and even what it means to know about climate and climate change, is essential if we are to have an informed debate. This is far and away the best book I have read on the infrastructure behind our knowledge of climate change, how that infrastructure developed, and how the infrastructure shapes our understanding.
The story begins in the 1600s as systematic collection of weather data began (at least in the modern period, other cultures such as the Chinese have older records and it would be interesting to unearth these, although the data normalization issues would be extreme). It picks up speed in the 19th C with global trade and then the telegraph. The more data collected, and the more data is exchanged, the more important it becomes to normalize data for comparison. Normalization requires some form of data model, a theory that makes the data meaningful. Indeed, this is Edwards point, all data about weather and climate only becomes meaningful in the context of a model (this is of course generally true).
Work accelerated during WW2 and then exploded in the 50s and 60s as computers became more available. The role played by John Von Neumann in this is fascinating, as is the nugget that his second wife Klara Von Neumann taught early weather scientists how to program (there is a whole hidden history of the role of woman in developing computer programming that needs to be written - or if you know of one please add it to the comments of this review or tweet it to me @StevenForth).
Edwards also introduces some useful concepts such as Data Friction and Computational Friction. I think my company can apply these in its own work, so for me this has been a very practical text.
Modern models of climate are complex and are growing more so. They have to be to integrate data from multiple sources. One of the main lines of evidence for climate change is that data from many different sources are converging to suggest that climate change is a real and accelerating phenomena. One can meaningfully ask if this convergence is an artifact of the models, although this appears unlikely given the diversity of the data and models. But Edwards shows that it is idiotic to claim that the data and the models can be meaningfully separated. This is true in all science and not just climate science. A theory is a model to normalize and integrate data and to uncover and make meaningful relations between disparate data. That these models are now expressed numerically in computations, rather than as differential equations or sentences in a human language or drawings is one of the major shifts of the information age. It will be interesting to dig deeper into the formal relations between these diffferent modeling languages.

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The science behind global warming, and its history: how scientistslearned to understand the atmosphere, to measure it, to trace its past, and to modelits future.

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Making More Wooden Mechanical Models Review

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(More customer reviews)The authors have done it again, an inspirational book for woodworkers. Their are 13 designs of maechanisms which can be made in a workshop with basic woodworking tools. They tell you what they are and how they work. The projects range from easy to make to a little more difficult. They give you working drawings and templates, picture to show you step by step procedure, suggestions for choosing the wood, and each project is beautifully photographed which will inspire you to get started on such projects as a Steam Crank Mechanism,Wheel and Worm Gear Mechanism and more. These projects and the ones in their previous book would make great teaching aids for those who teach mechanical design. The one criticizm I have is that I am accustomed to working with dimentional drawings and not templates.This book is a pleasure just to page through and even a greater pleasur to get started on one of the machines and see it develop from scratch and then to operate it.

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Mechanical models are always a favorite at woodworkingshows, catching the attention of countless woodworkers who like tomake these ingenious pieces come alive. Despite their seeminglyelaborate configurations, these projects are surprisingly simple tomake following this guide's complete step-by-step instructions.Everyproject features a full-color close up of the drawings, cutting listsand special tips for making difficult steps easier.

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Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is not intended as a comprehensive/blow-by-blow tutorial. It is a part of o'reilly's new 'notebook' series which is intended as a VERY brief intro to a new technology for experienced developers.
This book is for folks who are pretty experienced with Java and databases, and its intention is to provide a very high-level fast-paced into to hibernate.
In my opinion, it does these things well. I've got about 9 years experience with Java, and about 15 years with SQL/databases, and about 15 years commercial development experience. I've never used hibernate, and I decided to use it in a project. I'm in a HUGE hurry, and I needed to get up to speed FAST. This book got me there. In this sense, I think the book succeeds very well.
There are plenty of spots where I needed additional help, and a quick web search or a quick jump out to hibernates reference documentation (hibernate.org) was all that was required.
This book does what it intends. If you need hand-holding, detailed instructions, or in-depth tutorials, find another book. (And as far as I know, there aren't any).
:)

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Do you enjoy writing software, except for the database code? Hibernate:A Developer's Notebook is for you.

Database experts may enjoy fiddling with SQL, but you don't have to--the rest of the application is the fun part. And even database experts dread the tedious plumbing and typographical spaghetti needed to put their SQL into a Java program. Hibernate: A Developers Notebook shows you how to use Hibernate to automate persistence: you write natural Java objects and some simple configuration files, and Hibernate automates all the interaction between your objects and the database.You don't even need to know the database is there, and you can change from one database to another simply by changing a few statements in a configuration file.

Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook walks you through the ins and outs of using Hibernate, from installation and configuration, to complex associations and composite types. Two chapters explore ways to write sophisticated queries, which you can express either through a pure Java API, or with an SQL-inspired, but object-oriented, query language. Don't let that intimidate you though: one of the biggest surprises in working with Hibernate is that for many of the common real-world application scenarios, you don't need an explicit query at all.

If you've needed to add a database backend to your application, don't put it off.It's much more fun than it used to be, and Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook shows you why.

Here's what a few reviewers had to say:

"I'm sitting on an airplane after finishing Hibernate: A Developer's Notebook.It's rare to find a book on a new Java technology that you can get through on a domestic flight.That this notebook effectively and succinctly tackles object-relational mapping makes it, and Hibernate, even more impressive.Many books in this category would need to be checked luggage.With this book, you travel first class." --Mike Clark

"A simple persistence framework deserves a simple book, and this one delivers. The examples are well described and easy to understand, yet sophisticated enough to demonstrate Hibernate in a real-world context. Jim, I'm a new fan."--Bruce Tate

About the new Developer's Notebook Series from O'Reilly: Developer's Notebooks are a new book series covering important new tools for software developers.Developer's Notebooks stress example over explanation and practice over theory. They are about learning by doing; by experimenting with tools and discovering what works."All lab, no lecture," with a thoughtful lab partner to guide the way.

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Dynamic Models in Biology Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an excellent book for students or faculty interested in learning more about the current state of the art in modeling of biological systems. The authors make a great effort to keep the mathematical sophistication at a level that students (or faculty) who primarily have a biological background will still be able to follow in some detail. They are also able to suggest some of the exciting current areas of research and new areas for the future. All in all, well worth reading if you are interested in the topic of modeling of biological systems.

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Starting Out with Java: From Control Structures through Data Structures (2nd Edition) (Gaddis Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)If you're new to programming and are considering which book to buy, it is essential to consider that many good books (such as Head First Java, Core Java, Just Java, and The Java Tutorial) are meant for experienced programmers who need insight into Java's more complicated concepts. These aren't textbooks for students. But Tony Gaddis's books are, and this book is no exception; in fact, it is the best Java textbook I have ever bought. This book is loaded with examples, exercises, case studies, and projects. It has everything from loops to linked lists, and it does not neglect GUIs by placing GUI topics to an optional section at the end of the chapter or in the last chapters of the book. This book will also serve you well as a reference book and as preparation for the SCJP certificate. I have also bought Gaddis's Starting Out with C++ From Control Structures through Objects, 5th Edition, and I am quite willing to recommend, sight unseen, any book that Gaddis writes.

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Starting Out with Java: From Control Structures through Data Structures is designed to be used in a 2 or 3 semester/quarter sequence for beginning programmers.Tony Gaddis emphasizes problem-solving and program design by teaching the Java programming language through a step-by-step detailed presentation. He introduces procedural programming early and covers control structures and methods before objects.Students are engaged and have plenty of opportunity to practice using programming concepts through practical tools that include end-of-section and chapter exercises, case studies and programming projects.

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Finding One's Way With Clay: Creating Pinched Pottery and Working With Colored Clays Review

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(More customer reviews)After 25 years working in clay, I finally read Paulus Berensohn's "Finding One's Way with Clay". He describes many techniques for pinching pots, and ways to experiment with clay to create new expressions. The steps in making simple or complex hand modeled pieces are clearly explained, and I found them useful in teaching elementary art classes. There's also a thorough chapter on building a simple sawdust kiln.

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