10 Saturday Jan 2015
Posted in Data Science, Machine Learning
A great info sheet from http://www.shivonzilis.com/
Larger version of this can be found at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qobt07e9skpk1z2/Machine_Intelligence_Landscape_12-10-2014.png?dl=0
09 Friday Jan 2015
Posted in Programming
Tags
The BBC has announced a novel way to bring coding/programming to youngsters ( following the latest UK Governments initiative to bring the next generation of IT professionals)
Using a Time Lord and their most dangerous adversary to teach 6 to 12 year old’s how to code.
The BBC has unveiled a computer game called The Doctor and the Dalek, as part of the Make it Digital initiative to get more young people into computer coding.
It is voiced by Peter Capaldi and the story, starring a friendly Dalek, is written by Doctor Who series writer Phil Ford.
A browser game playable over the internet, it is aimed at six to 12-year-olds.
The coding challenges are linked to the curriculum and can be mapped against Key Stage 2 and 3 learning outcomes.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29645991
Going forward the BBC have plans to increase their footprint of bringing knowledge to the next generation under their “Make It Digital” initiative.
Alongside these BBC Learning projects we have some exciting children’s programmes coming out this Autumn that will help inspire our youngest audiences to discover the digital world and to take their journeys of digital discovery further. Dick & Dom’s Absolute Genius will become Appsolute Genius, Technobabble will look at the technology which will shape children’s lives, and Nina and the Neurons will go digital.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2014/computing-coding
I have been using this with my kids to teach them some of the basics of coding and they have found the gameplay linked in with the coding tasks enjoyable. It was good to see them working round the problems presented to try and reduce the amount of commands used to match or beat the targets set.
Yes I did do the challenges myself and also enjoyed it.
If you want to play the game you can find “The Doctor and the Dalek” at http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/doctor-who-game
There is a lot of rising opportunities for the younger generations to now learn coding and computing from an early age. The UK Government has included a national curriculum for Key Stage 1 and 2.
The curriculum is available at http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/primary_national_curriculum_-_computing.pdf
This move should bolster entrants into the IT Industry in the future and more choosing it as a career, however also drive towards the Era of the Contextual Web. This generation of young people will develop key skills at an early age that they can just create the tools and applications that they need when they want them. Maybe they wont spend much time playing the xBox or Playstation, but coding them instead.
The next level of Innovation and entrepreneurship may just come from a 10-11 year old.
08 Thursday Jan 2015
Posted in Programming
Tags
If you want to get into the realms of programming and coding by learning a language or learn a new language, then this infographic from carlcheo.com is a good place to start.
(Click diagram for a larger version)
PDF Version available at: http://cdn3.carlcheo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/which-programming-language-should-i-learn-first-pdf.pdf
Comparing coding languages as characters from Lord of the Rings, rating them on difficulty, popularity and use gives an interesting overview of each.
There are also useful links on the site (http://carlcheo.com/startcoding) to a series of training courses, books and tutorials (of which a lot are free resources) based on
Linking this with some other training recommendations by searching on http://stackoverflow.com you will be well on the way to learning your next language.
Source: http://carlcheo.com/startcoding
07 Wednesday Jan 2015
Posted in DevOps/OpsDev
Tags
In one of my researching “DevOps and current state in the marketplace” moments, I came across these 4 drawings by Nhan Ngo (Engineer at Spotify) – (Distributed under a Creative Commons licence), that she created whilst reading a book called “Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler))”
Source link at the bottom of the post in case these versions don’t work well for you.
Source http://continuousdelivery.com/2014/02/visualizations-of-continuous-delivery/
06 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in Development
Tags
After a recent conversation with someone who works in the Dental Industry on development and learning, I learnt that they have to complete a number of CPD (Continuing Professional Development) hours a year and a minimum number over a 5 year period. Following this I carried out a short investigation into the amount CPD requirements that were recommended across different industries picking on some of most obvious top of the head ones.
Most of these are from professional bodies that people in those industries can join, some are a must join such as medical professions and there is a mandatory requirement to do the CPD or you will be struck off, or no requirement to join and therefore no requirement to complete the number of CPD hours required by that body.
In the world of IT there is no requirement to join a professional body nor to carry out a number of required CPD hours a year.
There is no right answer to the number of hours that you should be performing, however looking at other industries and especially those in the Project Management space which is a role that works closely with Architects – 30-40 hours annually is a good figure to aim for.
I would suggest that the wrong answer though is not doing any hours.
So what type of CPD should someone be doing? Some industries split this into Verifiable and Non-Verifiable. Attending a workshop, webinar, Lunch and Learn would be classed as Verifiable as your attendance can be recorded. Non-Verifiable would be something like read an article on a web page.
The BCS (British Computer Society) have a view around the different types of CPD http://interact.bcs.org/cpd/Types%20of%20CPD.pdf which contains a number of categories and measures for learning. This is based around a core CPD Cycle. Although there is no set number of hours for the BCS to gain accreditation and membership you do need to show learning and development annually.
So why bother with CPD?
This is easy to answer in that if you don’t, others are! Planning an amount of CPD a year will help to keep you fresh and current within your field.
I would be interested in views from others on what is the right level of CPD to achieve annually. As such I have created a survey to ask some questions and collect some answers
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FGWF9JS
I will run the survey for a while then publish the results in this blog when collated.
sources:
http://www.sra.org.uk/faqs/cpd/How-many-hours-of-CPD-do-I-need-to-do-.page
http://www.cim.co.uk/cpd/CPDCharteredMarketer/EarningCPDhours.aspx
http://www.gdc-uk.org/Dentalprofessionals/CPD/Pages/cpdrequirements.aspx
http://www.rics.org/uk/regulation1/compliance1/continuing-professional-development-cpd/
http://www.apm.org.uk/CPD
05 Monday Jan 2015
Posted in Data Science
Tags
O’Reilly released a free downloadable report a while back that presents the results of a survey of Data Scientists across the industry – circa 250 respondents. The report looks at a list of skills and classifies Data Scientists into 4 main categories:
Under each of these headings the roles are defined as:
As an Architect I can see a fit to the “Jack of All Trades” box, however I think that there is a reach across the Researcher, Creative and Businessperson categories if we were to be classed. However as an Architect it is important to understand the skills that a Data Scientist needs across these areas as going forward there will be more opportunities to work side by side with Data Scientists in solutions and architectures.
The report gives a list of skills that a Data Scientist has under each classification of Data Scientist
ML = Machine Learning
OR = Operations Research
From reading other reports this is by no means a full list of skills but provides a good insight into what a Data Scientist needs in their skills bag.
The report then looks at typical tasks that would be covered by each category and splits these into 22 core tasks across 5 main tasks.
The visualisation below illustrates the results showing the skills and tasks across each Data Scientist type to show a percentage of skill that is needed.
Overall a good report giving a highlight of the business areas and skills of a Data Scientist
Report Source
Analyzing the Analyzers
An Introspective Survey of Data Scientists and Their Work
http://www.oreilly.com/data/free/analyzing-the-analyzers.csp
04 Sunday Jan 2015
Posted in Productivity, Tools
Tags
Back on the subject of paper based tools today as one of the tools that I use has just had its 2015 release – the Chronodex by Patrick Ng. This is released in two halves and is available as a download for the first half of 2015. (You will need a printer after downloading and some assembly).
The format of the Chronodex is meant for the Midori Traveller Notebook style of (http://www.midori-japan.co.jp/tr/english/) but you don’t need one of these to use it.
Upon first glance it looks a bit quirky and hard to use, but once you get used to the format of the Chronodex it does become an interesting tool to use. A bit different from a normal day to a page diary with times down the side.
Using shading, colours or other types of marking you can block out parts of the Chronodex for tasks/appointments and add keys or words alongside the areas filled out.
Available to download from http://scription.typepad.com/blog/2015/01/chronodex-weekly-planner-jan-jun-2015-released.html More detailed instructions for use are available on Patricks blog.
Or download directly from http://goo.gl/F43vWc
There are lot of other versions/sizes of the Chronodex available via all good search engines.
02 Friday Jan 2015
Posted in Productivity
Tags
People spend a lot of time behind electronic devices these days communicating with others through various forms of apps and social media. Have you ever stopped to think how many people you have actually spoken to face to face rather than through a GUI?
I thought it may be useful to call out a Networking Tool that may help you record your daily interactions and think about who you have networked over the past week. This is a tool that anyone can use.
The tool is from a chap called “David Seah” who has several other productivity tools available, but this one is called the “Network Catch-O_Matic”. Primarily created as a sales and marketing tool, it can be use to capture and build up your interactions.
Yes this is a Paper based tool but sometimes the simplest things are the best.
How to use the form from the authors Website:-
The Network Catch-o-Matic is a simple counting form. Along the top is a row of 50 bubbles, each representing a person. As you encounter people during various periods of the day/week, fill in the number of people you would think of approaching. For salespeople, this would be the people on your prospect list, or perhaps people you target at a networking event or trade show.
After you’ve tackled that, there are six more stages of interaction to engage:
There is also an area for listing the important people you have spoken with as well.
The Year Date may be wrong on the form, but the principle still holds.
Source: http://davidseah.com/blog/2006/06/the-printable-ceo-v-makin-rain/
31 Wednesday Dec 2014
Posted in Data Science
Having found myself with a bit of spare time over the Christmas Holidays, I drew the below visualisation based on the Coursera course on “The Data Scientist’s Toolbox” based on some of the key takeaways I noted down from the course.
Its a bit like the show “Catchphrase” Say what you see…..
Click the drawing to get an enlarged view.
The Data Scientists Toolbox Visualisation
19 Friday Dec 2014
Posted in Architecture, DevOps/OpsDev, Innovation
I have been looking at ways to assist me with Innovation and Thinking and looking outside of the box. Lots of different methodologies exist and there is no right or wrong way to what method to use or when to apply it.
After studying several methods in this arena and investigating, reading and learning some of these, I have come up with a set of “Playing Cards” that allow me to play games with Innovation and Thinking.
I took a pack of plain/blank playing cards and wrote out cards with different methodologies and ways of tackling/working on innovation.
The Pack is currently based on 3 models and I am looking to add a few more as I develop the pack (Other methodologies are available)
I have also added some:
How to play the game
For the problem or area that I am wanting to tackle I shuffle the pack and apply 4-5 cards then work through it based on what has been dealt.
The lens cards may be shuffled in the main pack or dealt at the side one at a time.
Set a time limit on the cards dealt and then brainstorm writing everything down.
No thought or idea is a bad idea until it is qualified in or out.
When the time is up either play a different lens card against the cards on the table – or collect them up and shuffle the deck and start again.
Results
I have found that using the cards gives me different view across different methodologies rather than just applying one.
Sometimes the cards do not result in too much on the page, but other times they flourish ideas and innovations around the problem or area I have been looking at.
Next I plan to add more methodologies to the pack and expanding the cards already produced, although I don’t think that I will expand this pack much more as it then may become cumbersome and be too large to be effective.
I do have some blank cards left though so may innovate something new around the next thing to do with them.
Max Hemingway 
