Data Science, Big Data and Statistics – can we all live together?

A Tweet from Persontyle caught my attention about a great lecture by Terry Speed, a emeritus professor in statistics at University of California at Berkeley, published at Flowingdata. The lecture is part of the Chalmers Initiative Seminar on Big Data, that happened last March at Chalmers University of Technology. In the lecture, Terry Speed talks on how statisticians can play nice with big data and data science. He reports on some reflections on Big Data issues, offer some suggestions for statisticians, and summarize some theory some theory which, in his opinion, has relevance to the analysis of data, whoever does it. Worth Watching!

Vimeo link: http://vimeo.com/91502942

An Introduction to Linked Data

Seth Grimes's Tweet on the Sandro Hawke's video presentation caught my attention. The presentation, entitled An Introduction to Linked Data, was recorded in June 8, 2010 at the Cambridge Semantic Web Gathering, occurred at Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) in Cambridge, MA. Sandro works at World Wide Web Consortium, an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.

From a Summary: "Although the first Semantic Web standards are more than ten years old, only recently have we begun to actually see machines sharing data on the Web. The key turning point was the acceptance of the core Linked Data principle, that object identifiers should also work with Web protocols to access useful information. This talk will cover the basic concepts and techniques of publishing and using Linked Data, assuming some familiarity with programming and the Web. No prior knowledge of Semantic Web technologies is required."



The Slides of the presentation (PDF) are also available. Credits to Marco Neumann, that released the video on Vimeo.

White House 2.0

Last Friday, the White House announced in its official blog, that is expanding how the Administration is communicating with the American people, creating profiles in the three of the most important social networking sites: Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.

According the post of White House’s official blog:
“In the President’s last Weekly Address, he called on government to "recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking." He added that "we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative," and pledged to "reach beyond the halls of government" to engage the public. Today the White House is taking steps to expand how the Administration is communicating with the public, including the latest information and guidance about the H1N1 virus.

Technology has profoundly impacted how – and where – we all consume information and communicate with one another. WhiteHouse.gov is an important part of the Administration’s effort to use the internet to reach the public quickly and effectively – but it isn’t the only place.

There’s a lot to talk about right now. From an economic crisis to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the President and his Administration have a full plate – not the least of which is making sure the public stays up-to-date and involved in our efforts.”

The White House already had profiles in other sites: Flickr, Vimeo, YouTube and iTunes (videos & podcasts).

The president Barack Obama used quite a lot of the social networking during his election campaign, and it is a good initiative to continue their use to communicate with the American people.