As a follow-up to our episode on ParaViewWeb, we present visualization of the WordPress statistics for episode page views of our blog. While most listeners subscribe to our RSS feed, the blog page views provide a glimpse into the time course of episode attention. Hat tip goes to Anthony Scopatz for tracking down a method… [Read more…]
February 16, 2012
by Anthony Scopatz
Happy Birthday inSCIght! A huge thanks to all of our moderators, hosts, guests, friends, and colleagues who have helped define the podcast & scientific computing in the past year. And of course, thanks to you – the stalwart listener – who has borne with us and given us a reason to continue producing shows. Here… [Read more…]
Listen to the podcast On episode 24, we discuss ParaViewWeb, software for interative, 3D browser-based web visualization based on a client-server architecture. We go over the technologies that make this possible, including JavaScript, WebGL, Java Applets, Flex, and JSON-RPC. The role of this next-generation collabortive visualization technology is discussed along with its challenges including high-bandwidth… [Read more…]
February 5, 2012
by Anthony Scopatz
Related to a post from last week about a petition against Elsevier, the U.S. Congress House of Representatives has put forth HR 3699 – the Research Works Act (RWA). The innocuous name belies the insidious intent. This bill would severely limit the flow of scientific and technical over the internet if it was in any way associated… [Read more…]
January 29, 2012
by Anthony Scopatz
Listen to the podcast On episode 23, we discuss the ever important subject of version control. We talk about distributed vs centralized version control systems through two popular implementation: git and subversion (svn). More specifically, we go over how to partially or fully convert existing repositories to the more modern distributed paradigm. While you listen to… [Read more…]
January 27, 2012
by Anthony Scopatz
In the post-SOPA/PIPA haze, a website was recently launched called the Cost of Knowledge. This site is basically a petition for a vote-of-no-confidence against Elsevier, a major academic publisher. By signing your name to their board you promise to refrain publishing, refereeing, and/or performing editorial duties for any of Elsevier’s many journals. At the time… [Read more…]
January 18, 2012
by Anthony Scopatz
One of my friends, who is a graduate student in Math and Statistics and is a rock-solid developer besides, asked me for some advice today. They have seen posted around their university offerings for positions (presumably in other departments) for graduate students who can program. It is true; there are some savvy professors out there who want to… [Read more…]
January 8, 2012
by luisibanez
Listen to the podcast On episode 22, we discuss the response to two Request for Information (RFI) that the US Office of Science and Technology Policy has posted in order to gather feedback on how to improve Public Access to the Data and Peer-Reviewed publications resulting from Federally Funded Research. On today’s show our crew… [Read more…]
Listen to the podcast On episode 21, we discuss the cross platform build system popular in scientific computing: CMake. We cover how CMake lets developers use the tools they are the most efficient with, the origins of the CMake project, and what goes into making CMake easy to use. We also discuss new features in… [Read more…]
Listen to the podcast On episode 20, we discuss clean code. A few of the primary techniques for achieving human-readable code are tabled, including using descriptive, clear names, not mixing levels of abstraction, and code that does only one thing without side effects. An interesting discussion arises on how clean code relates to collaborative code… [Read more…]
February 23, 2012
by spidr1
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