Writing a parser in Python
This is my base pattern for writing a parser in Python by using the pyparsing library. It is slightly more complicated than a hello world in pyparsing, but I think it is more useful as a small example of writing…
When to be most careful about catching the flu?
Continuing on my blogification of Peter Norvigs excellent talk, the question is, when to watch out for the flu, e.g. if you live in Denmark? 1) Go to www.google.com/trends/ 2) Type in the word “influenza” 3) Select your geographical region…
How long is a year?
How to find out how long a year is on Earth by only analyzing text? This approach is lifted straight from an excellent and very inspiring talk by Peter Norvig. 1) Go to www.google.com/trends/ 2) Type in the word “Icecream”…
A gallery of big graphs
I like graphs. There is a gallery of big ones over at nd.edu
Tired of encoding problems in Python?
A tip: Decode early, Unicode everywhere, encode late
Geocoding Python function for PostgreSQL
Gratefully making use of what others have provided, i.e. geopy, Google and plpythonu. Type to hold result of geocoding: CREATE TYPE geocoding AS ( place text, latitude double precision, longitude double precision ); Function that does the actual geocoding (to…
Playing with GraphViz and MathGenealogy data
Math in Genealogy is a great project (donate online). Sven Köhler from Potsdam, Germany has written a python script for visualizing the database, which I’m going to try. First step is to clone the git repo: $ git clone git@github.com:tzwenn…
Gregory Palamas 1363
This stuff blows my mind. Gregory Palamas (1296–135), spelled Γρηγόριος Παλαμάς in greek, was a monk on Mount Athos, a place I’ve visited with my father two times. It is a beautiful peninsula in northern Greece, scattered with old monasteries.…
Things related to Docker
Docker is a cool idea and open-source product, that seems to be taking the tech community by storm. Wired will tell you why it is cool in a story titled The Man Who Built a Computer the Size of the…
Watched the RAMCloud video
Today I watched a video on RAMCloud. I have made an index over the various sections of the video, with direct links. You’ll find this index in the bottom of this post. “The RAMCloud project is creating a new class…