The Predictions of Punxsutawney Phil: An Empirical Study
Punxsutawney Phil is, perhaps, the most famous rodent in the world. For over a century, the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania has celebrated the tradition of observing how their mascot, an actual groundhog named Phil, emerges from his home and (sometimes) flees from his shadow. If Phil flees, 6 more weeks of winter; otherwise, an early spring.
But is Phil a good weatherman? In this blog entry, I’ll do my own statistical analysis on this paradoxical prognosticator. Full disclosure: my middle name is Phil, named after the famed Groundhog Ambassador from Punxsutawney (he is also my father. And before you ask, the groundhog was named Pete when my father was born – so technically the rodent was named Phil after my dad.)
Making Eggnog Lattes From Scratch: My Recipe
They say everything tastes better if you make it yourself. Well if that’s the case, then perhaps this is greatest beverage on earth. This holiday season, I’ve been developing my own eggnog latte recipe. Homemade ‘nog, brewed with own espresso machine, with my home roasted beans.
There are about a million eggnog recipes out there, but mine is probably the only one that is customized for lattes. Here it is:
Andy’s Latte ‘Nog
In my opinion, the key to a good eggnog latte is to keep it light but not thin. If you’re buying eggnog for making a latte, the light ‘nog will steam better and work with the espresso. Most eggnog recipes you’ll find are very heavy (and calorific!), and don’t work well with espresso. This one is a lot lighter while still using real eggs.
The Bizarre Bazaar: Misconceptions of Open Source
Open source software is a strange thing. Often described as a bazaar-like marketplace of innovation, open source software has gained a lot of traction in the last decade. But with its success has come a lot of myths. Let’s settle some of those myths here.
Myth: Open source is just an academic pipe dream.
This was a more prevalent argument 10 years ago. Today, all I have to do is point out that open source software is everywhere. Mozilla Firefox is one of world’s most popular web browsers. A huge proportion of the Internet’s websites are run by products like Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Tomcat, WordPress, and Java. Google’s Android platform is becoming one of the biggest platforms for mobile devices today. Software developers themselves use a plethora of open source software tools and libraries, the most famous is probably Eclipse. Open source is so ubiquitous, you’d be hard-pressed to argue it’s not relevant.
But What Does It All Mean?? The Semantic Web & Metadata
Thinking about the Semantic Web is a lot like looking at a double rainbow all the way across the sky… what does it mean?? As I’m sure we’ve all recognized, the Internet is bursting at the seams with information. Some information comes in the form of human-readable content, sometimes it’s computer-readable data. The problem, though, is that tons of data on the internet isn’t nearly as useful because a computer cannot understand how it’s all interrelated.
The Semantic Web is an idea set to bring a higher level of semantics to the internet. The concept is all about structuring data to be both human-readable and machine-readable.
Fun With Numerology: White Elephant Gifting Patterns
Ever notice an interesting number pattern and think, what are the odds of that happening? For example, I kept noticing when the odometer on my car would read a palindrome (e.g. 142241). What are the odds of that happening?
Turns out – about once every thousand miles.
The fact is, though, our brains are wired for pattern recognition. What we don’t realize is that the number of patterns we would recognize are much larger than we are aware of, significantly raising the chances we run into a pattern. This is the foundation of numerology – the study of the significance of patterns. Read the rest of this entry »