Month: February 2018
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Shared today on Twitter
Honestly, Google, these two situations annoy me every. single. day. Is consistency too much to ask for? Isn’t it *more* work to make different UI patterns for the same functionality in every app? 😭 https://t.co/chmuCgrwKh
RT @NodeGirlsSydney: Only few days to go for NodeGirls workshop! And such a huge thanks from us to @LookaheadSearch to jumping on board in…
HUGE crowd for #wawsydney as @shermozle kicks things off! https://t.co/BPY5gH23Km
Rather depressing start as @shermozle outlines the state of online publishing and journalism, as well as the ways we try to measure engagement. #wawsydney https://t.co/TkKyzBmN0U
Impressive panel for #wawsydney! @FairfaxMedia, @NewsLifeMedia, @newsroomly, and @Oneflare all represented. https://t.co/v2artv8faf
For a non-editorial focused business like @Oneflare, useful content metrics are around organic search engine ranking and conversion from landing pages. #wawsydney
Ahhh, @shermozle just asked about AMP, which is my current bugbear. So many walled gardens: Facebook, AMP, Snapchat stories, Apple Instant stories… I miss the Open Web. 😕 #wawsydney
One of the biggest measurement challenges is when the user comes through digital but the business conversion happens offline (confirming that it actually happened). No easy solutions. #wawsydney
“Dashboards are the Yahoo of metrics and analysis.” Ouch. It was intended as exactly the insult you think. Dashboards are dying, says the panel. #wawsydney 🔥
@autiomaa Don’t worry – someone from the audience is arguing the point now. 🙂
@JSicarii I’ve got a question if there is an opportunity!!
@MoeMKiss I’ve got a question if there’s an opportunity! Simon can’t see me. 😂
@MoeMKiss THANK YOU!!!!
I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask how these publishers are dealing with “zero UI” interfaces like Google Home. They all seem excited about potential, but how to track is a different story… #wawsydney @WAWSydney https://t.co/59cjtorcqD
The @yow_conf Data call for presentations is here! https://t.co/OgDDW2upLv We’d ❤️ to have you on stage talking about data, analysis, and ML! #wawsydney @WAWSydney
Watching Queer Eye, and it appears that my love of kitsch does, in fact, have limits. 😳 https://t.co/AQ2iYfclYv https://t.co/ygTpTQ64b2
The @virginaustralia lounge attendant made my day by pointing out I could switch to exit row for free. 😍 #ffnoob https://t.co/bRSXNMVAY6 https://t.co/9WDtagJY7x
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Shared today on Twitter
RT @tanyaxshort: As an event-runner, I understand it can be frustrating when people say diverse speaker lineups are ‘easy’, given how it fa…
One of my local tech inspirations @roisinparkes from @GumtreeAu! ❤️ https://t.co/srvtXBW6Fb
RT @kirstinferguson: I love being on the Advisory Panel of @shestarts and tonight I will be “speed mentoring” with the latest round of bril…
Such great buzz and energy as @nic_hazell wraps up the #SheStarts Mentoring session! Thanks @BlueChilliGroup for bringing us together. https://t.co/fV5YEJR5cK
@crankymate SILICON VALLEY TELL-ALL?! I am here for it!! I’ll be your agent. 😂
@thecolourfool Absolutely.
@randomknits Awwwwwwww!! 🐶❤️
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Shared today on Twitter
@maciejwalkowiak @starbuxman This isn’t a very helpful thing to say. You’re not giving new folks any context for the opinion, just slamming a tool. I know what you’re going for, but please reconsider buying in to contempt culture.
I almost wish I hadn’t seen @aurynn’s talk contempt culture last year, because now I see it everywhere and it depresses the hell out of me. https://t.co/cgNARiM5dH
@JM77 You could just command-shift-T to bring it back though?
Such geeks. 😂 #drwho @justosophy https://t.co/VfiXBuhv7B
Learning about graph traversal from Joshua Yu from @neo4j. Thanks @teamansarada for hosting! #graphdb https://t.co/miA192epbp
TIL that the founder of @neo4j was a big fan of the Matrix. Learning about APOC, a package of 300 awesome user defined procedures on Cypher… #graphdb https://t.co/NWq2A9DpY4
@Xavier_Ho Huh, nope! Had brandy and nutmeg on top?!
Learning quite a lot about graph databases. Good demo from Joshua at @neo4j! #graphdb https://t.co/njdAgCYXG2
Heh. For technical questions, Joshua recommends stackoverflow. 😂 #graphdb https://t.co/RsYDsiv51m
@FourRedShoes Seen it. Really excellent. 🙂
@knitterjp @evanderkoogh What he said!
@jesstelford @johnallsopp There aren’t many left. @GGDSydney gave up and moved to Meetup, as did FPSyd. Then you’ve just got the more ad hoc events like @webdirections WDYK and @yow_conf Nights.
Weekly Meetup Wrap – February 18, 2018 – three data-focused meetups with talks from @rachelpedreschi, @FPHeld, @orchyluke, @AstroHyde! https://t.co/3ixFloMiKV
@lottejackson Whoa. 😍
@chrisgander @awesomentl @newcastleherald There’s already one in Sydney! Rodd went there on a team outing recently: https://t.co/XVsbgcQv6z
@gilmae That’s a good reason. I can think of lots more. That original tweet made me mad, as you can imagine. 🙂
@gilmae I would guess that fully 50% of your tweets are subtweets. 😂I’m just annoyed I didn’t catch that one when it happened. Probably better that I didn’t as I was able to let go of my rage.
@inetaborigine @yow_conf @Amys_Kapers @evanderkoogh @samnewman @Mandy_Kerr Hey, I’ll be there from Thursday too! If drinks or lunch or something happen, let me know. 🙂
RT @yow_conf: One of our fave #DataQuality talks from @markhibberd at #yowsg: https://t.co/I0QE5xC5VY
Don’t forget to join fellow data pro…
@chrisgander @awesomentl @newcastleherald You’re not allowed to drink while throwing though – that part comes after. Safety first!
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Weekly Meetup Wrap – February 18, 2018
Another week with three more meetups! They’re all data-focused as I’m trying to get the word out about the YOW! Data Call for Presentations, which closes on March 18th.
The first was Sydney Cassandra Users, which had a special guest speaker all the way from the US – Rachel Pedreschi from GridGain!
Rachel gave us a thorough introduction to Apache Ignite – an open source caching layer that can sit on top of Cassandra. (She admitted that it’s also a database in its own right.) Not many of us were familiar with it, so it was great to get a tour from someone who knows it very well.
My second meetup of the week is one that I’ve been keen to check out from the first time I saw its inventive acronym: SURF (Sydney Users of R Forum). The speaker was Dr. Fabian Held from Sydney Uni speaking about using R for network analysis.
I found this fascinating. (You can read his whole talk here.) Dr. Held pointed out that research has shown your social network can influence your probability of being obese or having certain diseases. By mapping the relationships in the network, we can analyse it in some interesting ways. The tool used in the demos was tidygraph, an API for graph manipulation.
One of my favourite takeaways from the talk was of the existence of Zachary’s Karate Club. This was a real social club studied by researcher Wayne W. Zachary in the 70’s and the data set of relationships is available for for you play with. It’s a bit of a meme among scientists who study networks. How delightfully obscure!
My last meetup of the week was Sydney Machine Learning at the AWS offices in Sydney. I remember attending this one just after it started a year ago – it’s a huge group now!
The first speaker was Luke Metcalfe of Microburbs talking about what data science is, what makes a good data scientist, and how to hire and motivate good ones. I especially liked some of his advice for getting into data science: “Good data beats the best model.”
The second talk was Dr. Elaina Hyde, an astrophysicist and consultant at Servian. As a dyed-in-the-wool space geek, this was definitely my favourite talk of the week. Dr. Hyde talked about using data science techniques in her analysis of the Sagittarius Stream. It was fascinating!
Other Stuff
- There was an interesting discussion on Twitter last week about engineers being “on call” for support. John Barton wrote a nice summary of the debate here as well as the approach he takes with his teams.
- What’s your view on the AMP letter? For what it’s worth, I tend to agree with Tim Kadlec. I think giving some search engine juice to pages that are secure and load quickly is a good idea… but it needs to be based on a objective measure, not use of a single tool.
- YOW!’s speaker development program for women in tech has launched for 2018! We have rebranded it as New Voices in Tech (as it’s not really about competition) and it’s open to all women in Australia. If you are selected, you’ll receive a full day of speaker training with Damian Conway (who is amazing). Well worth entering if you want to learn to be a better speaker!
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Shared today on Twitter
Finished sewing my fifth pair of shorts for the summer, and they’re the best. AND I documented every step of the process! Epic blog post incoming. Sneak peek… https://t.co/ECCkm52pZs
@tesshilsob Yep – writing a post right now about how I made it!
RT @SheerJenius: “I love your outfit!”
Thanks! It has pockets! 😊 https://t.co/nhWRilMNy6
Making continuous bias tape and piping – aka SEWING FUN WITH GEOMETRY! https://t.co/Ao5R6pNeL3 Blog post with full details is here: https://t.co/gmHyHYDWO0
RT @i386: Thanks @Atlassian for supporting the Sydney Fair Day #MardiGras2018 #voteyes https://t.co/Tb7tPpxXfr
@randomknits Super cute!
@gilmae Excellent.
@LoopdiLou Right? I love that it’s really about masculinity, and making it okay for men to share their feelings and take care of themselves, and just thinking about it makes me cry.
Summer of Shorts! I’ve made FIVE pairs of shorts this summer. Check out my blog for the full details… https://t.co/mcMcd122Mr https://t.co/W1DJxmdkfw
And here’s the blog post with more info… https://t.co/MWnRomM5Vu
The Snook just presented me with a “Venus De Milo,” proving that you can, in fact, make a cocktail with malted chocolate powder. 😂 https://t.co/cTZw7qNZiM https://t.co/ciTpup9n18
@betsybookworm 😂😂😂👏
@betsybookworm Actually it’s pretty strong, so I reckon I’ll end up legless.
@JodiMcA (Toe pick!)
@TheRealBnut @themaninblue @nartress @nikyoudale @jeamesbone @Astarael But where?!
RT @developerjack: Actually quite disgusted at @LiberalAus signage at #MardiGras40 #FairDay today! This is beyond bad taste. https://t.co/h…
@MichelePlayfair @knitterjp @legenny Shared it myself on the weekend! 😂
