David Acevedo's Blog

We are in the middle of a computer programming languages explosion. In the last few years, a slew of programming languages have come into their own, others have been revived with new expressions and a whole bunch of them have been born anew. Also a new modality has appeared of the polyglot programmer, that is a programmer that works in multiple languages. This last change is the most significant. Because for a long time programming was dominated by a very few select group of languages: C, C++, Java and C#. All of which are related. And dominated by a tool set like Visual Studio with C# and Visual Basic. Now that is no longer the case and things are for the better. Recently I taught myself how to program and want to highlight a few books that are good reads. Most books in programming fall into a trap, that is they don't teach programming at all, but instead teach only the programming language. That's like teaching someone the rules to America Football and expecting them to a...

I recently bought myself a Math book that I'm delighted with (Mathematics 1001 by Elwes). I'm finally understanding many math concepts I had not understood in my education and I've reached an few interesting theories on how math should be taught. There should be three things that a math class should teach at the same time: 1. Memorization 2. Visual (Graph-Based) 3. Procedural (Equation-Based) 4. Historical All four are part of a whole and some students will respond better on one than the other. These are four avenues to teach the same thing by the way not three different things. Memorization should begin really early. There is no need to explain how multiplication works to have the kids start to memorize the multiplication table. The reason is not that you * need * to memorize it but  that by doing so or encouraging kids to do so, they'll be faster at doing calculations. Here are the things I think should be memorized in math: a. all the pairs of numbers that...

I've been rather bemused by the calls to increase STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) education in this country. Mostly because I think the stress is in the wrong area. The US in my opinion doesn't need any more STEM mayors. What it needs is to have the base level of understanding in those subject areas raised across all disciplines . The fact that a simple process like global warming is misunderstood and one as complex as evolution dismissed and in danger of being taught along side creationism in many states (see teach the controversy bills) are real problems. But a shortage of engineers sounds fishy to me. I can't put my finger on why exactly that is but I have a good intuition about this things and I'll trust it. One clue however is the H1-B1 program . In my former company we had software-engineers that were part of that program and I found something strange about it right away. The visa is owned by the company you work for not the individual: it is a hi...

I've always found it weird that there was no Nobel Prize for Biology. There is one for medicine, but that's not the same. Especially when you consider that the Lobotomy procedure won its creator a Nobel Prize in Medicine. The impact of not having a Nobel prize in biology is rather far reaching. Not only is the prestige such a prize brings to a institution like a University not there but lacking a Nobel prize decreases funding to areas like basic biological research and ecology that are vitally important but not directly tied to any industry. Chemistry has an industry, Physics has engineering, but non-medicine biological sciences doesn't have an industry. All this global-warming studies aren't funded by the solar-energy lobby, they're funded by Universities and grants. So a Nobel prize would really help there. Having a Biological Noble prize would help the environment which in reality helps us all. Take for example the Colony collapse of Bee hives. Research in Eu...

I was listening to NPR the other day and there was a guy talking about the importance of ants. It had never occurred to me how important they are (and how little known they are). One point stuck in my head as evolutionary important in the rise of flowering plants. Ants break down animals, plants and insect matter very quickly into smaller bits. Bits that are full of the nutrition trees need to grow. Additionally their colonies break up the earth, in a way terra-forming the land. I don't know if you're ever looked at the ground on a pine forest and a rain forest like I have, but they are very different. Pines, which shoot more or less straight up, do not much alter the surface of the ground around them, while flowering trees will litter the ground with soft flower matter, fruits and likely leaves too (there are some ever green flower trees but most are deciduous, that is they loose their leaves). Here think the difference between pine growth and tropical tree growth is i...

Most people get Darwin wrong by confusing him with Social Darwinism. I just heard an interview with author Lawrence Goldstone and he had really good grasp of Social Darwinism and how it's really more of an excuse for social discrimination than a scientific theory. Social Darwinism attempts to do something very ancient in Western Tradition which is the application of a "natural law" to social order. Since Darwin had just upended the traditional creationist view of the world at the time, many intellectuals sought to apply this new knowledge to old "natural laws" similar in a way to what Newton did. This turns out to be hogwash. Not too different from kings claiming divine lineage to justify their position in life, now the rich could use Social Darwinism to claim superior fitness, and justify their position in society. A feeling that still lingers today in some circles, with claims of superior intelligence and books like "The Bell Curve." Goldstone...

One of the benefits of scientific research is that by being empirical or experimentally driven it avoids circular and endless discussions on what works or should work. You can just check it. You test to see what works. Jeff Bezos described in a Stanford lecture how Amazon utilizes this testing in it's site live to verify improvements. The ability to test which option is best increases efficiency as it cuts down not only on inefficient options but also on the time that would have been spent discussing the pros and cons of each approach. At Amazon this approach is called A-B testing. Where one option "A" is tested against option "B" and the results are seen immediately. This data-driven approach is what makes science edge out over other disciplines, and it's one that seems sorely lacking on the social sciences, where argument rather than data still reigns king. It doesn't matter that "trickle down economics" didn't have it's intended effe...

One of the points I make on my essay on the truth , is that Scientist and Law-makers use different definitions of truth and doubt. But there is a even more obvious disconnect in America between what Scientist talk about and what the average Joe, and average law-maker understands. Today I heard a story about a paper coming out from a scientist here in Cal-tech about an extinction event 420 million years ago that may be tied to climate change. In the tropical seas of the time a 5 degree change seems to have triggered this extinction that wiped out 3/4 of all species on the planet. Now I listened very carefully and heard it very clearly, he said 5 degree Celsius. But how many people really listen to that? Every other degree temperature said on the radio including the one on the recent snow storm in Dallas that shut down the airport for the first time since 9-11 was on Fahrenheit. It's a nice and pleasant 54 degrees Fahrenheit in North Hollywood today. But a freezing 12 degrees Celsius...

Recently worries about asteroids hitting the Earth are weirdly distracting. Why invest time or money on protecting ourselves from space-borne threats when we have an ailing and emergent environmental crisis? The boiling frog and the lottery. Yeah someone wins the lottery, but a frog in boiling water is the bigger problem.