Saturday 20 February 2010

Basic Matlab Matrices with Rows Delimited by Semicolons

whos - tells you all the variables you have defined and their data types (e.g. char, double)

play with matrices
x = [ 1,1; 1,1 ]
det(x), transpose(x), x*x, x-x, x-1 (subtracts 1 from each element of x, but doesn't change x), rref(x)

Matlab is short for "matrix laboratory" and is designed for numerical calculations with matrices. Maple is more designed for symbolic manipulation. Try getting Matlab to do symbolic manipulation and you might struggle.

Sunday 17 January 2010

Karl Pearson for Python Programmers- His Contribution and His Motto

Standard Deviation is an Application of Square Roots

STANDARD deviation in PYTHON is the same as standard deviation in STATISTICS, it is the SQUARE ROOT OF THE VARIANCE, or average squared deviations from the mean (intuitively, variability about the mean).

Standard Deviation is in the Same Units As the Data

What is Single, Most Cool Thing about STANDARD deviation?

Standard deviation is always in the SAME UNITS AS THE DATA, so if data is in DOLLARS, standard deviation is ALSO in DOLLARS, if data is in PERCENTAGE POINTS, my STANDARD deviation is ALSO in PERCENTAGE POINTS.

Standard Deviation is the Modern Name for Mean Error

Mean Error was the OLD SCHOOL way of saying STANDARD deviation

Gauss used the term "mean error" for standard deviation connoting the notion of variability about the mean and is probably more explicative than Karl Pearson's term, introduced in 1894, of standard deviation.

Just to Reiterate

Karl Pearson DID NOT INVENT STANDARD deviation. He merely invented the APPELLATION of STANDARD DEVIATION.

Respect to Pearson - Establishment of the Discipline

Karl PEARSON established the DISCIPLINE of mathematical statistics, and the numerous graduates of statistics from university programs are DISCIPLES of his incredible legacy.

Quote from KP: "Not one subject in the universe is unworthy of study".

Sunday 10 January 2010

AJAX in Python? The Answer is Pyjamas.

First Concepts

First, INLINE FRAMES. An INLINE frame is "used to EMBED a document within the current HTML document" (quote: w3schools). The syntax is: "OPEN TAG iframe S R C equals U R L CLOSE TAG". The syntax is SIMPLE. That's inline frames 101.

Secret: It's all done with inline frames

Big assumption, but let's you have written your FIRST PYJAMAS PROGRAM. You have INVOKED the pyjs compiler using BUILD-DOT-ESS-AITCH (./build.sh). A new web page is BORN. How does it work? Simple - your fancy html page simply calls bootstrap, which has a function that calls injectWebModeFrame. This loads up a nocache.html file (a generic cache file) which then in turn location.replaces itself (Harry Houdini style) with the browser-specific cache file (named using navigator.useragent). To understand how your engine is working, you need to read the source of the browser-specific cache file.

Attacking the Mozilla
Open up the mozilla (firefox) file and you will see a sea of JS variables prefixed with $, such as var $wnd = parent. This is the style in which JS is now programmed. Have Venkman on hand to debug anything vaguely Gecko-related.

Aggrandising Your Intelligence
Read this book written by Luke.