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Python Vs R — Data Science

Reading time 3 min
Views 3.7K
When mulling over the best programming language to use for data science, Python and R ring a bell (very quickly). While there are a lot of languages like C, C++, Java, Julia, Perl, and Scala, it's protected to state that Python and R are the harbingers in data science.

While a great deal of data researchers will discuss the customary shortcomings like data wrangling in R or data representation in Python, ongoing improvements like Altair for Python or R have adequately reacted to these shortcomings.

So which one would it be a good idea for you to decide for your next data investigation venture?

R has been ruling this space for a long time now. This bodes well as this programming language was explicitly intended for analysts.
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Total votes 11: ↑11 and ↓0 +11
Comments 0

Finally, rejuvenation is a thing

Reading time 6 min
Views 3.2K

Preface


What is ageing? We can define ageing as a process of accumulation of the damage which is just a side-effect of normal metabolism. While researchers still poorly understand how metabolic processes cause damage accumulation, and how accumulated damage causes pathology, the damage itself – the structural difference between old tissue and young tissue – is categorized and understood pretty well. By repairing damage and restoring the previous undamaged – young – state of an organism, we can really rejuvenate it! It sounds very promising, and so it is. And for some types of damage (for example, for senescent cells) it is already proved to work!

Today in our virtual studio, somewhere between cold, rainy Saint-Petersburg and warm, sunny Mountain View, we meet Aubrey de Grey, again! For those of you who are not familiar with him, here is a brief introduction.
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Total votes 17: ↑14 and ↓3 +11
Comments 8

Lua in Moscow 2019: Interview with Roberto Ierusalimschy

Reading time 19 min
Views 2.4K


Some time ago, the creator of Lua programming language, Roberto Ierusalimschy, visited our Moscow office. We asked him some questions that we prepared with the participation of Habr.com users also. And finally, we’d like to share full-text version of this interview.
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Total votes 26: ↑25 and ↓1 +24
Comments 1

The big interview with Martin Kleppmann: “Figuring out the future of distributed data systems”

Reading time 25 min
Views 2.7K


Dr. Martin Kleppmann is a researcher in distributed systems at the University of Cambridge, and the author of the highly acclaimed «Designing Data-Intensive Applications» (O'Reilly Media, 2017). 

Kevin Scott, CTO at Microsoft once said: «This book should be required reading for software engineers. Designing Data-Intensive Applications is a rare resource that connects theory and practice to help developers make smart decisions as they design and implement data infrastructure and systems.»

Martin’s main research interests include collaboration software, CRDTs, and formal verification of distributed algorithms. Previously he was a software engineer and an entrepreneur at several Internet companies including LinkedIn and Rapportive, where he worked on large-scale data infrastructure.

Vadim Tsesko (@incubos) is a lead software engineer at Odnoklassniki who works in Core Platform team. Vadim’s scientific and engineering interests include distributed systems, data warehouses and verification of software systems.

Contents:


  • Moving from business to academic research;
  • Discussion of «Designing Data-Intensive Applications»;
  • Common sense against artificial hype and aggressive marketing;
  • Pitfalls of CAP theorem and other industry mistakes;
  • Benefits of decentralization;
  • Blockchains, Dat, IPFS, Filecoin, WebRTC;
  • New CRDTs. Formal verification with Isabelle;
  • Event sourcing. Low level approach. XA transactions; 
  • Apache Kafka, PostgreSQL, Memcached, Redis, Elasticsearch;
  • How to apply all that tools to real life;
  • Expected target audience of Martin’s talks and the Hydra conference.

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Total votes 13: ↑12 and ↓1 +11
Comments 0

How to save $58 in 5 minutes: let’s use different prices in each country against marketers

Reading time 5 min
Views 5.5K
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Hello Habr! Now that is summer vacation season. Many of you will take a flight to a place far from your everyday routine at home. Before this hot vacation season starts, we should discuss an interesting and useful method on how to save money using a VPN.

One of the easiest ways to see the value in this is looking at car rentals while on vacation.
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Total votes 23: ↑20 and ↓3 +17
Comments 2

How Moovit improved its app to help people with disabilities ride transit with confidence

Reading time 4 min
Views 814

Alexandr Epaneshnikov, a 19-year-old Russian student who is legally blind, recently decided he wanted to be more independent by commuting on his own and relying less on his mom for rides to school. It meant taking a streetcar to a subway to his high school in Moscow, a 30-minute trip that Epaneshnikov assuredly navigates with a cane and Moovit, an urban mobility app optimized for screen readers.


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Total votes 15: ↑15 and ↓0 +15
Comments 0

Bluetooth stack modifications to improve audio quality on headphones without AAC, aptX, or LDAC codecs

Reading time 7 min
Views 66K
Before reading this article, it is recommended to read the previous one: Audio over Bluetooth: most detailed information about profiles, codecs, and devices / по-русски

Some wireless headphone users note low sound quality and lack of high frequencies when using the standard Bluetooth SBC codec, which is supported by all headphones and other Bluetooth audio devices. A common recommendation to get better sound quality is to buy devices and headphones with aptX or LDAC codecs support. These codecs require licensing fees, that's why devices with them are more expensive.

It turns out that the low quality of SBC is caused by artificial limitations of all current Bluetooth stacks and headphones' configuration, and this limitation can be circumvented on any existing device with software modification only.
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Total votes 22: ↑21 and ↓1 +20
Comments 3

Audio over Bluetooth: most detailed information about profiles, codecs, and devices

Reading time 24 min
Views 302K
XKCD comic. How standards proliferate. SITUATION: there are 14 competing standards. Geek: 14?! Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covery everyone's use cases. Geek's girlfriend: yeah! SOON: Situation: there are 15 competing standards.

This article is also available in Russian / Эта статья также доступна на русском языке

The mass market of smartphones without the 3.5 mm audio jack changed headphones industry, wireless Bluetooth headphones have become the main way to listen to music and communicate in headset mode for many users.
Bluetooth device manufacturers rarely disclose detailed product specifications, and Bluetooth audio articles on the Internet are contradictory and sometimes incorrect. They do not tell about all the features, and often publish the same false information.
Let's try to understand the protocol, the capabilities of Bluetooth stacks, headphones and speakers, Bluetooth codecs for music and speech, find out what affects the quality of the transmitted audio and the delay, learn how to capture and decode information about supported codecs and other device features.

TL;DR:

  • SBC codec is OK
  • Headphones have their own per-codec equalizer and post processing configuration
  • aptX is not as good as the advertisements say
  • LDAC is a marketing fluff
  • Voice audio quality is still low
  • Browsers are able to execute audio encoders compiled to WebAssembly from C using emscripten, and they won't even lag.

Total votes 24: ↑23 and ↓1 +22
Comments 8

The one who resurrected Duke Nukem: interview with Randy Pitchford, magician from Gearbox

Reading time 38 min
Views 3.6K
RUVDS and Habr continue the series of interviews with interesting people in IT field. Last time we talked to Richard «Levelord» Gray, level designer of popular games Duke Nukem, American McGee’s Alice, Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2, SiN, Serious Sam, author of well-known «You’re not supposed to be here» phrase.

Today we welcome Randall Steward «Randy» Pitchford II, president, CEO and co-founder of Gearbox Software video game development company.

Randy started in 3D Realms where contributed to Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition and Shadow Warrior. Then he founded Gearbox Software and made Half-Life: Opposing Force, which won D.I.C.E in 2000. Other Gearbox titles include Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life: Decay, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, James Bond 007: Nightfire, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Halo: Combat Evolved and of course Borderlands.

The interview team also includes editor of Habr Nikolay Zemlyanskiy, Richard «Levelord» Gray, Randy’s wife Kristy Pitchford and Randy’s son Randy Jr.


Total votes 33: ↑32 and ↓1 +31
Comments 0

A selection of Datasets for Machine learning

Reading time 5 min
Views 7K
Hi guys,

Before you is an article guide to open data sets for machine learning. In it, I, for a start, will collect a selection of interesting and fresh (relatively) datasets. And as a bonus, at the end of the article, I will attach useful links on independent search of datasets.

Less words, more data.

image

A selection of datasets for machine learning:


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Total votes 12: ↑11 and ↓1 +10
Comments 0

How to make possible micro-payments in your app

Reading time 8 min
Views 5.2K

This week I spent coding my very first public pet-app based on Telegram chat bot which acts as a Bitcoin wallet and allows to send and receive tips between Telegram users and other so-called “Lightning Apps”. I assume that you are familiar with Bitcoin & Telegram in general, i’ll try to post short and without deep jump into details. More resources about Bitcoin can be found here and Telegram is simply an instant messenger that allows you to create your custom apps (chat-bots) using their platform.


What are the key points of such app?


  • Allows to rate other users ideas and answers with real value instead of
    ‘virtual likes’. This brings online conversation to completely new level
  • Real example of working micro-payment app which can act with other entities
    over internet using open protocol
  • All the modules are open-source projects and can be easy re-used and adjusted
    for your own project. App does not relay on third-party commercial services.
    Even it falls under e-commerce field, which is currently almost closed, the app
    is based on open solutions.

What are the use-cases?


something like this…

image
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Total votes 12: ↑11 and ↓1 +10
Comments 0

Reverse engineering a high-end soldering station

Reading time 15 min
Views 19K


(This is the translation of the original article performed by baragol)

We had a bunch of photographs of the main PCB, a YouTube video with drain-voltage waveforms of MOSFETs, a forum post with a breakdown of the capacitance values of LC circuit capacitors and also a number of unboxing videos showing the heating-up of the soldering tip. The only thing that really worried me was the video with the measurement of the peak power consumption during the heating-up. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than burned cartridge newly bought for 60 bucks from Amazon. But let me start from the beginning.
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Total votes 24: ↑23 and ↓1 +22
Comments 1

The Role Of Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality In The NBA

Reading time 3 min
Views 1.3K
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App builders that are looking to achieve a greater level of success will often look to areas that have yet to be explored. Augmented reality and virtual reality are opening up whole new worlds to app builders. For example, there are a number of app builders who are already looking to the NBA in this regard.

The NBA has established a reputation for themselves as a progressive league from a technological standpoint. Teams are already participating in competitive gaming, as numerous franchises have created their own e-sports teams. Now, the league is partnering with app builders to find out more about how they can leverage augmented reality and virtual reality to their benefit.
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Total votes 11: ↑11 and ↓0 +11
Comments 0

indibiome labs

Reading time 4 min
Views 794
I would like to share main points of my Skolkovo application for Startup Village 2019 pitch.

Indibiome labs


image

Project Executive Summary indicating current developments and basic goals of the Project


Indibiome labs for kids are franchise network food labs providing safe environment where kids (13+) will learn how to analyse the food content and study influence of foods on health and will spread this knowledge through social networks, therefore educating other kids and adults in the field of healthy nutrition.


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Total votes 13: ↑13 and ↓0 +13
Comments 0

DO-RA: Preparing for Industrial Production

Reading time 6 min
Views 1.4K
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1. Transporting prototypes

The idea of the DO-RA project originated in March 2011 after a nuclear disaster on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. This gadget was conceived as a personal dosimeter/radiometer working with eponymous software (DO-RA.Soft) on mobile platforms (iOS, Android, WP) as well as on desktop platforms—Windows/Linux/MacOS.

At the end of 2017, a tourist from China brought in his backpack ten long-awaited prototypes from the DO-RA.Q test batch. They were manufactured in China based on our design documents and then transported from Shenzhen to Moscow. By the way, the development of design documents was assigned to the largest Design Centre in Eastern Europe—the PROMWAD company. The documents were clear and plain—prepared in IPC format and written in proper English—to enable the automated production of electronic devices in a foreign country.
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Total votes 15: ↑14 and ↓1 +13
Comments 6

Artificial intelligence takes on ocean trash: Cleaning up the world’s beaches with the help of data

Reading time 5 min
Views 1.2K

Inspiration sometimes arrives in strange ways. Here is the story of how a dirty disposable diaper led to the development of an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to help rid the world’s coasts of massive amounts of waste and garbage.


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Total votes 14: ↑13 and ↓1 +12
Comments 0

Indibiome is the new black

Reading time 7 min
Views 1.6K
Indibiome is the new black, following the steps of electric and computer engineering industries, we are foreseeing indibiome design bureaus able to solve unmet needs in healthcare, agriculture, food production, industrial applications.

Indibiome is discussed in my previous paper in Russian (link). Shortly indibiome is indigenous microbiome, like indigenous people, term is used below in the meaning «inherent to the media, localised and optimised for sustainable existence»).

Microbes have always been there, however technologies allowing efficient microbes manipulation and accumulated genetic and experimental data on variety of microbial communities has been on the rise only last decade. Below is my concept of interdisciplinary «indibiome bureau» and you are most welcome to give feedback.
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Total votes 14: ↑13 and ↓1 +12
Comments 0

Thoughts On Elixir: Pros And Cons Of The Most Popular Tool For High-Load Dev

Reading time 4 min
Views 12K


Why is Elixir/Phoenix achieving such a high rate of adoption in the software development industry? What are the best use cases of this language? Are there any drawbacks when using it? We talked to Sergiy Kukunin, a full-stack developer at Spotlight and an Elixir expert, to find answers to these and other questions.
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Total votes 12: ↑12 and ↓0 +12
Comments 4