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brainid

22 karma · joined April 26, 2010

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brainid··on Slate: a Mac OS X window manager for power users
With Emacs 24 you can use ns-toggle-fullscreen.
brainid··on How to implement an algorithm from a scientific paper
Free implementations are liable. See Madey v. Duke University. It severely restricted the research exemption (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_exemption)

I have had University Council tell me I cannot open source code I have written implementing patented algorithms. It is unfortunately more common than most people think, and often not acknowledged in publications.

brainid··on Kurzweil's new book: How to Create a Mind
While I look forward to reading this book, I recommend interested people balance it somewhat with one of the books by Uttal. Neural Theories of Mind and The New Phrenology are both good reads that raise theoretical and practical hurdles to reverse engineering brains.
brainid··on Keep a programming journal
The National Brand Computation Notebook is popular. $12 from Amazon.

I have used them for years.

brainid··on Why the world of scientific research needs to be disrupted
"Researchers must also go through IRBs (independent review boards) at their institution prior to engaging in research that deals with human subjects. If the collected data is going to be made available publicly, it makes the process more arduous."

That is not really my experience. Getting IRB approval to release human data just means proper de-identification which one should do anyway. For example, generally subjects are given randomly generated IDs with only the PI having the master list.

brainid··on IEEE Refuses to Accept Public-Domain Papers?
"I don't think there is anything particularly nefarious about their copyright policy (which explicitly allows authors to post freely available copies of their articles for non-commercial purposes.)"

This is no longer strictly true as of last year. IEEE now explicitly forbids authors from posting the officially published versions of papers. You can post preprints though, which are often better since it includes content you had to cut to avoid huge over-length charges, and any errata or updates.

Every year I struggle with whether to renew my IEEE membership, whether to continue to publish in their journals, and whether to review for those journals.

brainid··on I develop free software because of CUNY and Blackboard
I am not sure how inspired it is, but Sakai is a very good open source alternative to Blackboard used at many Universities.

http://sakaiproject.org/

brainid··on Proposal: consider scientific research papers like open source software
I know of one existing journal that is pretty close to this, the insight journal: http://www.insight-journal.org/
brainid··on Senate votes to repeal 1099 reporting requirement in health care law
I think that tax preparation services were salivating at the prospects. Mine sent a letter with our tax prep organizer explaining the change and offering their services to prepare them for me.

I agree that it is absurd.

brainid··on Free, Public Data Sets
Here are medical imaging datasets I am aware of: Neuroimaging (see http://www.nitrc.org for others) OASIS http://www.oasis-brains.org/ ADNI http://adni.loni.ucla.edu/ (huge dataset, requires application) OpenfMRI http://openfmri.org/ EEG http://eeg.pl/epi

Some other applications, example CT Colonography http://www.acrin.org/

brainid··on College Inc. PBS documentary
True, in fact a typical professor at a university devotes roughly 30% of effort to teaching. The rest is research effort (~ 60%) and service (reviewing papers, running conferences, etc).
brainid··on If so many people are stranded, why are planes flying with empty seats?
My experience was this. On a call to Delta on 4/20 I was told it would be Monday 4/26 before a seat was available. 15 minutes later I booked a DELTA/KLM flight to my destination that afternoon through travelocity (at a high cost).

When I complained to Delta after returning I was told the travel websites buy seats in block and resell them, so that is why they could not give me a seat. Oh, and there were several empty seats on the flight.