Four short links: 24 October 2018
Good Modeling, Real-Time Command Line, Data Structure Synthesis, and Free the Law
- About Our Model — high school stats class makes a model for election prediction and lists all their assumptions. A good role model for the rest of us.
- Ultimate Plumber — a tool for writing Linux pipes in a terminal-based UI interactively, with instant live preview of command results. Real-time feedback changes the command line.
- Generalized Data Structure Synthesis — This paper shows how to synthesize data structures that track subsets and aggregations of multiple related collections. Our technique decomposes the synthesis task into alternating steps of query synthesis and incrementalization. […] As an added benefit of this approach over previous work, the synthesized data structure is optimized for not only the queries in the specification but also the required update operations. I love tools that automate or expedite programming.
- Appeals Court to Georgia: Code Can’t Be Copyrighted (EFF) — On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit handed down a powerful opinion that struck down the state of Georgia’s attempt to use copyright to suppress publication of its own laws. The ruling, which gives Georgians the right to read and publish the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, or OCGA, may also improve public access to legislative documents in other states. Georgia claimed copyright on their own laws and charged citizens to read them, bringing suit against Public Resource for publishing those laws for free.
