Thinking inside the boxThinking inside the boxGoogle Summer of Code 2008 projects assigned- April 26, 2008 As mentioned a few weeks ago, I had submitted two entries as possible topics for this year's version of the Google Summer of Code. And lo and behold, the response was very, very good and both applications were slotted! For the topic 'create a PostgreSQL package for R that uses the standard DBI interface', a number of interested students contacted me, and a total of three applications were submitted. And while the R Foundation was only able to allocate four topics among a number of really...http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2008/04/25#gsoc_2008_assigned smtm maintenance release 1.6.9.1- April 25, 2008 A new version of smtm went to Debian yesterday. And after some pondering, I also just uploaded it to CPAN even though it only contains minor Debian packaging fixes rather than genuine code changes. In order to signal that the core Perl code hasn't changed, I simply added a new minor to move the version from 1.6.9 to 1.6.9.1.http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2008/04/24#smtm_1.6.9.1 Updated marathon pace geekery- April 18, 2008 A few months ago, I had shown a chart with per-5k-segment paces of my prior marathons runs (or at least those for which organisers had 5k splits). Since then, I ran two more: New York in November and London last Sunday. I have updated the charts to show both of these: A few things stand out: New York (in orange with small squares) clearly was my steadiest run, with very little variation and that nice burst at the end where the pace dropped below 7minmile for the finish; ...http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2008/04/17#marathon_paces_london London Marathon 2008- April 16, 2008 Sunday was the 100th anniversary of the modern marathon: It was during the London 2008 Olympics that the marathon was run for the first time for the 26 miles 385 yard, or 42.185 km, distance. And it so happens that I was there to run the 2008 edition of the London Marathon. Pretty nice weather at the start and finish: sunny, not too hot, occassional clouds. But being London, we still managed to get drenched for about 30 minutes. Overall, the conditions were good -- or else Martin Lel...http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2008/04/15#london_marathon_2008 |