Thursday, May 26, 2016
It is (was) rocket science
I wrote about this film a few months back. It's now getting more publicity. I can't wait to see "Hidden Figures" when it opens in January, after reading the book when it comes out this fall. Looking forward to the music and score by the wonderful Hans Zimmer and the ever cool Pharrell Williams. What a great quote by Octavia Spencer, one of my favorite actresses: "This is a female-driven movie about contributions that women really made, to our world, not just to society. That's a big statement." It truly is.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Coal mining, programming and good jobs
In the February 21/26 issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, there's an article called "Putting the App in Appalachia." You can read the full article at http://ow.ly/YucWu.
The gist is that in Kentucky, a company called BitSource is "out to prove that in the hills there can be life after coal." My dad worked in far Southwest Virginia for many years and I had the opportunity to teach drumline at Clintwood High School while I was in college. Although I've not been to Pikeville, Kentucky, I can imagine the two areas are very similar. Good paying jobs are always needed, but they are especially needed in areas like Pikeville and Southwest Virginia where jobs themselves can be few and far between. Here's to more good paying jobs with training that helps to better the person as well as helps them find another job.
The gist is that in Kentucky, a company called BitSource is "out to prove that in the hills there can be life after coal." My dad worked in far Southwest Virginia for many years and I had the opportunity to teach drumline at Clintwood High School while I was in college. Although I've not been to Pikeville, Kentucky, I can imagine the two areas are very similar. Good paying jobs are always needed, but they are especially needed in areas like Pikeville and Southwest Virginia where jobs themselves can be few and far between. Here's to more good paying jobs with training that helps to better the person as well as helps them find another job.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
The Hollywood Reporter and Hidden Figures
I read a lot of different things including "entertainment" magazines. Not the National Enquirer (that's my mom's go to), but Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter (THR). In the most recent issue (3/11/16 & 3/18/16), there's an article titled "Hollywood's Diversity Blitz in Wake of #OscarsSoWhite." In an article listing upcoming projects, THR mentioned an upcoming movie called Hidden Figures. The description? "A movie about the African-American women who helped NASA launch its first space missions." In the back of my mind, I remembered a session at the last year's NCWIT Summit. It turns out that NCWIT recognized two of these incredible women and I was there to see it. Both Katherine Johnson and Dr. Christine Darden were awarded the NCWIT Pioneer Award. Read more about the Pioneer Award and both of these incredible women.
I will make sure to keep an eye out for the movie Hidden Figures in 2017 and add the book it is based on to my future reading list. Make sure to check out Margot Lee Shetterly's "Hidden Figures: The African American Women Mathematicians Who Helped NASA and the United States Win the Space Race: An Untold Story" (William Morrow/HarperCollins-coming in September 2016).
I will make sure to keep an eye out for the movie Hidden Figures in 2017 and add the book it is based on to my future reading list. Make sure to check out Margot Lee Shetterly's "Hidden Figures: The African American Women Mathematicians Who Helped NASA and the United States Win the Space Race: An Untold Story" (William Morrow/HarperCollins-coming in September 2016).
Monday, February 29, 2016
Obama, Big Data, and Shooting for the Moon
Way back when I started this blog, I hoped I'd be able to post something at least every other day. I knew it had been a while since I posted something, but didn't realize it had been 2+ months. Here's hoping that I can keep it going from here on out.
On Saturday, I saw a link to an article by Fast Company. This article, Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative is the Ultimate Big-Data Project, spoke to me for several reasons. Bit data is a hot topic right now. The CS Department at VT is home to the Discovery Analytics Center (DAC). Dr. Naren Ramakrishnan, director of DAC, has been working with "big data" for years. When he spoke to prospective students years ago, he used store loyalty cards to illustrate how data can be used to market items to card holders. He always got a laugh when he mentioned the correlations that were found between certain items purchased, like diapers and beer. That's great for marketing, but in all seriousness, there are ways that crunching big data can make huge changes in the world.
When I spoke with prospective students, I mentioned the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI), now known as the Biocomplexity Institute. It's not been that long ago that we said that "bioinformatics" was such a new field that we got a spelling error when we added it to slide presentation. Bioinformatics combines many different fields of study, but to make it real, I would explain that in the future, VBI might be able to create medicine for an individual's DNA. I admitted it sounded kind of "big brotherish," but that it would eventually happen. One of the things that this article shows is how far bioinformatics has come.
Reading about Cancer Moonshot and how big data could help, and is already helping, in curing cancer made a huge impression on me. After losing my dad and a best friend to cancer, and learning of several friends fighting their own battles with The Big C, this can't happen fast enough. The sharing of information could provide many new insights, but synthesizing the data already available may bring better and more efficient treatments for cancer and many other diseases and illnesses.
On Saturday, I saw a link to an article by Fast Company. This article, Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative is the Ultimate Big-Data Project, spoke to me for several reasons. Bit data is a hot topic right now. The CS Department at VT is home to the Discovery Analytics Center (DAC). Dr. Naren Ramakrishnan, director of DAC, has been working with "big data" for years. When he spoke to prospective students years ago, he used store loyalty cards to illustrate how data can be used to market items to card holders. He always got a laugh when he mentioned the correlations that were found between certain items purchased, like diapers and beer. That's great for marketing, but in all seriousness, there are ways that crunching big data can make huge changes in the world.
When I spoke with prospective students, I mentioned the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI), now known as the Biocomplexity Institute. It's not been that long ago that we said that "bioinformatics" was such a new field that we got a spelling error when we added it to slide presentation. Bioinformatics combines many different fields of study, but to make it real, I would explain that in the future, VBI might be able to create medicine for an individual's DNA. I admitted it sounded kind of "big brotherish," but that it would eventually happen. One of the things that this article shows is how far bioinformatics has come.
Reading about Cancer Moonshot and how big data could help, and is already helping, in curing cancer made a huge impression on me. After losing my dad and a best friend to cancer, and learning of several friends fighting their own battles with The Big C, this can't happen fast enough. The sharing of information could provide many new insights, but synthesizing the data already available may bring better and more efficient treatments for cancer and many other diseases and illnesses.
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