So that's what it takes to find a Higgs Boson!

Can you imagine seeing one of these rolling down your street?

And now we will know for sure

From Soccer Finally Comes to Its Senses With Goal-Line Tech:

After years of discussion and debate, the sport has at long last approved the use of goal-line technology at all levels of the game.

The FIFA press release says:

It’s not a dangerous development as long as it remains focused on goal-line technology. I don’t want technology anywhere else. I want football to maintain its human face, this will be my goal as long as I am the President of FIFA. We will still have to see how it works. It is only to help the referee, we must remember that.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, FIFA did not pick a single winner: both the camera-based technology (Hawk-Eye) and the magnetic field technology (Goal-Ref) are now approved for use.

Silicon Valley craziness

Elaine Wherry's essay: the Recruiter Honeypot is fascinating.

What started out as an odd idea about how to recruit some better software recruiters turned into an odyssey of discovery about how software recruiting works nowadays.

In late 2009, I created an online persona named Pete London – a self-described JavaScript ninja – to help attract and hire the best JavaScript recruiters. While I never hired a recruiter from the experiment, I learned a ton about how to compete in today’s Silicon Valley talent war.

Software recruiters, often called headhunters, are independent contractors who attempt to match companies wishing to hire software specialists with employees wishing to find a better job.

For this service, headhunters receive a fee, typically paid by the hiring company upon the successful filling of a position.

The fee can be substantial, which leads, naturally, to practices that are less than ideal.

The article is great fun; Wherry's tips and lessons are revealing, and the entire essay is filled with hard-earned valuable wisdom.

And speaking of Silicon Valley craziness, don't miss Crammed Into Cheap Bunks, Dreaming of Future Digital Glory, a story in today's New York Times about "Hacker Hostels" that have opened to house the next generation of would-be Zucks:

These are not so different from crowded apartments that cater to immigrants. But many tenants are here not so much for the cheap rent — $40 a night — as for the camaraderie and idea-swapping. And potential tenants are screened to make sure they will contribute to the mix.

Of course, all this craziness has been true for at least 20 years.

But is it affecting the core values of Silicon Valley? Are there even such things? Bill Davidow asks the question: What Happened to Silicon Values?. The piece is mostly a "wasn't it great when we were young" sort of piece, but there are some important criticisms included.

Many other things have changed in the valley over the past five decades. I've become increasingly concerned about one thing that is seldom discussed: the valley is no longer as concerned about serving the customer, and even sees great opportunity in exploitation. We are beginning to act like the bankers who sold subprime mortgages to naïve consumers. In such an environment, we are less likely to create the role models of the past who guided the valley to its future.

Here in Silicon Valley, there's lots to think on.

Matthew Yglesias on patent "reform"

Matthew Yglesias has a good essay up on Slate: America’s Patent Crisis.

The problem is that the underlying diagnosis is wrong. All else being equal, it would be nice for the government to do its paperwork faster, but there’s little reason to believe the United States is underpatented.

The only people getting rich in this system are the lawyers.

Post-vacation link dump

I guess that if you go on vacation, the rest of the world doesn't stop. Here's a bit of what's been going on while I was sitting on the beach:

• Derby 10.9 has been released! Knut Anders surveys the release on his blog
• Cormac Herly of Microsoft Research digs deep into a question that's more interesting than you might think: Why do Nigerian Scammers say they are from Nigeria?

  Since gullibility is unobservable, the best strategy is to get those who possess this quality to self-identify. An email with tales of fabulous amounts of money and West African corruption will strike all but the most gullible as bizarre. It will be recognized and ignored by anyone who has been using the Internet long enough to have seen it several times. It will be figured out by anyone savvy enough to use a search engine

• A fairly interesting discussion about Computer Science research, and whether it is better done by academic institutions, by industrial research labs, or by some combination:
  • Startup University: "The academic research process is incredibly inefficient when it comes to producing real products that shape the world."
  • An open letter to Matt: "Forget efficiency. At least, forget it on the timescale you measure in your current job. Instead, aspire to do work that is as groundbreaking and important as the best work in the history of the field."
  • Defending Matt Welsh’s 'Startup University' Post: "most universities do have some number of applied fields, and measuring impact in applied fields is often initiated by looking at real-world deployments of the research ideas"
  • The PhD Grind, and Why Research Isn’t Like Sex: "The research process (and particularly its funding aspect) is unfortunately very conservative. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that a person should accept defeat. Rather, take it as a challenge. "
  • Google’s Hybrid Approach to Research: "The empirical components are clearly on the upswing, in part because the computer systems we construct have become so large that analytic techniques cannot properly describe their properties"
• Bruce Sterling knocks the ball way out of the park with his superb and brilliant Turing Centenary speech

  If we’re willing to learn from Alan Turing’s life experience, we should be devoting some thought to a suicidal Artificial Intelligence. Nobody does this, because they somehow imagine that code can’t simulate abject despair.

  Vaclav Havel — because I’m a writer, I admire this writer guy a lot — he said, “Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren’t in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.” We may be keen on thinking machines. Yet we don’t allow ourselves a feminine Artificial Intelligence, and we also overlook a suicidal Artificial Intelligence, even though the very founder of the concept was an effeminate, suicidal guy.

• Yay for the LHC, finding the Higgs particle!
• The latest from Quinn Norton on Anonymous

  In the beginning, Anonymous was just about self-amusement, the “lulz,” but somehow, over the course of the past few years, it grew up to become a sort of self-appointed immune system for the Internet, striking back at anyone the hive mind perceived as an enemy of freedom, online or offline. It started as a gang of nihilists but somehow evolved into a fervent group of believers.

• As if I haven't nattered on about the Euro 2012 tournament enough: Graph theory applied to soccer
• Michael Paquier ruminates about how you might extend ALTER TABLE to support re-sharding a distributed table:Postgres-XC: online data redistribution
• A fun piece from the May issue of Wired about counterfeiting
• The Grateful Dead archive is online!
• A multi-part series covering the development of the new game Sir, You Are Being Hunted: Tagged: Sir, You Are Being Hunted. I particularly liked If I May Speak Procedurally, Sir: Building The British Countryside Generator

  we identified a number of features in the countryside that typify the aesthetic we wanted, and seem to be quintessential in British rural environments. Possibly the most important element is the ‘patchwork quilt’ arrangement of agricultural land, where polygonal fields are divided by drystone walls and hedgerows. These form recognisable patterns that gently rise and fall across the rolling open countryside, enclosing crops, meadows, livestock and woodlands. This patchwork of different environmental textures is something that is very stereotypically part of the British landscape. I looked for a mathematical equivalent we could use to simulate this effect and quite quickly decided upon using Voronoi diagrams.

• The robot of the future is going to explore Mars: The Robot of the Future That's About to Explore the Deep Past of Mars

  With a rover like this, you can pick up a rock and analyze it, but you might burn a week or two figuring out if there's any scientific value in it. A human can look at a rock and be able to tell, instantly, whether it deserves further study. The instruments on Curiosity are really great, but the human brain is the best instrument of all. The human brain can solve problems intelligently and quickly, whereas robots rely on us here on Earth -- and that takes a lot of time.

• Surprisingly, there don't seem to be anywhere near as many articles about this year's Google I/O as there were in previous years. Was the conference a bust? Am I just looking in the wrong places? Here's one of the few I found: Google IO 2012 Notes – Lots of Them

So, there you go.

A week in Kauai

It was my lucky week, as my wife treated me to a week in Kauai.

This was my fourth trip to Hawaii, and my first repeat visit; we've previously been to the Big Island of Hawaii, and to Maui, and we visited Kauai 4 years ago. Each island has a different "personality", and it takes a while to get accustomed to the unique aspects of each. Kauai, which many call the "garden island," is lush, quiet, and relaxed.

From Kauai2012

We stayed in the resort community of Princeville, on Kauai's North Shore. As with the other Hawaiian Islands, the northern and eastern shores of Kauai are cooler and wetter, while the southern and westen shores are warmer and drier. Princeville is the richest shade of green that you could possibly imagine! The plants seem to grow two inches every day.

From Kauai2012

Kauai is quieter than some of the more-developed islands. We spent our days on the beach, or kayaking, or hiking, or playing marathon cribbage matches by the pool.

From Kauai2012

Of course, one day was reserved for driving up to visit Waimea Canyon, the spectacular 3,000-foot-deep canyon on Kauai's west side. On the way back, we stopped at the Kauai Coffee Company's visitor center, which is located near the center of the coffee plantation, allowing you the interesting opportunity to drive through several miles of coffee trees on your way to the visitor center and back.

From Kauai2012

Our favorite place to go snorkeling is "Tunnels", more precisely called Makua Beach, which is an unbelievably perfect place to swim, snorkel, and beachcomb. Of course, even though the beach is protected by a large protective reef, and the water is warm, calm, and clear, you must treat this beach, like any beach, with respect. Although Tunnels is known for being a great place to swim with the turtles, I didn't venture into those areas of the beach: for one thing, I'm not the strongest swimmer, but at least partly it's because, 10 years later, I'm still affected by Bethany Hamilton's experience. So I stayed in the shallow, peaceful, calm areas, and enjoyed the tangs, jacks, wrasses, needlefish, pufferfish, and, of course, the humuhumunukunukuapuaa, which were plentiful and as beautiful as ever.

From Kauai2012

We shared our section of Tunnels with a Hawaiian Monk Seal. Monk Seals are tremendously endangered: there are barely 1,000 of these animals left alive, and the North Shore of Kauai is one of the only places you can ever see them, so we were very lucky to have the chance to splash in the surf just 10 yards away from our resting friend.

From Kauai2012

One of our favorite things to do is to go kayaking on the rivers in Kauai, so in case you ever get the chance, here's how to Do It Right:

• Pack yourself a nice bag, with a solid picnic lunch (you're going to work up a hunger!), lots of sunscreen, your camera, and some bottles of water to drink while you're paddling.
• Get yourself down to Kayak Kauai in Hanalei. They have the best location for launching onto the river: their office is right on the riverbank, with its own kayak dock. They'll fix you up with kayaking gear in a jiffy and you'll be out on the water.

• From Kauai2012

  First, head up the river, toward the mountains. Paddle upstream; it's not too hard in the gentle current of the Hanalei River. Enjoy the scenery, and make sure your camera is handy!

• From Kauai2012

  Try to get at least up to the famous single lane bridge over the Hanalei River. Once you're past the bridge, delight in the most beautiful view you'll ever see from a kayak. (You did bring that camera, right?)

• From Kauai2012

  Once you're sufficiently far past the bridge to enjoy the view, give yourself a pat on the back, and apply a bunch more sunscreen!
• Now you can float gently back down the river. Don't go back to dock yet, though! You're just getting started!
• Continue paddling downriver, past the town of Hanalei, and on down to the mouth of the Hanalei River, where it meets Hanalei Bay

• From Kauai2012

  At the mouth of the river, you'll find a large stretch of shallow sandy beach to land your kayak. Pull the kayak up safely onto the sand, just in case the tide is coming in, and oh, before you forget, apply some more sunscreen!
• The park at the mouth of the Hanalei River is the perfect place for that picnic lunch. Rest, relax, enjoy the views of the surfers and other watersports, do some beach-combing, take some more pictures. The park has full facilities, so this is a nice time to take that early-afternoon bio break.
• When you're rested and rejuvenated, and you've had all the beach time you can take, it's time to pack back up and re-board your kayak. Paddle back upstream, and you'll be back at the dock before you know it.
• After you've checked all your gear back in, this is a great time to un-kink those sore muscles with a peaceful walk around Hanalei and its shops and restaurants. There's something for everybody here!

Lastly, a few miscellaneous recommendations, should you find yourself in Kauai any time soon:

• Fun South Shore experience: lunch at Keoki's Paradise in Poipu. Sit at a waterside table under the awning and don't miss the fresh fish sandwich
• Fun North Shore experience: the newly-opened Kauai Mini Golf has a very entertaining course, and is planted with thousands of exotic tropical plants
• Fun Shave Ice: we had ours in Kilauea, where we also made a return visit to see Daphne the Umbrella Cockatoo
• Fun Mai-Tai: we liked Neide's and Bouchon's restaurants in Hanalei, as well as Keiko's Paradise in Poipu
• Fun shopping: Bryan likes Havaiki in Hanalei; Donna likes Banana Patch Shop in Kilauea

I'm back online

Had a wonderful vacation!

I'm still working on the notes for that vacation, so for now you'll have to read something else.

Try this: The 120,000-Foot Leap

On the morning of March 15, Felix Baumgartner scooted forward, stood up, and grabbed the handrails on either side of the door he’d just opened. From where he was standing, he could see all of New Mexico and parts of Texas, Arizona, and Colorado. He was 71,581 feet — 13 and a half miles — above Earth, dangling in a small capsule from a balloon the size of a 16-story building. Facing the cameras mounted on the capsule, he gave a little salute, a bit awkward in his full-pressure spacesuit, and stepped off.