These are my links for February 26th through March 2nd:
- Practical Foundations of Mathematics – Although it is mainly concerned with a framework essentially equivalent to intuitionistic ZF, the book looks forward to more subtle bases in categorical type theory and the machine representation of mathematics. Each idea is illustrated by wide-ranging examples, and followed critically along its natural path, transcending disciplinary boundaries between universal algebra, type theory, category theory, set theory, sheaf theory, topology and programming.
- Economics of Information Technology – This is an overview of economic phenomena that are important for high-technology industries. Topics covered include personalization of products and prices, versioning, bundling, switching costs, lock-in, economies of scale, network effects, standards, and systems effects.
Most of these phenomena are present in conventional industries, but they are particular important for technology-intensive industries. I provide a survey and review of recent literature and examine some implications of these phenomena for corporate strategy and public policy.
- Stack Overflow – Stack Overflow is a collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers – regardless of platform or language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
- Deluge of scientific data needs to be curated for long-term use – To those who would say publish it on a Web page and let Google cache the page for posterity, Palmer argues that businesses don't have the orientation necessary for curating and preserving information for the really long term – say, for hundreds of years.
Research libraries, on the other hand, have this mission and always have been committed to this.
"The common perception is that keeping information online keeps it alive," Palmer said. "But someone, somewhere, has to maintain it and make it accessible and usable for researchers. It's not wise to rely on publishers or other commercial entities that have never really been in the business of preservation. Businesses can go out of business, and they're driven by commercial interests."
