Southern Cross Computer Systems Pty Ltd has been named winner of the award for “Innovation in Green IT Data Center Solution” in the annual IBM Beacon Awards competition, honoring IBM Business Partners for their ingenuity, innovation, customer satisfaction and outstanding achievements in providing business solutions.

After some discussion with the applied math research groups here at UCLA (in particular the groups led by Andrea Bertozzi and Deanna Needell), one of the members of these groups, Chris Strohmeier, has produced a proposal for a Polymath project to crowdsource in a single repository (a) a collection of public data sets relating to […]

As promised, we've stopped the process that puts new data into the queue today. Data distribution will continue until the files shown on the status pages are done. We'll be accepting results and resending results that didn't validate for a while.

It may be tempting at the start of a new project to create the first database tables manually, or write SQL scripts that you run manually, especially when you first have to spend a significant amount of time on sifting through all the migration libraries and then some more to get it working properly.

Going through this process did slow me down at the start of the project but I was determined to use a migration tool because hunting inexplicable bugs that only happen in production just to find out there is a definition mismatch between the production and development databases is not fun. Using such a tool also motivates you to write both the setup and teardown steps for each table while the current design is still fresh in your mind.

At first I considered a standalone migration tool because I expect them to be very good at that single task. However, learning the idiosyncrasies of a new tool and trying to make it fit seamlessly into my development workflow seemed like more trouble than it is worth.

I decided to stick with a Common Lisp library and found the following seven that work with PostgreSQL and/or Postmodern:

• Postmodern-passenger-pigeon
• database-migrations
• cl-migrations
• Mito
• Crane
• Orizuru-orm
• cl-mgr

I quickly discounted Crane and Mito because they are ORM (Object Relational Mapper) libraries which are way more complex than a dedicated migration library. Development on Crane have stalled some time ago and I don't feel it is mature enough for frictionless use yet. Mito declares itself as being in Alpha state; also not mature enough yet.

I only stumbled onto cl-mgr and Orizuru-orm long after making my decision so I did not investigate them seriously. Orizuru-orm is in any case an ORM which I would have discounted because it is too complex for my needs. CL-mgr looks simple, which is a good thing. It is based on cl-dbi which makes it a good candidate if you foresee switching databases but even if I discovered it sooner I would have discounted it for the same reason as CL-migrations.

CL-migrations looks very promising. It is a simple library focusing only on migrations. It uses clsql to interface with the database which bothered me because I already committed to using Postmodern and I try to avoid adding a lot of unused code to my projects. The positive side is that it interfaces to many different databases so it is a good candidate if you are not committed to using Postmodern. It is also a stable code base with no outstanding bug reports.

The two projects I focused on was Postmodern-passenger-pigeon and Database-migrations because they both use Postmodern for a database interface.

Postmodern-passenger-pigeon was in active development at the time and it seemed safer to use than Database-migrations because it can do dry runs, which is a very nice feature when you are upgrading your production database and face the possibility of losing data when things go awry. Unfortunately I could not get it working within a reasonable amount of time.

I finally settled on Database-migrations. It is a small code base, focused on one task, it is mature and it uses Postmodern so it does not pull in a whole new database interface into my project. There are however some less positive issues.

The first issue is a hindrance during development. Every time the migrations ASDF system (or the file containing it, as ASDF prefers that all systems be defined in a single file) is recompiled it adds all the defined migrations to the migrations list. Though each one will only be applied once to the DB it is still bothersome. One can then clear the list with (setf database-migrations::*migrations* nil) but then only newly modified migration files will be added. The solution then is to touch the .asd file after clearing the migrations list.

The second negative point is quite dangerous. The downgrade function takes a target version as parameter, with a default target of 0. This means that if you execute downgrade without specifying a target version you delete your whole database.

I am currently using Database-migrations and it works well for me. If for some reason I need to switch I will use cl-migrations.

Using Database-migrations

To address the danger of unintentionally deleting my database I created a wrapper function that does both upgrade and downgrade, and it requires a target version number.

Another practical issue I discovered is that upgrades and downgrades happen in the same order as they are defined in the migration file. If you create two tables in a single file where table 2 depends on table 1 then you can not revert / downgrade because Database-migrations will attempt to delete table 1 before table 2. The solution here is to use the def-queries-migration macro (instead of def-query-migration) which defines multiple queries simultaneously . If you get overwhelmed by a single definition that defines multiple tables the other option is to stick with one migration definition per file.

#tigerkingnetflix         #tigerkingmemes   COVID-19 has flipped our world upside down. Whether you’re on the front lines of this global health crisis or doing your part by staying put, we are all coping with losses

A new malware campaign has been found using coronavirus-themed lures to strike government and energy sectors in Azerbaijan with remote access trojans (RAT) capable of exfiltrating sensitive documents, keystrokes, passwords, and even images from the webcam. The targeted attacks employ Microsoft Word documents as droppers to deploy a previously unknown Python-based RAT dubbed "PoetRAT" due to

A new type of mobile banking malware has been discovered abusing Android's accessibility features to exfiltrate sensitive data from financial applications, read user SMS messages, and hijack SMS-based two-factor authentication codes. Called "EventBot" by Cybereason researchers, the malware is capable of targeting over 200 different financial apps, including banking, money transfer services,

Two severe security flaws have been discovered in the open-source SaltStack Salt configuration framework that could allow an adversary to execute arbitrary code on remote servers deployed in data centers and cloud environments. The vulnerabilities were identified by F-Secure researchers earlier this March and disclosed on Thursday, a day after SaltStack released a patch (version 3000.2)

DigitalOcean, one of the biggest modern web hosting platforms, recently hit with a concerning data leak incident that exposed some of its customers' data to unknown and unauthorized third parties. Though the hosting company has not yet publicly released a statement, it did has started warning affected customers of the scope of the breach via an email. According to the breach notification

My newest article for acmQueue magazine is called Demo Data as Code: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3355565

I had to use PHPMyadmin a few days ago to delete old tables in my WordPress Database. They were created by a plugin that I tried but decided not to use. Normally when you uninstall a plugin the developer deletes the tables in your database that they create. In this case this author didn’t. It […]

The machine learning techniques scientists use to predict outcomes from large datasets may fall short when it comes to projecting the outcomes of people’s lives, according to a large-scale mass collaboration led by researchers at Princeton.

Traveling beyond the immediate surroundings of one’s residence can lead to greater exposure to new ideas and information, jobs, and greater transmission of disease. In this paper, we document the geographic mobility of individuals in the U.S., and how this mobility varies across U.S. cities, regions, and income classes. Using geolocation data for ~1.7 million smartphone users over a 10-month period, we compute different measures of mobility, including the total distance traveled, the median daily distance traveled, the maximum distance traveled from one’s home, and the number of unique haunts visited. We find large differences across cities and income groups. For example, people in New York travel 38% fewer total kilometers and visit 14% fewer block-sized areas than people in Atlanta. And, individuals in the bottom income quartile travel 12% less overall and visit 13% fewer total locations than the top income quartile.

A week packed with US economic data is likely to provide investors with more evidence of the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic has hit growth, sharpening the debate on whether a rebound in stocks has been justified amid an unprecedented slowdown.

Our Corporate edition now supports tying your database to a fully customisable template for automatic display of database information.

It was an extraordinary vote of confidence for autonomous driving by the nation's top vehicle safety agency.

Tesla's Autopilot and other driver-assist systems might enhance safety, but manufacturers can keep the data under wraps.

IT WAS the inevitability that we were merely waiting to have confirmed. Latest data released this morning by mortgage lender Halifax indeed confirms that house prices cooled in April, as one would expect given the economic impacts of the current health crisis.

A company which had contracts with Utah suspended over its founders past associations with white supremacists had an outside data deal, per reports.

Since 1998, the city of Carmel has spent more than $250 million to build 126 roundabouts in the city. But data doesn't prove safety claims.

As we begin to reopen, we owe it to those we've lost to proceed gradually, making decisions based on what data shows about the virus' spread.

Data From Cassini Helps Scientists Understand Saturn’s Atmosphere  Dual Dove

A Chicago cyclist was injured by an electric scooter rider who fled the scene. Now he's gone to court to get the city's scooter companies to turn over personal information about their riders and their history.

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strataconf: Get Practical Strategies & Tactics for Moving to Big Data http://t.co/qn4gKSyBvw Jun11 Webcast - Best of #Strataconf + Hadoop World 2012

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strataconf: Building Big Data applications now easier http://t.co/jaATalPL4P Hadoop analytic engines simplify creation of low-cost, scalable apps

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strataconf: Big data vs big reality http://t.co/D751jk0ntb Data itself has no quality. It’s what you do with it that counts

strataconf: Starts in 1 hour: Best of #Strataconf Webcast - 'Practical Strategies & Tactics for Moving to Big Data'. Watch at http://t.co/qn4gKSyBvw

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strataconf: As infrastructure gets simpler, interesting big data apps can emerge on BDAS, @Cloudera & other Hadoop distributions http://t.co/jaATalPL4P

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strataconf: The Future Is Graph Databases http://t.co/BVxOZwtoKS A Conversation with @EmilEifrem, founder of @Neo4J #strataconf

Statistical methods are a key part of data science, yet few data scientists have formal statistical training. Courses and books on basic statistics rarely cover the topic from a data science perspective. The second edition of this popular guide adds comprehensive examples in Python, provides practical guidance on applying statistical methods to data science, tells you how to avoid their misuse, and gives you advice on what’s important and what’s not.

If you use data to make critical business decisions, this book is for you. Whether you’re a data analyst, research scientist, data engineer, ML engineer, data scientist, application developer, or systems developer, this guide helps you broaden your understanding of the modern data science stack, create your own machine learning pipelines, and deploy them to applications at production scale.

MTN on Friday announced a drop in the price of monthly data bundles and customers will now pay R99 for 1GB, 33% lower than previously.

The communications regulator is asking telecom companies to consider lowering the cost of data in a bid to ensure productivity during the period the coronavirus outbreak.

Datatec tells shareholders that the rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak has reached every region where the group operates.

For building owners and managers, data is the fuel behind their smart building operations. Leveraging the surplus of data that is readily available to them, owners and managers are making informed decisions for their facility that can create long-term performance enhancements and help them achieve goals such as improved efficiency and occupant comfort. Here is […]

The post How to Ensure Your Data is Providing Trustworthy Insights appeared first on ReadWrite.

This update was an “absolute monster” said Mordy Oberstein from RankRanger.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

The move would close a loophole on an otherwise widespread practice.

A new year brings another run at my annual predictions: For 17 years now, I’ve taken a few hours to imagine what might happen over the course of the coming twelve months. And my goodness did I swing for the fences last year — and I pretty much whiffed. Batting .300 is great in the majors, but it … Continue reading "Predictions 2020: Facebook Caves, Google Zags, Netflix Sells Out, and Data Policy Gets Sexy"