Tool of the day: q

If you work with command line and know your SQL, q a great tool to use:
q allows you to query your text files or standard input with SQL. You can:
SELECT c1, COUNT(*) FROM /home/shlomi/tmp/my_file.csv GROUP BY c1
And you can:
SELECT all.c2 FROM /tmp/all_engines.txt AS all LEFT JOIN /tmp/innodb_engines.txt AS inno USING (c1, c2) WHERE inno.c3 IS NULL
And you can also combine with your favourite shell commands and tools:
grep “my_term” /tmp/my_file.txt | q “SELECT c4 FROM – JOIN /home/shlomi/static.txt USING (c1)” | xargs touch
Some of q’s functionality (and indeed, SQL functionality) can be found in command line tools. You can use grep for pseudo WHERE filtering, or cut for projecting, but you can only get so far with cat my_file.csv | sort | uniq -c | sort -n. SQL is way more powerful for working with tabulated data, and so q makes for a great addition into one’s toolbox.
The tool is authored by my colleague Harel Ben-Attia, and is in daily use over at our company (it is in fact installed on all production servers).
It is of course free and open source (get it on GitHub, where you can also find documentation), and very easy to setup. Enjoy!

via Planet MySQL Tool of the day: q

Harvard Scientists Have Just Invented Human-Rat Telepathy

Humans have long wished to see through the eyes of other animals—like Bran Stark’s Warg ability, say—but so far the best we’ve achieved is mounting GoPros on them. One Harvard research team, though, has just brought us a step closer to that goal with a prototype noninvasive brain-to-brain interface allowing test subjects to control a rat’s tail with nothing more than their thoughts.

Read more…

    



via Gizmodo Harvard Scientists Have Just Invented Human-Rat Telepathy

20 Fresh WordPress Themes: Edition July 2013


  

WordPress keeps being the favorite content management system for startups. This has many reasons, not the least because it is a robust and easy to handle system. Also, you can show your content in a very elegant way with low or no budget required. No wonder, this sounds appealing to a lot of people. With more and more websites being powered by WordPress, theme developers go pedal to the metal to satisfy the needs even of those not easily satisfied in terms of design. Here are the new entries in the WordPress theme arena from the month of July 2013. Enjoy!

via noupe 20 Fresh WordPress Themes: Edition July 2013

Waiting for a Wave

A veritable sea of people floats in a just-opened wave pool in China awaiting the first wave’s arrival. One can only assume that personal space isn’t an issue in China. We can only hope they don’t sell Baby Ruth bars there.

via The Awesomer Waiting for a Wave

2013 University of California Open Access Policy

The Academic Senate of the University of California passed an Open Access Policy on July 24, 2013, ensuring that future research articles authored by faculty at all 10 campuses of UC will be made available to the public at no charge.

The policy covers more than 8,000 UC faculty and as many as 40,000 publications a year. By granting a license to the University of California prior to any contractual arrangement with publishers, faculty members can now make their research widely and publicly available, re-use it for various purposes, or modify it for future research publications. – Reshaping Scholarly Communication, UC

via Groklaw NewsPicks 2013 University of California Open Access Policy

Father’s imaginative portraits of daughter guaranteed to make you smile

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There’s nothing traditional about photographer Nagano Toyokazu’s portraits of his daughter. His unorthodox shots put the girl at the center of a series of whimsical scenes, in turn commanding the attention of a line of yellow rubber ducks, conducting a chorus of frogs and tackling an impossible tower of ice cream scoops on a cone. They’re funny, sweet, and probably the most adorable thing you’ll see on the internet today. Click through and get ready for the cute.

via News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) Father’s imaginative portraits of daughter guaranteed to make you smile