Part 3 of 3. Return to Part 2. The Twitter network differs from Facebook and LinkedIn because it does not require relationships to be reciprocal. Accordingly, I can follow users whose updates I find interesting or valuable without any expectation that they will do the same. (In network parlance, this creates a “directed” graph, in […]
Part 2 of 3. Return to Part 1. As with LinkedIn, the graph of friendships in Facebook generally corresponds to relationships established in the real world. Due in part to its more broad-based entertainment appeal, Facebook presently has about six times more registered and active users. I joined Facebook in early 2004 while I was […]
Part 1 of 3 Humans are ubiquitously social animals. Even our identities are socially informed: when asked to describe ourselves, many of us would mention familial relationships (“a husband,” “a mother,” “a sister”), the culture we are from, or the professional community implied by our work. John Donne’s famous quote “No man is an island” […]
My post outlining the reasons why I think Python should be the language of choice in astronomy today got a lot more attention than I expected thanks to discussion on Hacker News and a link from Guido himself. Psychological factors encourage particular attachment to one’s tool choices, but the discussion has been constructive. Some commenters […]