What tech are/have you put time into researching/learning recently?

[Whorty]

Although it's been years since I was on the tools (have been a PM for many a year) I like to keep up to date on technologies so that I don't get hoodwinked by techies rubbing their chins much like mechanics when asked "how much and how long?".

Same here, ex techie now in BA and PM space but still likes to dabble for fun. Currently self teaching Javascript, HTML and CSS as fancy building a decent website from scratch. Built one for a friend a few years ago that was ok, but based on Wordpress. Want to build my own and make it funky.

Hard to find quality time though given full time roll, passion for cycling, and being main carer for disabled wife who needs a lot of help. The learning keeps me occupied and the brain ticking over

[NotAllThere]

Switching over to using Power BI and gaining R next.

I did R a couple fo years ago. Dull. It could be a really powerful language, but currently... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Blockchain.

Loads of mugs paying good money for 'experts' in this latest craze. Same bunch of idiots that thought XML was the best new technology to solve all their IT problems.

Probably get a grand a day plus for bulltulipting them. You can bulltulip a bulltulipter.

Indeed. I looked into blockchain, built a node, wrote a few etheroum contracts, went to a few networking events. Met the people I'd be working with and decided a grand or more a day still wasn't worth it.

[sasguru]

I did R a couple fo years ago. Dull. It could be a really powerful language, but currently... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

.

R is excellent for modelling small to medium amounts of data as the stats routines are built in (poor man's SAS really).
Not a general purpose programming language, too clunky and not happy with large volumes of data (not without some hacking anyway).

Current (permie) role is going to involve machine learning using the Python data stack (numpy, pandas and scikit-learn), have a 2 week training course on this soon.
I think once I have some of that under my belt, contracting is going to be even more lucrative than it is already, which is the main reason I took this role and not the alternative I was offered in Switzerland

[NotAllThere]

Did some work on clustering. The notion of distance on the dataset was not really clear, but I came up with an algorithm that seemed promising. A friendly mathematician did the topological proof that it really is a metric, so it was viable to use and we got good results. It's now part of a commercial product. Customers are happy with it.

[DoctorStrangelove]

A DVD player

Wot PTG said.

One wot is region free so I can watch the 5 region 1 dvds I possess.

Oh, and I investigated the theory that washing dvds in Fairy Liquid(tm) stops them skipping.

The the dvd in question, it appears that it does.

Though it did take undiluted Fairy Liquid(tm) to do it successfully.

Other than that, Z80 FORTRAN, it's the coming thing.

[BR14]

Currently re-reading 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance'[.
To keep my carb tuning skills up to date

[cojak]

What tech are/have you put time into researching/learning recently?

Azure, notably B2B and B2C (working on Identity and Access Management atm).

[NotAllThere]

Wot PTG said.

One wot is region free so I can watch the 5 region 1 dvds I possess.

Get dvdshrink. Make a region free backup. Get imgburn - burn to a blank DVD.

I have a dedicated dvd drive for region 1, but if its a one off, you can switch the DVD drive's region up to 5 times.

[jamesbrown]

My tuppence. Commercial packages like SAS (code monkey's R ) and Matlab are doomed outside of some niche areas. I've generally used R/S for most small- to medium-sized problems (it's powerful, but not really a serious programming language for production: horribly brittle, not very efficient, and unit testing is a PITA; the academic origin shows). Increasingly, I'm using Python because it's just a ton easier to write, debug, and unit test than R and there's a critical mass now. Still use Java for some production, even FORTRAN for some legacy stuff. Languages are just a means to an end. Notwithstanding that, you can't go far wrong with Python as a general purpose language for production (who knows whether it will stand the test of time like Java), but particularly for data analytics. Anyone thinking about choosing R is probably best off learning Python now, unless you're at the bleeding edge (in which case, you probably know R already).

[DoctorStrangelove]

Currently re-reading 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance'[.
To keep my carb tuning skills up to date

So far as I'm aware they don't put Holley 4 barrel carbs on motorcycles.

You really need to be a Zen Master to tune one of those feckers, crap that they are.

Anyone want to buy a 390cfm?

One careful owner.

Never raced nor rallied.

Bring carb icing to a car near you. <- what you'll do when the damn thing spits flame and you're attempting to set the float levels.