Data from the Wolrd Bank

There is a wealth of data-sets pretty much about every country in the world available for free from April 2010 by the World Bank. Data ranges from agricultural use, educational / medical standards to financial development indicators. I discovered this resource while looking for some macroeconomic data for one of my PhD experiments. Weirdly enough I ended up browsing the huge data-set for hours and had a great time discovering the various differences in education, health and economic production between countries. For example I found that people are very keen about education in Kazachstan, in certain years even more so than in France - play around by selecting different countries.

Arable land (% of land area)

Data from World Bank, Martin's Blog :-)

You can even compose cool widgets like the one above!

I personally most enjoy browsing the data by the actual available indicators and getting to know what they mean. I found this to be a great resource and hence had to share it with my readers and btw. there's also an API for any developers out there, looks pretty neat.

Other Institutions have also opened up much of their data-records:

• US Bureau of Labout Statistics
• US Bureau of Economic Analysis (the famous BEA)
• US Data.gov
• EU Eurostat
• OECD
• UK National Statistics

My favourite book on many of these indicators is the book by Richard Yamarone - I read parts of it and it is an enlightening read, Richard provides a complete view of each discussed indicator, it's history, it's derivations, computation and uses. Highly recommended!

Fuzzy Logic (Building a Fuzzy Inference System)

Boolean Logic has been around for many years now, however "Fuzzy Logic" is a somewhat more recent "beast", Prof. Lofti Zadeh proposed fuzzy set theory back in 1965.

In this post I want to show online resources that will illustrate that Fuzzy Systems can be simple and most of all are very elegant way to solve some problems.

I had fuzzy set theory in one of my data-mining modules during my university time, studying comp science. It was straight forward but then I never had to make much use of it (only a tiny bit in my PhD). So anyway, let's just jump into it!

1. A great way to start is to work through a real illustrative example, in which a Non-Fuzzy solution is explained, and then the Fuzzy solution is introduced and is shown that it actually does work better... <<This page does exactly that>>
2. Get this by looking at many more examples... <<Here>>
3. Try to build a Fuzzy Inference System yourself - based on the idea of "learning by doing"... <<this can be done here>> (note: this is Matlab based, but this doesn't matter at all)
4. Research papers making use of Fuzzy sets might be usefull cheap option to learn more (<<for example>>), check out a book (or two) and play with a relevant code library.

Software Libraries

Python: pyFuzzy, peach || Java: RockOn Fuzzy, Funzy || C#.net: DotFuzzy

Great Books

Witty Quotes - part 2

This is the second installement, in my little series on witty and clever insights. These were mainly chosen from a book published by Ebury Press ("Keep calm and carry on"). I picked them on the basis of being representative of my beliefs and convictions I often live by or try to live by.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. Winston Churchill

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. George Shaw

Upgrading one's imagination about what is possible is always a leap of faith. Clay Shirky

A greatest mistake a man can ever make is to be afraid of making one. Elbert Hubbard

The best portion of a good man's life - his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness. William Wordsworth

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance the wise man grows it underneath his feet. James Oppenheim

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. Guillaume Apollinaire

A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. Paul White

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you. Dale Carnegie

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant. Robert Stevenson

If you can't sleep, get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep. Dale Carnegie

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine. Lord Byron

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Friedrich Nietzsche

The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles, than growing with them. Bernard Baruch

While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful. Herbert Wells

Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. Francis Bacon

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. Mark Twain

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful & committed people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever hasMargaret Mead

Some witty quotes

I decided to run a little series on witty and clever quotes, I prefer to call them insights, since that more closely reflects the collection of quotes presented here. These insights were mainly chosen from a book published by Ebury Press ("Keep calm and carry on"). I picked them on the basis of being representative of my beliefs and convictions I often live by or try to live by. Here they are, in 2 parts - part 1 of 2.

I am an optimist it doesn't seem to much use to be anything else. Winston Churchill

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. Swedish Proverb

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. John Galbraith

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship. Benjamin Franklin

A Bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it. Bob Hope

Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle. Plato

Happiness depends upon ourselves. Aristotle

We will never return to the old boom and bust. Gordon Brown (2007 Budget Stat.)

The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket. Frank Hubbard

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. Benjamin Disraeli

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today. Laurence Peter

Better bread with water than cake with trouble! Russian Proverb

For a greedy man even his tomb is too small. Tajikistani Proverb

It is unfortunate we can't buy many business executives for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth. Malcolm Forbes

Beware the barrenness of a busy life. Socrates