This is a special reading-only issue of Recently.

Reading

Articles

  • My Intro to Multiple Classification with Random Forests, Conditional Inference Trees, and Linear Discriminant Analysis

    This introduction to random forests was the right mix of explanatory and practical for me at the time I found it. I had used random forests before, but only very simply and naïvely.

  • Rbitrary Standards

    An alternative R FAQ about some of the history and idiosyncrasies of the R language. Go for the knowledge, stay for the great humor and wit.

    See also: The R Inferno by Patrick Burns.

  • 5 Psychological Studies that Require a Second Look

    I come from a cognitive science background, which made the topic relevant to my interests. I think there is a slow-growing but positive trend towards scientists (and in the case of my background, psychological researchers) talking about the unpleasant sides of how the sausage is made, and this is an example of that trend.1 The 5 psychological studies referred to in the title and studies the author himself worked on.

  • More thoughts on Music in iOS 10 (beta)

    Unfortunately, unlike iTunes on the Mac and Windows, Music on iOS still only sorts albums by name, giving us no option to sort them by date instead. This is one of those head slap moments that makes you wonder if anyone at Apple has ever been a serious music collector. As far as I’m concerned, Apple cannot claim that it loves music ever again until it gives us the option to sort albums by date. No self-respecting music geek sorts albums by name. I don’t care if you hide the option in the Settings app, just give me the option for date, you wankers.

    Also worth noting: Apple removed the ability to rate songs in the iOS Music app.

  • Vesper, Adieu

    I bought Vesper but didn’t use it much. Looking back at it now, it looks and behaves great, and I maybe would have started using it more with a second look.

  • Gawker & the Left’s Selective Outrage

    Lest this post be too uncontroversial for you. I really liked this article.

Books

Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer.

This is a big book and it’s been on my to-read list for a while. It’s an easier read than you would think.

I’ve read and continue to read a lot about history and WWII. I’m not special; walk into any second-hand book store, and I guarantee that one of the biggest sections you’ll find is the WWII section. WWII is strange, tragic, and difficult to comprehend. I think Speer’s memoirs might be the closest we can get to a look into the sociology and psychology of the top members of the German government at the time.

If you are at all interested in the history of World War II, I really recommend this book. It’s a classic for a good reason.

  1. Not a very recent example. The article is dated Feb 18, 2014. I only read it in Sept 2016 because I’m doing a sweep of my unread pinboard bookmarks. More on that in a later post. ↩︎

The Recently posts are inspired by Tom MacWright.