2018 State of the Tools

For the last two years, I've written up an annual post describing my current computing setup. Time for another 🙂.

2018

As I've done the last two years, it's time for the annual what-I-did-this-year post! Well, about time; there are a couple more weeks in the year, but I expect their results to be mostly tidying up loose ends of things in this list.

Surface Go First Impressions

Microsoft has repeatedly been trying to make strides into an entry-level market for its Surface devices, and so far none of them have stuck. There was the Surface RT, which used an incompatible processor and couldn't run normal Windows software. The Surface 3 used an Atom CPU and didn't last long. And now they have the Surface Go, a 10" Surface sporting a Pentium processor and full Windows 10.

Spending Startup

If you are starting a tenure-track research-oriented position at a US university, you should have a startup package to help you get started. When I began as a faculty member, I did not have a clear idea of how to use it effectively; 4 years in, here are some thoughts about good use of startup funds based on my experience and reflection, as well as things I've read and heard from others along the way.

Author Gender in Book Recommendations

I’m very pleased that we will be able to present a piece of research we have been working on for some time now at RecSys this year.

In my work on fair recommendation, one of the key questions I want to unravel is how recommender systems interact with issues of representation among content creators. As we work, as a society, to improve representation of historically underrepresented groups — women, racial minories, indigenous peoples, gender minorities, etc. — will recommender systems hinder those efforts? Will ‘get recommended to potential audiences’ be yet another roadblock in the path of authors from disadvantaged groups, or might the recommender aid in the process of exposing new creators to the audiences that will appreciate their work and make them thrive?