Chris Aldrich

My @Quora answer to Is there a quick way to republish Twitter updates onto a blog? http://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-quick-way-to-republish-Twitter-updates-onto-a-blog/answer/Chris-Aldrich?srid=qkX

There are a small variety of answers here some of which (including Ashton Kutcher's suggestion of the formerly awesome ping.fm) are already defunct in less than a year or two, which indicates the fickle and rapidly changing nature of the internet.

I'll start by not accepting the premise of the question, but modifying the conceptualization to something more interesting and robust. Since there are hundreds upon hundreds of defunct web services many of which have died with little to no advance warning and which more often than not were information silos that didn't allow their users to export their data (see: site-deaths - IndieWebCamp [http://indiewebcamp.com/site_deaths]), I would highly recommend asking the following question instead:
"Is there a quick way to cross-publish or syndicate my content to Twitter?"

The hidden sentiment of the original question: "how can I easily keep my own data in the eventuality that Twitter disappears?" is really the root of the problem and is one which the IndieWeb movement has been diligently working on for several years. I'll let them speak for themselves:

Your content is yours
When you post something on the web, it should belong to you, not a corporation. Too many companies have gone out of business and lost all of their users’ data. By joining the IndieWeb, your content stays yours and in your control.

You are better connected
Your articles and status messages can go to all services, not just one, allowing you to engage with everyone. Even replies and likes on other services can come back to your sites o they’re all in one place.

You are in control
You can post anything you want, in any format you want, with no one monitoring you. In addition, you share simple readable links such as Page on example.com. These links arepermanent and will always work.
-- Source: IndieWebCamp [http://indiewebcamp.com/]

The general philosophy is that it is easy enough to own your own site, own your own data, and then syndicate it out to any of the variety of content silos that exist (while sucking additionally created follow-on data, such as comments, likes, etc. back into your own site), so that you can simultaneously take advantage of the network effects of these silos while still owning everything and not chancing that it will disappear without warning. I'd highly recommend surfing around the IndieWebCamp site for a bit, but I imagine that most will find it actually describes the way many wished the internet worked.

Now that we've got the background philosophy of the question sorted out, let's take a look at the semantics of the solution. The question is essentially asking about the IndieWeb concept of Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (aka POSSE [http://indiewebcamp.com/POSSE]). The mechanics are somewhat different depending on the home platform on which one builds one's site, but almost all platforms allow one to at least post the "headline" of their post along with a permalink manually. IndieWeb forward platforms like Wordpress, Tumblr, Drupal, and WithKnown either have the functionality to cross-post to twitter automatically or do so fairly easily with simple and free plugins (e.g.: WordPress's ubiquitous plugin has a "publicize" functionality that allows crossposting to major silos like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, and LinkedIn among others). Most of these also have either built in or plugin functionality to pull comments, likes, and reshares from the specific silo back to the original content, so that all of it is memorialized in the same place. For those that need it, the POSSE page at IndieWebCamp (linked above) has a variety of ideas and resources for a variety of platforms.

My answer to Question on @Quora: Would it be worth it to study category theory? http://qr.ae/R7u9ME

The sad answer for most in your situation is: probably not yet. There just isn't a broad layer of applied use of category theory in your area yet. (I'll note that I'm also an electrical engineer with a background in information theory.) HOWEVER, this certainly doesn't mean it's not important and that the future won't find lots of applications for it, particularly given its abstraction and ability to connect disparate areas of mathematics. On the bleeding edge of research, however, it's another story. (For a flavor of some of this, take a look at John Baez's blog Azimuth: https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/?s=category+theory). Given my diverse mathematical background, I have no doubt that category theory will be exceedingly important over the next century, and particularly in the area of communications.

My suggestion to you, particularly as you mention that it seems very abstract, is that you do some preliminary background work in abstract algebra, combinatorics, and even set theory, which will likely be much more immediately applicable to your present area of study. These will give you a far better preparation for attacking category theory in the future. (I can't recall having seen or heard any EE departments even suggesting category theory courses recently, much less requiring them, even at the master's level. Further, very few universities are offering coursework directly in the topic at the moment, so it's far more likely that you'll only see it at the graduate level.

Those looking to dip their feet in the water might consider taking a look at How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics by Eugenia Cheng [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465051715/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0465051715&linkCode=as2&tag=boffosocko-20&linkId=3QHVSGPXXWMTWGE2] which just came out in May in the US. It's a popular science text which gives some good overview of the subject and is the only book in that space at the moment to my knowledge.

I'll recommend that, if you're impatient, you take a peek at David Spivak's book Category Theory for the Sciences [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262028131/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0262028131&linkCode=as2&tag=boffosocko-20&linkId=BW3G2IMA3JGCU2FC] which is currently one of the best introductory books on the market for those without more advanced background in mathematics. It was released last year by MIT Press and most of it can be found for free on the web - see the study site mentioned below for details. While it doesn't jump right in with heavy theorems/proofs the way most other popular texts in the area do, it does require a reasonable amount of mathematical sophistication, and it does provide a wealth of introductory material in chapters 1-4 on functions, sets, homomorphisms, isomorphisms, basic group theory, for those who don't have any background in set theory, basic topology, or abstract algebra.

As you're roughly in the same area I am, I'll mention that my interest in the topic was recently piqued by an article by Ilyas Khan: Category Theory – the bedrock of mathematics? [http://boffosocko.com/2015/04/30/category-theory-the-bedrock-of-mathematics-via-ilyas-khan/] It prompted me to drop my prior summer plans and create a category theory study group with a group of friends and many strangers. [see: Category Theory Study Group [http://cat.boffosocko.com/], which has a HUGE list of resources (including videos) in the area and is meant for students and self-study; feel free to join us if you'd like.]

As someone currently studying the topic, I will note that it isn't very difficult so far, and is relatively much easier than topics like advanced algebraic topology or Lie groups, so it could certainly be done at an advanced undergraduate level, but I'd certainly recommend diving into Spivak's book before any/many of the others which require a much higher level of mathematical sophistication typically required at the master's level or above. I would suggest that if you've done coursework in calculus and linear algebra and know most of the material in a book like A Primer of Abstract Mathematics (Classroom Resource Materials) by Robert B. Ash [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0883857081/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0883857081&linkCode=as2&tag=math01-20&linkId=J4TBWXWBEVTPHDU7http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0883857081/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0883857081&linkCode=as2&tag=math01-20&linkId=J4TBWXWBEVTPHDU7], you should be able to tackle Spivak's book without too much difficulty. Having one or more of the other prerequisites I mentioned before would certainly help you move through the material much faster.

Thanks to #IndieWeb (@WithKnown, @WordPress, & Brid.gy) this is no longer a problem.

Teaching problem solving | Work in Pencil

Information and Entropy in Biological Systems (Part 5) | Azimuth