The Mathematics Genealogy Project

The intent of this project is to compile information about ALL the mathematicians of the world. We earnestly solicit information from all schools who participate in the development of research level mathematics and from all individuals who may know desired information.
Please notice: Throughout this project when we use the word “mathematics” or “mathematician” we mean that word in a very inclusive sense. Thus, all relevant data from statistics, computer science, or operations research is welcome.

You can trace lineages as far back as Euler.

Serious Statistics Programs Pay for the Fun Ones

Here is an article that explains how one of the four co-founders of SAS, a statistician, has an awesome job where the serious product (SAS) pays for him to develop the fun product (JMP).
Note: That is an understatement, as it probably would pay for him to stare at the ocean for the rest of his life if he wanted. It is still a good point, though: sell serious stuff to pay for the fun (for you) stuff.

bzlib/dbi – an extensible database interface for PLT

bzlib/dbi has just been made available via planet – inspired by Perl DBI, it is an extensible database interface, currently with the following drivers implemented:
bzlib/dbd-spgsql – wraps around schematics/spgsql
bzlib/dbd-jsqlite – wraps around jaymccarthy/sqlite
bzlib/dbd-jazmysql – wraps around jaz/mysql
bzlib/dbi/app – a kill-safe wrapper over raw database handles
bzlib/dbi/pool – a database connection pool wrapper
So if you need to switch within the three databases you now can do so more easily, and you get database connection pools and kill-safe wrappers for free.
You can find more details at http://weblambda.blogspot.com/2009/09/extensible-abstract-database-interace.html – which explains more in details about the interface.

(via PLT)