My Evolving Book Population
Posted by stieha in Modify the Self on September 26th, 2011
I’ve been studying my population of books the past couple of years and have noticed some trends.
Early on, most of my books were about dinosaurs. I also went through most of Judy Blume’s work, Encyclopedia Brown, and some crazy choose your own adventure novels. I don’t remember much about my middle school books. I think I was playing point and click adventure games then (book like). In high school, most of my books were fiction from many of the authors I was reading in class, such as Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Kerouac, although Terry Pratchet, Piers Anthony, and Asimov made appearances. This trend continued through college but more undergraduate technical books began to migrate into my population. Many of my undergraduate books have since migrated out of the population or died. My population contains overlapping generations, with many of my original books still persisting.
Recently, my books have been more technical, but not by relaying information, but by relaying skills. I’ve picked up many of the O’Reilly’s hack series, such as Mind Hacks, Mind Performance Hacks, and Spidering Hacks, books related to my field of study, such as spatial statistics, statistical analyses, Bayesian analysis, and books about my current interests, such as Visualizing data, building and designing electronics, and Processing. All these books work to teach you skills and how to get stuff done.
One can easily read through them and gain knowledge, but I want to start using these books. I’m part of the TechBookClub with Collexion, which gets a group of people together to discuss a technical book every few months. Currently, we are working on Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics
I’m going to work my way through Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain
I’ll keep you posted. Chapter 1 is memory.
Maybe I should get @lifetinkerer up and running so we can have a virtual TechBookClub.
Visualizing Data
Posted by stieha in Modify the Self on September 1st, 2011
As part of TechBookClub, we decided to read Nathan Yau’s (flowingdata.com) book Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics. Working through Chapter 4, I grabbed the census data from 1790 to 2010 for the cities of Lexington, Kentucky and Lousiville, Kentucky, as well as the for the whole state of Kentucky from their respective Wikipedia pages.
And I started plotting.
At first I worked with pure population numbers. And I immediately ran into the order of magnitude problem. For example, Louisville increases from 200 people in 1790 to almost 750,000 in 2010 – a change in three orders of magnitude. Kentucky itself went from almost 74,000 people to 4.3 million people. If you only plot these numbers, you only see the large values and you lose the small values. When your Y axis goes from 0 to 4.3 million, 200 people (0.000200 million) looks a lot like 0. To account for changes in the orders of magnitude in your data, you can log transform your data or plot the data on a log graph. These techniques allow you to compare small numbers and large numbers without losing the small numbers. But it didn’t work in my case.
Change in plans. I decided to divide the city population by the population of Kentucky at that census. This gave me the proportion of people that lived in the city. I could then see how this proportion changed over time and get an idea of urban growth. If the whole state was increasing in population equally, the proportions wouldn’t change over time.
Immediately, I saw that the proportion of the population that lived in Lexington greatly decreased from 1790 to 1800. One could account this to the census itself. Maybe the first year wasn’t as good as it could have been. From a historical perspective, it appears that many treaties were signed in the ten years between censuses. These treaties focused on control of land and also put a stop to many raids against outlying forts, making it safer to expand westward. Are these the causes of the increase in population in Kentucky, yet decline in the Lexington population as people could get land and feel safe living on the land? I don’t know.
The other drastic change occurs when Louisville’s population is counted as residents in both the city and the county (2010) as opposed to only the city (2000 and before).
You can click on the image above to get a larger, nicer looking version or right click all this.
Five ways to be smarter
Posted by stieha in Modify the Self on June 9th, 2011
Andrea Kuszewski wrote a guest piece for Scientific American about how to increase fluid intelligence, which is your capacity to learn new information, remember the information, and use the new knowledge (and be creative!). She gives five basic steps for doing this, which I’ll repeat here mainly so I always know where they are.
- Seek novelty
- Challenge yourself
- Think creatively
- Do things the hard way
- Network
She goes through each of these five points and gives great references and insight into what she means by each point and what you can do to incorporate these points into your life. I recommend reading the article. I feel that the advice boils down to make yourself uncomfortable (don’t take the easy route, don’t rely on technology (such as GPS), learn/use a skill you aren’t proficient at, etc) and once that becomes comfortable, find something else that makes you uncomfortable.
She also reminded me of the dual n-back test, which is a hard core audio-visual multitasking task which helps increase intelligence. And it looks like there are many programs for many operating systems, which means I may have to add a brain training session to my morning. I remember trying it once and getting beat down, but heard it gets easier with practice (as does everything).
The article did introduce me Robert Sterberg‘s PACE Center which looks at innovative teaching methods. I grabbed his “The Theory of Successful Intelligence” paper and will read through it looking for techniques I can use in the classroom and in life.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=you-can-increase-your-intelligence-2011-03-07
Field Guide to Programming released into the Wild
Posted by stieha in Modify the Self on May 16th, 2011
After a few years of kicking this around in my head, producing small written works, and working with Derik to produce a larger written work, I am releasing The Field Guide to Programming into the wild. The Field Guide uses the exponential growth function for population growth to teach programming and many of the concepts of programming. We assume the reader has no programming experience. I don’t claim that it is perfect or will make you a perfect programmer, but I do think it will get you thinking about programming and how to use programming to make your life easier, such as data manipulation. The focal language is MATLAB, but we try to incorporate Octave as well. The programming concepts are not limited to these languages .
Comments are welcome to me at either the email in the file or my name at lifetinkerer.com
It will always be available on the Projects page.
A New Hypothesis on Time
Posted by stieha in Modify the Self on April 28th, 2011
I think time is moving faster. I need someone to confirm this.
In other news, Month of Projects actually turned out really productive. I thought about posting more of what I did, and may summarize some of the projects that worked and many that didn’t. But that really wasn’t the point of the Month of Projects. It was to get things out of my head and prototyped or determine if they were worth pursuing in the vein of the Cult of Done (which has a great manifesto poster told through Rubik’s cubes).
I did notice myself also not starting things for the simple fact that I knew I would *have* to complete them. It always amazes me how something conceptually simple (“That’ll be done in an hour”) isn’t physically simple (“It’s been four hours already!”). As much as I hate it, I realize not starting projects is an important skill, much like saying no.
I’ve also been contemplating the multiplicative property of small things. I still think everyone in the US should send me a dollar, cause a dollar isn’t a big deal, but when 307 million people each send you a dollar, you become a millionaire. But I can use this philosophy to my advantage, as one hour a day for a month is over a complete day worth of work. However, I notice that many of my projects need more than an hour to get into the mindset of the project, supporting very much the maker’s schedule as opposed to the manager’s schedule in Paul Graham’s essay on the subject.
Some of my projects:
- Acrylic holograms with LED edge lighting
- tiling
- reusable mason bee house
- AVR programming
- making a book with recyclable material
- methods of data visualization
Game Layer on Top of the World
Posted by stieha in Modify Others, Modify the Self on March 14th, 2011
Seth Priebatsch’s TEDxBoston talk discusses the addition of a game layer on top of the real world layer to influence people’s behaviors and actions. He then describes four game mechanisms, although “with 7 game dynamics you can get anyone to do anything.”
Seth makes the point that the game layer already exists by citing airline miles, credit card reward points, and frequent buyer cards. The presentation is really well done and worth a watch with a definition of each dynamic coupled with current examples and future possible uses.
The 4 Dynamics:
1) Appointment dynamic: players do something at a predefined time and place. The best example is Happy Hour, though he comments on the use of this dynamic to get people to take medicine on time.
2) Influence and status: one player uses social pressure to modify another player. Medals/trophies and status symbols are obvious examples.
3) Progression dynamic: complete itemized tasks to update a meter/percentage/progress bar/level up. The boxes at the top of the post are me attempting to use this dynamic on myself.
4) Communal discovery: pull together many people to solve a problem, but may be bad because groups keep each other alive (Good ol’ boy network [wikipedia] anyone?).
As stated, the video is worth the watch for the great information and examples. Also, check out the company scvngr.com (not an ad, just where Seth works).
I think many of these dynamics would work great on other people, but may be a bit difficult to use on yourself. I personally want to see all ten of my boxes filled for the Month of Projects, but the world will not explode if it doesn’t happen. However, if I didn’t fill all ten boxes on a coffee card, I wouldn’t get the free coffee.
I’m reminded of a blog post about using game dynamics to help in software development and debugging. My google-fu is failing me and my memory is hazy, but a list of known bugs were placed on a whiteboard and points were given for achievements ranging from determining what caused the bug to fixing the bug. As opposed to a normal debugging session, it became a game with competition and therefore more fun.
But I am constantly reminded that a game needs to be fun. A game that isn’t fun doesn’t get played.
March: The Month of Projects
Posted by stieha in Modify the Self on March 4th, 2011
I’ve been in a strange funk the past month or so. I realize I talk a lot and think a lot, which isn’t a bad thing. But talking and thinking doesn’t write blog posts, or build prototypes, or write code. Thus the month of projects.
My goal: If I spend multiple hours on one task, then I will produce something based on what I did or learned. If I play sudoku for an hour, then I will develop the algorithm I used and write some pseudo-code (or real code). If I read a novel or short story, I will draw a picture or somehow incorporate a concept of the story into a project (steam powered robots anyone? An illustrated primer?). When I read a chapter in programming, I will develop something based on that chapter, even if it is using a for-loop. Some of this will feed back into my research, some of this will feed back into this blog, and some of this will die a lonely death in the corner of my hard drive – but there will be products.
And be glad I am starting this now and not a week ago or this would be a post about compost. I spent a couple hours turning the bin this past weekend, giving us more than 6 cubic feet of compost, which is about three of the big bags from the home centers.
The Art of Persuasion
Posted by stieha in Modify Others on February 16th, 2011
A Msn.com article for 10 Tricks to Master the Art of Persuasion by Women’s Day caught my eye the other day (a couple of weeks ago). Obviously, I read persuasion as how-to-hack-people-to-do-what-you-want.
The ten tips distilled down to:
1) Begin a project. It makes people more likely to jump on board and finish the project. (Steve Martin, coauthor of Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive)
2) Use vivid imagery of either good (how great will it feel to be done!) or bad (I’ll let you think of this). (Michael Lee, author of How to Be an Expert Persuader in 20 Days or Less)
3) Phrase things as loss. Martin’s example is to stress missing the last day of summer as opposed to demanding more quality time.
4) Start the Tit-for-Tat cycle. Do a good favor, and you should get a return favor (Lee).
5) Ask for something outrageous, then ask for what you really want. I love the example: “Can we go to Six Flags? No. Ok, how about the pool?” (Lee)
6) Add humor. John Cleese from Monty Python says it makes people like you better. Can’t argue with John Cleese. (Lee)
7) Don’t say you or I, say We. Martin says this implies community. To me, it also sounds less demanding and like you will be there to help out (though you may not really be there).
8 ) Be in the majority. Martin’s example is of energy reduction. When you know your neighbors are reducing their energy use, you are more likely to follow along and be persuaded to follow. Obviously, sometimes the majority is wrong. A key is knowing the difference.
9) Give positive comments. (Lee and Martin). I think this one is not done enough. We are really good at being critical, but it is also important to a) note the things the person did well, as well as b) thank the person for doing well or acknowledge that the person did well.
10) Ask for favors right after giving or receiving thanks. (Martin) This is just beautifully sneaky.
I forgot about the energy study mentioned in 8. I’ll have to find it and post, as it is an interesting study of reducing energy use by knowing how much energy your neighbors are using, as well as having it known how much energy you are using.
The books sound like good reads.
Collected the ephemeral
Posted by stieha in Modify the Self on February 14th, 2011
The 7th of January 2011 was the first day I had all the equipment together and cold and when Mother Nature decided to provide the snow. I tried the superglue + microscope slide + cover slip method. I don’t think I had everything cold enough. If the outside is colder than your freezer, definitely leave your supplies outside for a couple hours to get everything even colder. The left side of the snowflake appears to be under the cover slip, which I feel led to the melting. The right side was not under a cover slip. Watching my snowflakes melt under the cover slip led me to try superglue alone, which led to so-so results. Where the superglue was thick, the superglue harden into a frosty puckered mess, obscuring everything below it. Where the superglue is thin, it looks like I got some good results, though I haven’t officially looked at them.
I had to combine two photos to get both the left and the right side into focus simultaneously in one photo. Thanks to Eric Jeschke’s write up on using the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and blending exposures. Took all of two minutes.
Watercolor Biology
Posted by stieha in Modify the Self, Modifying Organisms, Natural Selection on January 31st, 2011
Michele Banks is a watercolor artist who uses watercolors to produce paintings of biological phenomenon, such as dividing cells and heart rhythms. The Scientist article discusses her work with her and talks about the “wet in wet” technique for watercolor that allows the paint to freely flow on the paper and produces fractal patterns. You can hear Michele discuss her art in The Scientist YouTube video. I grabbed the photo from her etsy site.
[brought to my attention by @davemc9ee]