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Don't Believe Anything I Tell You about Linux
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The Linux version of iTunes allows you to create playlists based on SQL queries. (Note that you must use PostgreSQL syntax.)
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There is a version of node.js that can make most modern web pages compatible with the Lynx text-based browser by turning all the graphical elements on the page into ASCII art. (Most people don’t know this because they never bother to check to see if the User Agent is Lynx.) Because of the way that you use the arrow keys to navigate through a page, there are some glitches with mouseover events.
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If your Linux box has ransomware, try changing the value of
ransomin the configuration file. If it doesn’t update in realtime, take note of the process id, and kill the process. The ransomware should relaunch itself with the new value. If that doesn’t work, you might need to recompile.
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The Data Temple
Yesterday the local chapter of R-Ladies had its first book group session, and we discussed the first eight chapters of R for Data Science. I think I did a remarkably good job of stating my objections to the data management principles in Chapter 8 in a succinct but efficient way.
The text takes a pretty hardcore point of view about keeping all the files related to the project in the same directory (or in subdirectories thereof) and not using absolute path names. Specifically, it suggests keeping all the data in with the project.
Clearly the people who wrote and edited this book deal with different types of data than I’m used to working with.
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Have they dealt with an IRB and its restrictions on data collected from human subjects? I worked on a project where all the data was required to be locked in a magical temple, defended by ninja monks. We certainly did not keep the data on our laptops. We used the absolute path name to where the data was stored on the remarkably secure server that one could only access with a one-time-password token. The analysis server had enough memory that no one needed to warn the IRB about swap files.
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Have they worked with remarkably large datasets that are used for different projects? If you have a few dozen key-value pairs (like “NY”, “New York”), sure, keep a copy with each project that needs them. But I have a file that is remarkably large that I need to use on a regular basis. It doesn’t have anything particularly secret in it – in fact, I downloaded it from a government website. But it seems silly for me to have a separate copy of it included with each project that uses it. Also, the government updates the file every now and then, and it would be nice to only have to replace it in one place to get all of my scripts to use the newest version. I can keep the current version of the file in my data temple (no protective monks required), and I can systematically archive the older versions so that I can replicate previous analyses.
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If you can have your script talk directly to the database where your data lives, that is likely going to be much better than a lot of other possibilities.
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A lot of the book is just an ad for RStudio. And it’s fine for the authors to present it as a way to come up with a reproducible workflow system, but it just seems somewhat annoying that they don’t acknowledge that there are other sets of tools that could be just as effective.
Now that I’ve gotten myself all riled up, it might be time for me to get back to work on my manifesto.
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Tuesday Omens
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Cat barf.
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Only after I arrived at work did I discover that there is a hole in my skirt.
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Trouble connecting to the office wi-fi.
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Today’s task requires me to use data from my least-favorite data source.
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Lies I Tell Konmari
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I will play the piano again. The fourth finger on my right hand, the one that is in some ways controlled by the metacarpal that I broke a few years ago, will regain its strength and agility, despite the fact that I still can’t fully extend it, and it still shakes with weakness when I try to type an ń (for those of you with Macs with non-Dvorak key layouts, it would be like typing an ł). How often do I type an ń? It is the eighth letter of my last name. The piano brings me joy.
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Ich möchte immer noch deutsch lernen. Ich lese die deutsche Bücher die ich in Bonn kaufte. Ich wird die Wörterbuch benutzen, und ich mache wieder die Grammatikübungen. Ich freue mich deutsch zu lernen.
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I’ll take the IKEA cabinet and those other bulky items to Goodwill as soon as I can find a parking spot near my apartment on a weekend.
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There are no photographs.
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Horoscopes for a New Academic Term
Since it doesn’t make sense for all of our spring classes to start during the same week, we have more of a staggered start of the term than a traditional school. But we are getting ready for the kick-off of our spring term. Or, in parlance of our database (which is the only language I care about these days), the 2018-0 season. (Yes, that is stored as a character string. Grr.)
Some of our classes have started, and some of them are yet to start. Some of your classes are started, and some of them are yet to start. And some people have finally escaped from a world where September and January are both tied to academic new beginnings.
But without further ado, here are your horoscopes for the coming academic term.
- Visual Learner:
- Don't lose your view of the big picture this semester! Don't get too focused on the details this coming term. Think about your academic goals, and see yourself at the finish line! Keep a "look" out for an important new mentor who can guide you on an exciting journey of personal and professional discovery.
- Auditory Learner:
- Did you hear about the changes that are coming? Keep an ear to the ground, and you'll be the first to know about the new additions to the curriculum. Be sure to listen more than you talk, and you find out important secrets that will help you meet your goals. Don't be afraid to quote that podcast in your paper!
- Kinesthetic Learner:
- Now is the time to "walk the walk." Take a moment to look at the path ahead of you and grasp your future! Don't be afraid to dance to the beat of a different drummer, and put forward that avant guard idea!. Rebalance the load of the knowledge that you carry with you, and don't let it it weigh you down.
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Last Day of JMM
I’ve run out of things that I am interested in seeing at the JMM. I know that I should be going to some of the talks this morning because so many people have already left, and a lot of other people have given up, so there aren’t as many people in the auidence. But I can’t figure out how to pick the talks that are worth my while. Most of the talks scheduled for the last day of the conference have somehow been viewed as low-status by someone doing the scheduling. Sometimes the organizers of the session put their least favorite talks on the last day. Sometimes the people making the master schedule for the conference put their least favorite sessions into the worst time slots. (And, as a counter-example to my claim, there is some solid number theory being presented this afternoon, which is what makes it so hard to write off the last day entirely. I might actually be missing something fantastic.) But I think that I am going to sit here and work on other things instead of going to the talk about animated gifs.
I’ve also decided that instead of buying a real t-shirt with some sort of nerdy math content that I am going to save my money to spend on fake clothes for my character in the fashion game that I am playing far too much of on my phone these days. She can get an entire outfit for just a few dollars!
Because this city is so provincial, I’m almost never downtown (even though I live just three miles away), so I might take this opportunity to wander around and see if there are any parking garages or other reasonably-publicly-accessible structures where I can eventually go to photo graph airplanes landing. I’m high enough up to get good views from the second floor of the convention center, but I’m too far from the flight path to get good pictures of the planes.
By tomorrow, we’ll be back on easy mode for those who are playing the downtown edition of “Homeless? Or mathematician?”
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Buses Not Taken
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I had thought that once I was able to drive again that I was going to still ride the bus (+ ride my bike) to the office once a week. First I hurt my knee, and then I got lazy. So that didn’t happen.
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I did ride the bus to JMM yesterday and today because the convention center is a short, flat walk from the bus stop. (Despite this being the JMM, I am not going to try to make a joke about localizations and free modules. Also, it has been long enough since I have thought seriously about such things that I would probably get in wrong.) One of the buses to downtown stops just in front of the 24-hour Mexican restaurant at the end of my block.
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Yesterday I did not take the best bus home because the 2nd best bus got to the stop exactly when I did. While riding the 2nd best bus, a woman already on the bus got up as if she were going to get off the bus but instead was handed a small child through the door of the bus. The two of them continued riding into my neighborhood.
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I told my colleague that he should ride the bus to JMM, but he didn’t. There are two types of buses that run between downtown and the park-and-ride near work. One is the regular city bus (235), which pretty much goes up and down the 15 all day, stopping at all of the transit centers along the way, including the very popular ones at the community colleges (and the one in the not-yet-gentrified neighborhood just inland from where I live). You can take this bus north or south in the morning or in the afternoon. This is the bus that I took to work. The bus that I recommended to my colleague is the 290 Rapid Express. It travels from the suburbs (where the office is located) to downtown in the mornings (only) and from downtown to the suburbs in the evenings (only). It is a really fancy bus (it has wifi!); one of my fellow riders of the regular bus called it the “casino bus.” When I commute to work on the freeway, I frequently see the casino bus—empty—on its way to bring the right people, who deserve a nice bus, in the right direction. If the casino bus went the direction that I was going, I would be more motivated to take the bus.
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