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Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Reading Tukey's Exploratory Data Analysis:
If we want to see what our plots ought to tell us, there is no substitute for the use of tracing paper (or acetate). If we slip a well-printed sheet of graph paper just below the top sheet of a pad of tracing paper, we can plot on the top sheet of tracing paper almost as easily as if it were itself ruled. Then, when we have the points plotted, some boundary or reference lines drawn, and a few scale points ticked, we can take away the graph sheet and look at the points undisturbed by a grid. We often gain noticeably in insight by doing this. (And we have had to pay for a sheet of tracing paper rather than for a sheet of graph paper.) [...]
An alternative that:
- can be even mre effective,
- is no more expensive,
- takes a little more trouble to prepare for,
replaces the tracing paper by the thin sheets of transparent plastic (acetate) made for use in overhead projectors. Two cautions are important:
- You can only use markers specially made for the purpose. [...]
- It is important to keep one's fingers off the plastic until the picture is completed. (A piece of thin graph paper, placed upside down, works very well as a hand shield.)
Much of this classic textbook is obsolete tips and tricks -- e.g. for collecting data on paper and checking that you've copied it accurately to another piece of paper. The notes on cost of tracing paper vs. graph paper vs. acetate strikes me as quite funny now!
I think I learned to graph by hand in school but never had to except as an academic exercise -- I was using graphing software before entering University (summer job in a water testing lab). I wonder what kids today do in school, if they even bother with the academic exercise. I hope so, because it was kind of fun playing with numbers on paper. For some values of fun :)
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Random Stuff
If you know me, you know I've been pretty busy and no surprise that I've been neglecting my blog! Rather than let the blog languish for even longer waiting for the perfect post, I'll just be random today.
1. The Atom Publishing Protocol (APP) is up for approval by the IESG this week and I'm the sponsoring Area Director. I'm excited about APP because it will serve as a model or basis for much future work in accessing and editing structured content on the Web. (Will the IETF APP area one day be assumed to stand for Atom Publishing Protocol rather than APPlications?) I observed some of the Atom Interop event last month (summarized by Tim Bray here) and it was great.
2. I am apparently a sucker for some kinds of advertising copy, not necessarily what one would call good copy. Witness: here is the entire Product Description for the ice cube trays I bought online when my freezer was mysteriously not making ice cubes automatically, before it mysteriously started to again.
Ice Cold Fun! These wild and wacky Flexible Ice Trays are just plain crazy. The flexible designs allow ice to just pop out! Its quick and easy. And fun! Better still are the nutty shapes the ice forms into Stars or Hearts! Wild! Fun! Each tray container contains twelve individual molds perfect for all the fun ice youll be making. Blue star tray and pink heart tray. Made of high quality rubber.
Nutty shapes! Wild and wacky! Oh the fun we'll have with ice cubes!
3. I continue to knit stuff. I just don't have time to post about it any more. Here's a shot of me with other knitters at a meetup at Nine Rubies, and the project at my feet is now a completed scarf (with an estimated 40,000 stitches, which is why I normally don't calculate stitch counts).
4. I also made a mei-tai baby carrier. Again, this photo is obviously not taken by me, otherwise I probably wouldn't have a photo of the carrier at all. I don't even have photos of the sweater or bag I finished a while back.
5. Looks like IETF Chicago will be exciting: the Apps area will have BOF meetings on HTTP, notifications from email stores, and personal address book access.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
 "For the Love of Yarn", an online knitting magazine, has now published my Cielo baby blanket pattern in their spring '07 issue. Oh the fame!
Seriously I did get a query already about yarn substitutions. I knit this with Elann.com "Den-m-nit" but that appears to be discontinued. There are two special effects inherent in this yarn: one is that it will fade like blue jeans over time as it's washed and used, and another is that it will shrink %10 to %20 the first time it's washed. Rowan Denim yarn behaves the same way and is widely available, thus it's a perfect substitution -- but expensive. Another less-well-known option is Twilleys Freedom Denim Yarn. I found a couple online vendors for this:
- Texere in the UK
sells this for 2£/50g, which is currently about $3 US. Even with the shipping, for 13 balls (what the pattern suggests) this is cheaper than US sources.
- Erica's Yarn sells and ships in the US for $5/50g.
It should be easy to substitute other worsted weight yarns to get other colours besides indigo, although of course the faded jeans effect won't happen. Note that there are two main kinds of 100% cotton yarns, mercerized and unmercerized. Mercerized cotton yarns do not shrink, therefore behave differently than the denim yarns. Still, some of these can be wonderfully cheap and colourful, like Elann.com Sonata, which has great stitch definition and sheen and is $1.98/50g. It's also possible to use cotton blend or non-cotton worsted weight yarn for another kind of look. To substitute a yarn that doesn't shrink, the knitter just has to stop knitting the main body when the blanket is big enough, and knit the edging on as written.
Some unmercerized cotton yarns do shrink and others don't. Worse, unmercerized cotton yarn isn't always advertised as such. For example, I've used Mission Falls 1824 cotton and Blue Sky Organic cotton without any noticeable shrinking (and they're both great yarns though with the Blue Sky you have to live with some pilling and fuzzing). Knitter's Review confirms that Mission Falls 1824 cotton is unmercerized and various blogs say that the Blue Sky cotton is unmercerized. So just getting an unmercerized yarn doesn't guarantee that it will or won't shrink.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
I hadn't yet seen the talk by Hans Rosling, last year at Ted 2006. It's fascinating from a technology perspective but even more so from a political or social welfare perspective.
I browsed a little further into other Gapminder presentations, including one given by Ola Rosling at Google a year ago, where he talks about the significant differences made by left vs. right politics in achieving health advances vs. wealth advances -- a point which didn't appear in Hans' talk.
What is news is that Google bought the Trendanalyser software and hired its team from Gapminder, announced last month. The Gapminder foundation continues its mission separately although I'm not entirely clear what that is now.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Needed: Web 2.0 Hackers
CommerceNet (my employer) would like to start a bunch of Web 2.0 projects in the areas of calendaring, security, schemas/standards and health information. We're looking for some hot Web 2.0 developers to help us prototype some of these sites. The job descriptions and address to apply to are here but you can ask me directly for information if you'd like -- I'm a hiring manager.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
I am part of a panel hosted and organized by Scott Rosenberg on why Software is Hard at the Hillside Club tomorrow evening. Scott's got more exposure to this than any other journalist I can think of, perhaps you've seen his book Dreaming in Code. Eric Allman and Chad Dickerson will be part of the panel too.
Friday, February 23, 2007
How to shop at Ikea with a Prius:
This is packed with $860 worth of furniture and storage boxes from Ikea. The big-ticket items were a full height and width Bonde shelf unit with doors, and a four-unit-tall Effectiv unit with doors. Even bulkier, however, were the two storage baskets and various plastic bins. The amazing thing was that we still fit two adults and a baby in his carseat in the car, too. The adult passenger had to hold plastic boxes on her lap for that to work.
Other pictures: another view of the packed car, and the purchases spread out on the driveway.
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