Workshop for Analytical Visualization and Exploration (WAVE)

This workshop is designed for people who are preparing for jobs in industry and who want to develop important visual and cognitive skills that complement the ACME curriculum. I don't know how to give a better pitch than Edward Tufte did in his book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information:

"Modern data graphics can do much more than simply substitute for small statistical tables. At their best, graphics are instruments for reasoning about quantitative information. Often the most effective way to describe, explore, and summarize a set of numbers--even a very large set--is to look at pictures of those numbers. Furthermore, of all methods for analyzing and communicating statistical information, well-designed data graphics are usually the simplest and at the same time the most powerful."

Here are the details of the workshop:

When: 10 November 2016 (Thursday) from 7:00-8:30 pm
      or 12 November 2016 (Saturday) from 1:00-2:30 pm
Where: Talmage Building ACME lab (room 150)
What: Design and communication skills for ACME rockstars

Saul Bass said "Design is thinking made visual." Our responsibility is to make sure that the rigor of our visual and verbal communication matches the rigor of our mathematics.

Topics we will cover:

-Exploratory Data Analysis
-Color Theory
-Composition
-Visual thinking and statistics
-How to use words to communicate quantitative ideas

Here are some links to get you excited:

Visual Introduction to Machine Learning
Gun Deaths in America
The best stats you've ever seen
Data Visualization for Human Perception

Questions and Comments and RSVP to derekmiller@byu.edu

There is a nonzero probability that there will be some food or refreshments if enough people RSVP. Please include your name and which session you will be attending (Thursday or Saturday). I'll be using your email to send you some materials for the workshop. If you can't make it to either one of these, send me an email and I'll try to find a time for all those who can't make it.

Last of the Chemo-hicans and the Dawn of a New Data

I am so happy to announce that my wife and I are finally done with Chemo! Sarah Kay went through a scan to double check everything and they said we were clear! Just a few spots to monitor over the next several months/years to make sure it doesn't come back. If it does come back, it usually happens sooner than later (but it's unlikely with our treatment that it will come back). So for now we will meet every 3 months for a year, then every 6 months for two years, then every year after that until we get sick and tired of seeing the doctor. Oh the irony!

So really, I'm just happy to move on with bigger and better things. Which is why my wife and I went on a super spontaneous adventure for a tour of the West Coast!

Provo -> Pullman, WA -> Seattle -> Olympic National Park -> Portland, OR -> Redwoods, CA -> San Francisco -> Sacramento -> Salt Flats, UT -> Provo. Here is us at a visit to Stanford. Check out instagram.com/derek.mllr for more photos.

So now things get rollin'. SK (nickname for Sarah Kay) is in school taking a lighter load to ease back into the swing of things. And there is no easing back into nothin' for me! I'm taking a beast-load of math classes. We had homework to work on before school even started that's how beast-load-ish this is. I decided to record my time spent doing homework (which really helps my focus surprisingly) and I'm shocked at how much time I've spent already. Just today I spent 480 minutes (8 hours) on only two assignments, both due today, with one due at 9 am (I got up at 5:30 to finish it) and 5 pm. It's only day 3 and I've spent 746 minutes (12.43 hours) in total homework time FOR ONLY 2 CLASSES. This semester is going to be nuts. But despite the lack of time, I hope to get some personal projects done. I'm such an optimist. Optimist Prime.

Poetic Short Story

Past Connections

May I have your attention?

I make mention, as is convention, of a retrospective memory:

Once I wandered in a wordless world.

I could not read or write.

All I knew was what I saw and heard without reading words, only reading minds of different kinds of people as best I could. That is to say there was a way of communicating by emulating their speech of spoken sounds—hisses and a click, clack percussive pounding in their mouths.

There was an obvious rhythm in the tune of their tones, as if their ancient ancestors beat big stones with strong sticks drumming the

tick-et-a tick-et-a tack,

tick-et-a tick-et-a tack

smack! into their DNA, making what they say easy on the ears but hard for the head.

What they said was hardly comprehended in my shallow-minded shell but I could tell they were sincere. My fear was that inferior hearing was interfering with my cleverness; nevertheless the unwritings which I audibly read led me to believe in their wonder worlds.

In particular, I remember the shaman mother from a shanty town. Down and down she took me to a valley drenched in desert where there were baobabs by the way we walked. She talked of some sickened tree-stalk bearing the fruit of the morrow—the beginning and the end of sorrow.

It had a name; I had heard it once before and what it held in store for those who chose to count it for naught. To this day, I still can’t say it correctly so excuse me for my nameless nomenclature. She spoke it, though, and spoke of it—intuitive to her native tongue and culture. Kind and caring she showed me the tree and branch still daring to live, still living to dream. My fingers felt the feeble wing whose ever singing song of hope helped me to cope with uncertainty and pain.

Then it began to rain.

The shaman mother said it was the spirits of the dead, their tears searing the soul of the branch to the roll of the thunder.

My mind in wonder finally understood.

The land was alive and thrived on hope, with past generations influencing present nations and kingdoms of nature. Shaman mother showed me what words can’t communicate. Our unsung ancestors are among us, sending us blessings of rain to soothe the pain of life.

So as I wandered in a wordless world where I could not read or write, I learned the language of the lost and found the connection to my past at last.

—DGM, 15 May 2015

Python Boot Camp

If you are interested in learning the Python programming language at BYU over Spring/Summer 2015, click on the survey below.

Python Boot Camp Survey

This will be geared towards those who have a basic understanding of programming concepts and those who will be starting the ACME program in the Fall.

Poem: Copper Jungle

Copper Jungle

HyperTexting in a Markup Language

Made-up Language, Make-up Language

which populates our world with indigenous data

search engine beta and studies in Stata.

The sounds in the Amazon are filled with Tweets

near copper currents of Cascading Style Sheets

where high-level Pythons and gems called Rubies

demand a tribute of Jamba Juice Smoothies.

This is the jungle of yes and no

where currents flow and data grow.

We want to know where it will go

so we can learn things we don’t know.

Endless developing by spreadsheet monkeys

Excel junkies, donut dunkies

please continue to show us how capable you R

birds above par ever raising the bar.

It’s perspiration of our project nation

JavaScripting in Object Notation

that spawns a species of data generation

which comes from the feces of private information.

This canopy of algorithms we can’t see

covers up the sun with each binary tree.

We search and oogle and Google up a storm

respecting the rules of a complicated norm.

WE are the jungle of yes and no;

our currents flow and data grow.

Information tells us where to go

and many other things we don’t know.

That’s what I call Jungle Fever.

Yes.

That’s what I call Jungle Fever.

—Derek Miller, 21 March 2015

Poem: Convergence

Convergence

If I just go far enough

I’ll find it.

I set my mind in transit

augmenting vision with revision.

I begin to see the things that be

between each step past from last

to first where I began; and spanning

a seeable path now behind

I fathom

into the infinite.

If I just search long enough

It’ll be found.

Continuously searching for each bound

that frames endless names,

I begin to see a profoundly

repeating divide where I’d

make visible the invisible

realm yet ahead, contained

and spreading

into eternity.

And just enough, I stared at it

and found the limit.

Now I carry it

in my pocket.

—Derek Miller, 4 March 2015

Poem: Dense

Dense

One step here and there.

My move and you’re still

but I can’t find you

or the path to where you are.

(pause)

You are not isolated

and I’m on my way

to whatever gate draws the line

of your restricted neighborhood.

(stop)

Behind the walls around

that keep me out of bounds

I invent myself through the open interval

to acceptance among your own.

(pause)

Now I’m here, but where?

The fullness which you fill!

Yet nowhere in sight

from any point of mine.

(stop)

In becoming acquainted,

unknown neighbors pass away

the confines of your connected circle

one by one must narrow in.

(pause)

Although you’re sought, not found,

gradually I can hear your sounds

and unmoving by will, not force

you are the limit of my need to know.

Don’t stop.

—Derek Miller, 10 March 2015