Happy birthday, Meerkat! (*and: my Bacon number!)

I haven't mentioned Meerkat, our trusty Subaru Outback, in some time. It's a good time, though, as Meerkat's 2nd birthday was the 2nd of April. Granted, she's a bit older than that... but not much- that's the day we brought her home. And for those who may be wondering why I refer to our car with a feminine pronoun, it's merely borrowing from the naval tradition of referring to ships with a feminine pronoun.  And Jennifer reminded me that much like that day two years ago, it snowed. So, Happy Birthday, Meerkat!

Oh, and we just turned 11,000 miles (17,600 km) on the odometer. Now, that doesn't sound like a lot, and in truth it really isn't. According to http://project.wnyc.org/, the average commute for my ZIP (postal) code is around 28 minutes, which is above the national average of 25.4 minutes. My average commute is under eight minutes; on a bad day, getting caught by a train, my commute time will still be under twelve minutes.

In an effort to keep this from becoming a database changelog, I'm just going to say that work on the Lego datasaet is proceeding nicely. I haven't done anything with Forty-Two lately, but that's okay as my time has gone into the dataset.

Lastly, I'd like to introduce you to a term I use quite often IRL: "my good e-buddy". I use this most often when I'm referring to someone whom I've never met except for online contact, or someone I do know IRL, but who is more of an acquaintance than anything else. The reason I mention this is my good e-buddy @lindaregber had an interesting tweet the other day which I liked well enough to RT. She posted a study from Research at Facebook which states that there is an average separation of 3.57 for Facebook users; in other words, you are only separated from ANY Facebook user by <4 persons. That's pretty cool; I'd like to see something along the lines of The Oracle of Bacon for "ordinary folks". Although I'm not a famous person, and I have never acted, I have a Bacon number of 3, which means I'm closer to Kevin Bacon than I am to any random Facebook user! How? Alex Trebec was in Dying Young  with Vincent D'Onofrio, who was in JFK with Kevin Bacon. So, how do I get the 3? Alex has a Bacon number of 2; I met Alex in Frankfurt a.M. after trying out for Jeopardy in a Stars & Stripes sponsored event.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

So, how was your internet day, dear?

I'm guessing that most readers of this blog spend a fair amount of time connected (at work, on the internet, in the cloud, streaming music, messages, videos, driving a late model car, or interacting in some other way with data or the IoT). Even when I am at work, I am contributing to the data glut as I wait for certain processes to finish doing their... processing.

Creating certain types of files and compiling programs are two time intensive tasks I normally perform. As these tasks are also resource heavy, rather than stare at the progress bars, I turn to my phone and play a round of Bejeweled Blitz or Angry Birds or check my Twitter feed... all of which add to the data glut. Mind you, these activities are innocuous- I'm filling time rather than wasting it staring at progress bars. I'm guessing that the activities I choose to fill the time might be considered a waste of time, but as I have a feel for how long certain process require, Angry Birds & Co. keep me alert and sharp.

The odd thing is that quite often my "decompress" time after work is still internet time. My employer uses a "netnanny" so there are many sites which one simply cannot access at work. This doesn't bother me greatly, as I don't need additional distractions.  So, when I get home, I generally logon to two computers- one to play "Rail Nation" and the other for blogging, tweeting and everything else.

In essence, I guess I'm actually decompressing from my work e-framework by logging in to another network or two.

For those who are not constantly connected, this may seem to be quite the conundrum. However, even though I do not consider myself to be in the "continuously connected" category, I thy to keep my social media interactions in the "constantly interacted with" category.  And this, I find, is my greatest challenge.

Five years. It's a good measure of time and goals...I think the Soviet Union was famous for these. So, going back 5 years...

The Soviet Union did not exist. I had a Facebook, Google, and Yahoo account. At some point, a Pinterest account was created. Apart from these, I have LinkedIn, Amazon, Newegg and "memberships" on a couple dozen other sites which I infrequently visit.

I'm most active these days on Twitter, then Facebook and finally LinkedIn. Now, this is not to say that I derive social media value from these services in the order in which they are presented; rather, I derive social media value where it exists.

For example, even though the vast majority of my internet social interaction may be generated on Twitter and reposted on Facebook, it does not mean that the main focus of my internet time is on Twitter. Like many folks, I shamelessly self promote- one has to in order to be heard above the static and background noise which is the Internet.

Every so often- generally once every month or so- I post a disclaimer on Twitter indicating that i am NOT a Data Scientist, related data professional , analyst or statistician, because, partly, I have a coworker who initially said, "You're a complete fraud!" To which I replied, "No, I'm completely honest.". He still says it, but mostly in jest these days, mostly because I've shown him comments, retweets and favorites of things I've tweeted or RT'ed. My "thing" is this: although I have no formal background, I have a serious amateur interest in stats, big data, analytics, tech, IoT,  and STEM/STEAM, and am a huge proponent of them.

I also love the maker scene. Although I'm not hugely into it right now, our family has three Arduino Uno's, a pair of Raspberry Pi model B's, a couple of Linux (Ubuntu) PCs and lots of Legos, as well as an original Gilbert (pre-Meccano) Erector set, as well as one or two Meccano sets. Don't ask me how many PCs we have- I literally have no idea.

So, to close... I haven't done this in some time, but here are some previous posts you might enjoy. And, in keeping with the spirit of the5 year theme mentioned earlier- here is a selection of 5 older posts, which are currently #6 through #10 in all-time popularity. FWIW, this is post #185... I'm planning something special for #200, which may occur near Christmas (hopefully!)

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2015/02/potpurri-2.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2015/02/forty-two-v7-or-so.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-big-disconnect-and-data.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2015/06/suburbia-302-nightstalkers.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2015/04/childhood-reclaimed.html

I hope you are able to enjoy one or more of these. They're far from perfect, but they're honest, and I hope you have at least a bit of fun reading them- I really enjoy writing them!

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging  data analysis and management so you don't have to.

 

Data Science, pt 1

I'm calling this "Data Science, pt 1" because it's the beginning, and to be honest, I'm not sure where it end.

To be honest, if you're not interested in Twitter or data, you probably won't be interested in this post. One of my coworkers and I often have discussions about Twitter, partly because I'm a regular poster there and partly because he does not post there. Our inside joke about Twitter, though, is about my posting.

If you follow my twitter posts (hochspeyer@CJoelHarrison), you'll see an account that is focused primarily on Big Data, IoT and programming. We have some good-natured interplay about this-

"You're a fraud," he says.

"I tell the truth," I reply.

This can, and sometimes does- go on all night. I'm not mentioning his name because of my personal blogging rules: if I don't have permission, then I don't have permission.

In the end, we agree to disagree. So, why the Big Preface?

Well, mostly because this blog is about data. And, although data seems to be the furthest thing from a theme, I try to keep data as the unifying theme.

Believe it or not, Twitter is a two-way street. As with all other social media, marketing is important. In the world of social media, I have this blog. I have a Facebook account with many friends. I have a LinkedIn account with many connections. I have Google+ and a Pinterest account. I used to be active on a few forums. I even had a mySpace account. Of all of these, I regard Twitter as my primary and most premium e-presence.

Why? Chicago's own Ides of March really expressed it well: it's my vehicle. More precisely, it's my e-vehicle: it puts my name where I want it to be on the internet. I don't remember exactly how the old truism about publicity went, but it was something like this: "Any publicity is better than no publicity." This is largely (but not entirely) true for someone who is trying to find a job or build a reputation on the internet: almost 100% of the time, any internet presence is better than none. If you're looking for  job, you should have an established social media presence, and probably on at least LinkedIn and Twitter- and it had better damn well be squeaky clean. Please make no mistake: I very seldom (that is, exceedingly rarely) use a word such as "damn" online- and this is HIGHLY intentional. Any reputable firm will probably be have at least a concern about online vulgarity or profanity.

But I digress... back to me and Twitter. I have more than one Twitter account- I don't think this is unusual: one is fairly general, and the other is pretty tightly subject focused. I really don't do too much on my "general" account, and I have no special reason for the lack of activity there. My primary account, though, currently has a few hundred followers, and I follow a few more. What's interesting about this account, though, is my relative level of education to that of my followers. Here's where the ride gets interesting, so buckle up, kiddos!

The subject matter that I generally tweet about is Big Data, Internet of Things, Programming and, to a lesser extent, Technology (Computer, Electronic and Otherwise). I researched this a bit- probably at least thirty minutes on Google (this is the equivalent of 1.21 eternities in Internet time) and could not come up with a definitive answer. However, I know that I have no fewer than five PhD's and one PhD candidate in a population of ~225 followers, which means that ~2% of my FOLLOWERS have doctoral degrees. As best as I could tell through my "extensive" research, approximately 1% of ALL college students in the United States of America complete a doctorate. So as far as my followers are concerned, I think I'm pretty top-heavy in the academic department, even though I'm a card-carrying member of the unwashed masses that check the "some college completed" box.

In fact, in some circles I may even be classified as a "savant".

In any event, I'm going to leave "this" alone for now. When (and/or if) I gain further insights, I will continue this train of thought.

Until then, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Titles

One of my goals in writing this blog is simplicity. Like any (aspiring) writer, I desire to have a large base of readers, but in any given month roughly 25-30% of my readership reads my musings outside of North America. After the United States, the next ten countries where I have readers are (in order of gross blog views per country):

• Russia                               
• Japan
• Germany
• United Kingdom
• Ukraine
• the Netherlands
• France
• Indonesia
• China
• Canada

What's interesting to me is that Canada and the United Kingdom combined equal about 2% of the total readership; these are the only countries (in my Top Ten outside of the United States) which recognize English as at least one of their official languages. Of the remainder, nearly all who are able to read English most likely are more comfortable with the version they learned in school, namely the Queen's English, or British English. This poses some interesting challenges to me as a writer, because while some words are distinctly American or British English (truck or lorry, [rail]car or wagon, wrench or spanner [yes, I know all of those and more being both a history and railroad buff]), many other words are homophones- which differ only in spelling (and even homophone may not properly describe these words). I am well-versed in these as well, but choose to stick to the American spelling for the sake of consistency and familiarity. For weights and measures, though, I present English and metric whenever possible.

So, given that the title of today's post is "Titles", what does any of this have to do with anything?

Well, the titles of my blogs are important to me; I strive to make them attention-getting, in tune with the text I'm presenting, and fun. In the context of today's blog, I had an idea for the title, and then came up with another, but in the end rejected both- and in that process, a new subject was born.  My original title for this blog was going to be "Willpower", and then "Sturm und Drang" came to mind, along with a few other variants on "struggle" and "will". In the end, though, "Titles" won out, simply because it best articulated what had become the theme of the blog.

The whole "will" theme actually came about from my recent burst of writing activity. The main reason I've been writing more is that I've had more time for writing, and I've had more time for writing primarily because I have not played a single game on Facebook for SEVEN days. I have not even played my VERY favorite online game, TrainStation, for seven days. This is a fairly good indication of just how much time I spend online, and how much of that is, in many ways, wasted.

In the end, I have no way of quantifying any of this, so I'll just let it go. I just got done putting updated counts into my spreadsheet, and there's not enough of a change to post numbers, but one of my current targets is Music Recordings, and that has increased by four in three days. That may not seem like much, but that table has relationships with five other tables; the only data that I manually enter is the Last_Played field, which is a date field. This means that every time I enter a new piece of music into the Music Recordings table, I first have to make sure that the name of the group, the name of the album, and the names of each of the songs is already listed in the corresponding table; if not, I need to do that first. Its a bit tedious doing it in this manner, but in the end I am assured of having no data duplication- and that is the goal of this database design.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.