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.

 

(Around) 2.5 years, or, my personal Interwebz v2.1

Around two and a half years ago, I posted my first blog- December 4th, 2012 (it's a pretty short post- even by my current blogging standards!). Even way back then (figuratively speaking) I strove to keep data in the mix as the unifying theme of this blog. And at the end of May, 2015, I'm still blogging about life in general with data as the underlying theme.

It's June of 2015 now, and I've been working on my Twitter account. I consider Twitter serious work primarily because it is an integral element of my online presence strategy- and two and a half years ago, I didn't even know what an online presence strategy was, let alone seeing the need for one. After all, Twitter is one of the places where this blogs posts, but more importantly, it's where I interact with the world of #bigdata and #IoT.

I'm a firm believer in cross-pollenization and shameless self-promotion when it comes to creating a larger presence on the internet, so here's an invitation: if you have an understanding of any of the following terms, have a personal or professional interest in them, or possibly have heard one or more of them before and would like to learn more about them... here's a sample of the topics I address on my (hochspeyer) account on twitter:

#bigdata, #notsobigdata, #smalldata, #microdata, #database, #analytics, #stats, #IoT (Internet of Things), #IoE (Internet of Everything), #M2M (machine to machine), #machinelearning and, of course, #hadoop and #python. I touch on a lot of related topics on that account, but if Big Data and the Internet of Things are topics which you are interested in, you may enjoy following.

My other twitter account (hochspeyer1) still has a tech focus, but has more of a personal touch, looking more at #maker and #programming topics, as well as life in general.

Whew!

The state of the state of my microdata projects: as of today (Jun 4, 2015), the SUL (Secret Underground Lair) is still theoretically experiencing remodeling; by this I mean that while all of the furniture and shelving are in their (probable) final positions, everything that came out and came from upstairs still is in need of homes. Forty-two. my database project, is currently on hold. The Lego database (currently an Excel 2007 workbook) is currently in a data entry phase, and will eventually be a part of Forty-two. Even the Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Python projects are all on hold pending the completion of the SUL upgrade/remodel.  Lastly, I'm building my media library, one song at a time. I'm using Windows Media Player, which I suppose is extremely lazy, but the interface is familiar and it does pretty much all that I want, so for now it suffices.

That's all from the SUL for now. As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Data, defined

Although it is not my intent, I am certain that this post has the potential to step on a few toes, possibly bruise an ego or two, or ruffle some feathers. I may even get someone mad. Really e-mad.

For starters, I do not have any letters, diplomas, certifications and am not currently professionally employed in whatever one might consider the "data community". Whatever that might be. I do not claim to be an expert or have any special expertise or training in the areas of Big Data, the Internet of Things/Everything, Statistics, Analytics or The Cloud. I was once employed as a data analyst working with Small Data for a short time.

Whew!

So, who and what exactly am I?

I'm a guy who tweets (and retweets) primarily on the subjects of Big Data, IoT, programming and related topics. As far back as high school- maybe even earlier- I've been interested in data. It was either my music collection or Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame that gave me my start in classifying and quantifying. I remember even attempting to do a few music surveys way back when, and some of the respondents were unhappy because the polls were not simple popularity contests, but the answers were weighted based upon their position on the poll. Fast forward to today. I'm currently building a flat database of my Lego collection in Excel 2007 (why 2007? Because that's what I have on the computer nearest to the Legos!). This, in turn, will be added to my master database Forty-Two- so named because it answers the question of Life, the Universe and Everything.

Having said ALL of that, I'd like to start off by saying that the term "data" may not be as concrete as we are lead to believe. In my world, data comes in the following flavors: Big Data, Not-So-Big Data, Small Data, Micro Data, and Statistics. Depending upon the size of the dataset(s) and one's perspective, most- if not all- data can fit into more than one classification. Really? Sure. Case: say there's a hypothetical high school senior who is one of the stars of his basketball team. He's a good defender, doesn't get a great deal of fouls (below the league average), and is about average in scoring- except he leads the league in free throw percentage. Several colleges and universities are interested in him- they've got data on this fellow going back to 6th grade. That's data- to them. To me, a person who could care less about basketball- it's nothing more than a bunch of irrelevant stats. On the other hand, these same scouts would not be impressed by the number of PhD's that follow me on Twitter.

So, how big is a Big Data dataset? I asked a coworker. He wasn't sure, but thought a mail list might qualify. Don't laugh too soon- some of the mail lists I've seen have more than 10 million names. To me, though, I'd put that in the Not-So-Big Data or Small Data categories. The IoT,  Amazon, Google, Youtube and Wikipedia definitely fit into the Big Data category, but to the average person, these can be tough to visualize. So, for what I think might be a decent, understandable Big Data dataset, I propose the 2010 U.S. Census. It was a 10 item questionnaire (with a few extra answers possible) that mailed to 135,000,000 addresses representing approximately 309,000,000 persons.

Small Data could be a database, a website or the phone directory of a small to medium sized city- the lines are pretty fuzzy here.

Lastly, there's microdata. I'm not sure if this term is used anywhere else, but I find it to be a convenient term for personal data- data generated and maintained by one person or one family for their own use and not often formally shared. A cataloged collection of coins, stamps, recipes, exercise/workout logs or Legos- all of these are Microdata in my worldview.

Thanks for your patience- I hope you enjoyed this. I generally write a lot less... I'm not a fan of writing or reading walls of words!

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

Life in the Twittersphere

I'm not going to do the parody lyrics here, but bring up the Eagles' "Life In The Fast Lane"  from their "Hotel California" album and you can sort of hum along- it pretty much works. I used to do a lot of parody lyrics, as a matter of fact, but as far as this blog goes, I really didn't make the connection with the Eagles until I actually saw the title of the blog.

For what its worth, this was going to be another "Hoodie Migration" blog, but that was before I read a few posts from the Outmannedmommy blog. To be fair, the Outmannedmommy blog is quite funny, but it may be NSFW (not safe for work) as F-bombs occasionally detonate- especially from guest writers! Still, I enjoy Mary Widdicks' writing- because her style is great, and I can relate to her writing.

Also, strangely (or not?), I don't read a lot of other blogs, Mary's is the only funny one I normally read; most of the rest are retweets on Twitter (nothing wrong with that) about the IoT and bigdata.

And here's the crux, the nexus of this post: Me and Twitter (if you ant to try your hand at parodying this, try Tom T. Hall's most excellent "Me and Jesus" or "Faster Horses, Younger Women, Older Whiskey and More Money".

Twitter is by far the number one reason for my dearth of blogs as of late. I've been contributing a fair amount to the Twittersphere, focusing primarily on Big Data and the Internet of Things. One of my coworkers constantly tells me that I'm a fraud (he's kidding... mostly) because I'm not a PhD, a data scientist, a statistician, or any number of other things associated with Big Data and the IoT... and at that point I always remind him that I make no claims to be anything more than a catalyst or a conduit for ideas. And even though I'm no expert, I've become fairly adept at picking interesting and informative stories, factoids, infographs and blogs. This is evidenced by several folks that ARE PhD's, data scientists and statisticians who follow (and retweet) me.

That's the really short version of Life in the Twittersphere, but I need to get to bed, so I am going to close this and hopefully get another blog out very soon.

News from the Secret Underground Lair (SUL): I think I had mentioned that Mr. T and I were planning a bit of remodeling in the SUL. I'm happy to report that the majority of that work is now complete. Well, the furniture moving is done. Everything that got moved out now needs to be moved back in- I wish there was a defrag utility for small offices... press a button on the wall, and all of the books, boxes, doodads, computer components, computers, etc would find the optimal place to rest and automatically go there.

Finally, data news (this blog is about data, right?) I've got a spreadsheet roughed out, and have put a bit of test data in. So far, everything looks good: according to my flat database, I have 71 Lego elements. 

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

Meerkat's Greatest Adventure (of 2014), Part 2

Y'all know that the unifying theme of this blog is data. It's my data primarily, with occasional nods to Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT). Meerkat, our Subaru Outback, and Ziggy, our Garmin GPS, are members of the Internet of Things. But don't say that near them... they're people, as M*A*S*H*'s Radar O'Reilly might say.

Since Merkat is bigger and older than Ziggy, I've decided to turn the keyboard over to him (I think Meerkat is a him...), and let him revisit our trip. Take it away, Meerkat....

*********************************************************************************

Okay... so there we were,

With 1.9 miles on the tripmeter, we departed the SUL. Ziggy immediately started chirping instructions. It was Monday morning- 0738 local, and we found ourselves enmeshed in rush hour traffic. If the pilot had any common sense, we would have been moving through traffic at least fifteen minutes earlier. As it was, we found ourselves ensconced in a "popular" intersection, with nothing to do but wait our turn at the left arrow.

We finally got our turn and proceeded south.

To make this story more interesting, we drove south and west for a long time and arrived in Texas. I sat in the driveway for a day, and the rest of the time I slept in the street, while Ziggy got to go inside.

Afterwards, things got interesting.

The humans did all of their "visiting" and had all of their meetings, and then it was time to go home. Because of all of the unrest in Ferguson, MO, we decided to spend our tourism dollars in safer areas and avoided the St.Louis area entirely.

As we approached Oklahoma City, I sensed a irregularity in one of the mechanical systems, and promptly alerted the pilot. Not long after that, help arrived. A squad of shock troops deployed, led by a dude that could only be described as a cowboy: while the rest of the unit was in full battle dress armor, there he was in cowboy boots and denims, 9mm strapped to his side as if he did this every day.

In any event, he got us to where we needed to be, barked some orders, and in a few hours we were back on the road.

********************************************************************************

I promise that's the last time I will EVER let Meerkat write a blog entry! Well, I'll never let ANY individual that can be classified as a member of the IoT guest write in my blog. I really thought Meerkat was going to make it really interesting... I was wrong- sorry.

In the wonderful world of data, I FINALLY backed up my Omron pedometer data. Some of you might recall that in February (One simply does not raid the SUL) I lamented the loss of fifteen months worth of pedometer data due to a HDD crash. Well, even some us "old hands" are a little slow at times, but tonight I FINALLY downloaded the data to the desktop. I'll back it up to the external HDD once I clean it up a bit.

Clean?

Yes, the data- specifically the dates- are improperly formatted for my use. When I downloaded the software from the Omron site, I got the European version rather than the American version of the software. It doesn't really matter too much as I'm okay with kilometers and the energy expenditure is shown in kcal's rather than joules, but even though I'm okay with European dating, my copy of Excel sorts American style (for the unaware, Euro=day/month/year, American=month/day/year) So, the dates need to be edited before being backed up. There's a funny story about those dates... well, it's funny now, anyway.

Back when I was in high school, I was introduced to Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame (see "Imagination"). The resources I used for this game were all published in England, so I became accustomed to the Euro dating system, so much so that when I got my driver's license, I entered my birthday Euro style without thinking, and when I received my license, my birthmonth was listed as May rather than September. I had to go back to the license facility, explain what had happened and get them to issue a new license.

There may be some "big" data news in the next blog... probably. There may be a Christmas blog as  well.

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