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absonant.com

5/1/14 - 6/1/14

http://www.absonant.com/2014_05_01_archive.html

Ethics and global issues. This month was light on reading and heavy on work. When the Emperor was Divine. A short novel about Japanese-American detainees during World War II; it certainly sheds some light on a topic we don't like to talk about much. The novel itself is a little incohesive and detached, but I can't tell if that was intentional because that might accurately reflect the experience for some Japanese-Americans. Posted by Allison Chaney. There is a better way: use a brush. I'm not for advocati...

absonant.com

7/1/14 - 8/1/14

http://www.absonant.com/2014_07_01_archive.html

Ethics and global issues. Daft for probabilistic graphical models. Probabilistic graphical model rendered with Daft. Is python package used to render graphical models. Its renders are indeed lovely (see right), but the pipeline leaves something to be desired, and there's still a lot of functionality missing. Probabilistic graphical model hand-drawn with Inkscape. Posted by Allison Chaney. What is "having it all"? Or not. As far as I can tell, no man or woman is perfect at everything. We want each individ...

absonant.com

11/1/14 - 12/1/14

http://www.absonant.com/2014_11_01_archive.html

Ethics and global issues. The danger of open mindedness. Being open minded is generally a good thing. It is, in essence, being willing to accept new ideas. Having an open mind allows us to learn about the world, to enjoy new experiences, and to connect with people outside our usual sphere. All of these improve our lives or the world as a whole. So if we accept that open mindedness is dangerous in the extreme, what about the more nuanced occurrences in our daily lives? It seems like the right first step w...

absonant.com

6/1/14 - 7/1/14

http://www.absonant.com/2014_06_01_archive.html

Ethics and global issues. Today, it's been six years since I started blogging. To celebrate, I decided to do some text analysis of the 455 posts I've published here, prior to this one. In curating the corpus, I learned that I write words like totally. Far too much. Moving past my bad mannerisms, there's some fun stuff to see. I ran the topic model LDA. With 50 topics. It captured the things I like to do: gardening. I'm showing the top 10 terms associated with each topic, and top 5 documents.). And, unsur...

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LDS Public Affairs

http://www.absonant.com/2015/02/lds-public-affairs.html

Ethics and global issues. This past Sunday, I received and accepted a new calling: Secretary to the (horrible acronym warning) NYMMPAC, which stands for New York Metro Multistake Public Affairs Council. It covers 3 Coordinating Councils, or 13 Stakes and 131 units. So why did I accept the calling? While I do need to keep some things confidential, I hope to keep a record of some of my public affairs experiences, to improve transparency, define the role of public affairs a little more concretely, and to pr...

absonant.com

10/1/14 - 11/1/14

http://www.absonant.com/2014_10_01_archive.html

Ethics and global issues. A genetically engineered apocalypse, a half dragon half human child, and necromancy. Perfect Halloween reading. 9733;★★. The newly released The Slow Regard of Silent Things. 1] Yes, I did "make this up," but it's a word that should really exist. The only word that means the quality of being enigmatic. According to the OED is the obscure enigmaticalness. From 1684, which was probably "made up" then as well. Enigmaticness. Could also work, and is parallel to words like frantic.

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Allison's Law: "The mess has to go somewhere"

http://www.absonant.com/2015/02/allisons-law-mess-has-to-go-somewhere.html

Ethics and global issues. Allison's Law: "The mess has to go somewhere". When I was a growing up, we had a standard of cleanliness in our house called "daddy-clean." My brother and I were asked regularly to clean are rooms, like most American children, but when we were done, mom would always ask: Is it daddy-clean? This usually resulted in a second round of cleaning to make sure everything was out of sight. Or consider a different piece of software, like an operating system. The mess could go into th...

absonant.com

2/1/15 - 3/1/15

http://www.absonant.com/2015_02_01_archive.html

Ethics and global issues. Women in STEM: where to intervene. I am at workshop this week, and had an interesting sideline conversation today. We both agreed that there was culture-induce inequality of the genders in STEM fields, but the fellow I was talking with disagreed with with me on how to fix things. If we're going to make an effort to level the playing field for men and women in STEM, it needs to happen at every. But these aren't the only areas that influence girls' choices to pursue math-y fields ...

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ice skating as a waltz

http://www.absonant.com/2015/02/ice-skating-as-waltz.html

Ethics and global issues. Ice skating as a waltz. Yesterday, NWC and I went ice skating on the three frozen bodies of water in our area—a tour of the ponds and lake. The muscles in my feet usually get tired after about 40 minutes, so the was a nice way to take advantage of the outdoor ice skating opportunity without wearing myself out. As soon as we got tired, we took a break by switching to the next one. Posted by Allison Chaney. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom). It's in the past. Rabbits squeal and a...

absonant.com

spammer fail

http://www.absonant.com/2014/01/spammer-fail.html

Ethics and global issues. NWC and I will often get research or student spam. Today, he got one with a failure in the script, addressing him literally as "Dr {$name}." Full message below the break. From: Joseph Li [joseph.yu.lee@edmletter2.ab-library.com]. Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 12:18 PM. Subject: May I contact you for a discussion of your recent research? Dear Dr {$name},. We wish you great success with your research, and look forward to working with you soon. Joseph Yu Li, PhD. It's in the past.