I completed reading the introductory chapter of a book on social navigation.

I picked up a book last week in the 76.9 range. I read the first chapter on the way home from school but didn't finish reading this chapter until this morning.

Here is the bibliographic cite for the whole book:

Munro, Alan J. & Höök, Kristina. & Benyon, David. eds. Social Navigation of Information Space (London, UK: Springer, 1999).

This book is incredibly inspiring and after playing Second Life it left quite an impression on me. Also within Second Life my avatar is researching the concepts on social networking at a virtual cyber research centre in world. This first chapter also related quite well to the use of Amazon.com and also this year's business topics on the Internet such as social networking.

I reviewed the first chapter of a school textbook on Java programming for beginning programmers.

I had read this book, or at least the first two chapters in May 2002. I was trying out a first year course in Java programming that spring. I withdrew from the course and did not complete the course. Instead in the summer term that year I studied wrongful convictions in an advanced sociology course in criminology. I withdrew because I was failing to complete the first programming assignment properly.

Tonight, I read quickly the first chapter by scanning for keywords and reviewing. In fact, the first three chapters of this book are basic programming that I have known from the middle 1970's.

There is even some connecting in the book of objects and methods with variables and functions; in other words, there are connections made between the procedural programming I was taught in the 1970's and 1980's, with the object oriented programming students are taught these days and in this book.

Mostly I reviewed in chapter 1 the JAVA specific learning that I have not really used yet. But some of this applies to programming in SAS or XML, as well as it applies in Java. In particular, the naming rules for variables or name space concepts are almost the same in all three languages.

Here is the bibliographic cite for this first year JAVA programming book:

Savitch, Walter. Java: An Introduction to Computer Science & Programming (Upper Saddle River: N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1999).

This book covers basic programming with JAVA. I reviewed the first chapter tonight and will review chapter two soon. Then I have ten more chapters to read. I will practice writing JAVA with the Code Warrior software. I found out tonight there is also a copy of Code Warrior for the Mac on the book's CD but none of my present Macs have an older copy of Mac OS to run this no doubt.

The gendered digital divide really hits home.

From being told I was smart when a kid to the present day the gendered digital divide is so real I cannot ignore this. I have been reading a book about this and here is the bibliographical cite:

Cooper, Joel, & Weaver, Kimberlee D. Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003).

This book through a great number of studies of students in classroom experiments to test gendered differences in computing use as these fit various psychological factors, studies the gendered divide in computing use. While may be success with computers is too simplified in this book and certainly this divide is lessening these days, it is certainly a key feature of my own experience with computing.

The Debian install worked better this time.

I managed to install Debian 3.1 revision 2 and am now making more CD's from that revision so I can install anything from the archive by CD. I still do not have a PCMCIA working socket so cannot ethernet on this laptop. I do have X windows, a Gnome desktop and the Debian drop down menu. Last time I installed Debian 3.1 on this laptop I did not have the Debian drop down menu and that made it difficult to access a number of useful programs. This laptop is very slow. I now must consider buying a battery for this laptop which would cost about 100$ or spending about 500$ to get a used Thinkpad from IBM for a Debian laptop. The first option costs a lot less.

Computer tasks today.

The installing process for Linux is working ok. I may have made one mistake on the video RAM memory selection. I should be able to test it out later today. I also successfully installed the Code Warrior Lite software on the PC side of the Macbook and programs to use with the Java textbook. I may start reading this textbook and working the programs also later today.

I got a free copy of a Marita Moll edited book: Tech High

At our union meeting I browsed some free books at the labour council offices. I grabbed a lot of teacher's books and also this book:

Moll, Marita. Ed. Tech High: Globalization and the Future of Canadian Education (Halifax, N.S.: Fernwood, 1997).

Maria is also a National Capital Freenet (NCF) member, or was in the middle 1990's when I was a frequent NCF user.

I also got this book back from a retired army radio engineer I had loaned it to:

Flickenger, Rob, et al. Wireless Networking in the Developing World: A practical guide to planning and building low-cost telecommunications infrastructure (London, U.K.: Limehouse Book Sprint Team, 2006) <http://wndw.net>.

This book is available free at the web site http://wndw.net . I bought a copy to support their project but also because sometimes I prefer hard copy books.

I am installing Linux on a computer to use R and various other open source softwares.

I have an old Pentium 1 computer. I was given this for free last winter. I tried it to install Debian 3.0 and had it working. But the command line on that version of Debian did not by default have an edit menu. I need to be able to copy and paste into the command line so need an edit menu on the command line. So I am trying to install the next version of Debian 3.1 and by now that is at 3.1 revision 2. I am having some trouble with installing this from CD. I was not able to keep the PCMCIA system working after the base install. I may use this as a non-networked machine. So that is one study project I am doing today.

I may also try to install some Java tools on my Macbook on the windows side. These tools would be from a first year university Java programming course textbook. I would be expected to know this textbook in my systems science program this coming year. I would hope to work through this book by the end of August.

Studying more about the doctoral dissertation.

I am reading about topic selection and now have some advise on measurement error statistics and might buy a book on this topic. One of my professors knew a book on this topic and sent me the bibliographic cite for the book. I am not able to afford it right away, but should buy it in the next month.

I am reading a book on Linux.

I am reading one of those large, easy to read books on computers. This one is written on the Linux operating system. I also borrowed a book on information security from a business strategy perspective. I am going to have to leave this library soon although I will have my alumni card to use still. I will also loose my school email and school web page(s).

I was offered a job at Statistics Canada today.

I have been offered a job at Statistics Canada and will be taking it. I am not sure how this will affect my school plans. I will start working and do not need to decide on the graduate school plans until August 21st. I will keep studying for this graduate school though. I will have to quit my teaching assistant work right away. In fact, I just sent an email giving notice to the director of the mathematics and statistics school. I also let my immediate supervisors know that I am quitting in two weeks. I also let one of my supervisors at another job know that I am quitting.

Reading more on managing the doctoral dissertation.

This book on managing the writing of a doctoral dissertation can be applied to a master thesis as well. This is what I am using this book for. I read another chapter, this one about selecting an adviser and a committee. I then a few hours later read the list of potential advisers in systems science and circled on this list all the research areas of the advisers that corresponded to topics I am either interested in pursuing such as computer crime or web applications, or topics that I have a background such as statistical inference, numerical methods, and ecology.

A possible topic I chose tonight was general statistics of experiments with error bound measurements. Apparently most statistical models assume error free measurement or perfect measurement. But many science studies and use of instrumentation uses a possible error based on an assumption of errors in measurement. Also apparently error such as measurement error can simply be included in the error term in a statistical model. But perhaps there is a whole other set of models and theories where error bound measurements are the basis rather than perfect measure. I could explore this from a systems approach and develop a whole other system of statistical inference models if such models exist.

I am continuing to grade statistics homework over night.

I have an assignment due back to the professor on Wednesday. I have been marking overnight again. Last night I did not manage to stay up and do this, so I have more to do now. But the pace is coming along, and it is actually not all that much work.

I must be fair and consistent in my marking, which means sometimes I have to go back over everything I have marked and check that I have given or taken off the same marks for everyone. This consistency principle helps me mark when some students have done a very good, thorough job and some students have done just the minimum work required.

I continue to prepare for graduate school and mark statistics assignments.

I have been staying up late these past five days. I reason that staying up late gives me quiet time without distractions to do my scholarly work. But often I spend this time wastefully doing on-line shopping. This morning I read more of the book on writing the doctoral dissertation. I got to some help on writing, software tools and formatting tips in this book and then downloaded a LaTeX template from a University of Ottawa web page. I then experimented with this template a little, merely writing my name as author and a supposed title for my thesis. This would be my M.Sc. thesis, which actually won't start until at least 2007, if not more probably in 2008.

I did less expensive on-line gaming this morning. I am still sitting at a social simulations researcher's research centre in the game. This morning I spent about half an hour studying the scripting language for this on-line simulation game. I practiced an example, "Hello Avatar" script, but it did not work when applied to an in-world object. I am still a little awkward with the tools for creating objects, but can walk and chat alright in world. I can also teleport. I have trouble also with views, but am working on this, as I explore more of the drop down menus. I do plan this morning to attend a lecture or other on-line in world event. I should just search for some events now after doing this post.

So I am up all night and have been steadily marking statistics assignments. I set small target completion times and have almost stuck to these times. This setting of mini deadlines keeps me going. I have marked two Q's now out of 9 and started a third Q.

I did some more reading of Kling, Rosenbaum, and Sawyer's Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics this morning.

I was trying to find my place in this book on social informatics. I did not feel comfortable reading the chapter for teachers but have read the beginning of that chapter. I instead tried reading the beginning of the next chapter about communicating social informatics research and this was going fine but it got me really thinking about getting some web mastering work done which I have now almost done.

I also read some more of the book on simulations, in fact, covering a strict mathematical definition of a random number such that the number is between 0 and 1 and all numbers between 0 and 1 are equally likely to occur as the random number. The authors choose the symbol r bar, which cannot be displayed in html on this web page but can be done in latex math mode with the code \bar{r}.

I spent some time and money playing the on-line social game Second Life. I was investigating a social networking researchers space or virtual land inside the game Second Life. I was using the map a lot tonight and then started to explore land for sale. I looked for a place near the social researcher's land and of course for the cheapest place. I made a mistake though after I bought the game money to buy a place, because in the end, that place was not for sale. I then spent some time searching for land for sale with the on-line search tool. I can now buy 512 sq ft of land and it will not cost a monthly maintenance fee. I would like to have a city lot or suburban lot. But the result is I now have a premium membership until October, and am now some 60 real dollars poorer and can afford some virtual land perhaps. I also now know more of the tools and environment of this on-line game/social world. I also downloaded one of the researcher's papers on social networking. So I learned more about this game well but need to read more of that paper to learn about social networks. The paper is on the topic of data collection for social networking research.

I went back to marking work now and have got it started.

Continuing to prepare for graduate school.

I am reading a book called Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systemic Approach by Gordon B. Davis and Clyde A. Parker. They argue for structuring the research to help with writing a dissertation on time. They have an argument about not taking a job until the final draft is done or even later for instance. I will probably stop being a teaching assistant for the next few terms until I get my feet at the new school and new level of study.

I have almost completed marking about 100 undergraduate statistics tests written by engineering students.

I am nearing the end and have been working for four days now trying to get this marking done. I have worked about 3 to 6 hours a day meaning about 12-18 hours so the last two hours is no big deal. After this grading this test I have only one more assignment to grade for this course for the summer term. This course is an introductory statistics and probability course for undergraduate engineering students at Carleton University. It is my third year being a teaching assistant in this course. It is a more challenging course to teach but I am now fairly comfortable with it.

Preparatory study for grad school.

I am reading this book to prepare for grad school.

Kleijnen, Jack P. C. & van Groenendaal, Willem. Simulation: A Statistical Perspective (Toronto: John Wiley & Sons, 1992).

I just completed reading the first chapter. The authors are business management teachers.

I will continue to post my progress with reading this book.

I worked for another 3 hours and am nearing the end of this marking

I worked for another three hours and am nearing the end of marking this test. At the moment I am too tired to continue to mark. I did manage to start a book on simulations and am just now installing a compiler, X code, for the Mac on my Macbook. But I realize I already have a G++ 4.0 compiler installed and can do the practice code from the C++ how to book using G++ I think. I will do some practice code from that book and try some simulations programming from the other book. But right now I am logging off and sleeping.

Marking is coming along fine.

I am doing my marking quite regularly now and should be done marking this statistics test by Monday.

I am just practicing some French with my partner.

She is asking me for the meaning of pomme terre which is apple of the earth. And then Fruit de la mer which is seafood. Then finally jesus le sieginer.

I got some marking done on time this week.

I did get some 25 assignments marked this week and back to the lecturer on time. But I am dragging my heals on marking the test.

I did not succeed in installing the data mining course lectures pdf's on the Palm.

There is something wrong with the Adobe Reader for the Palm and I was not after quite a few attempts able to install the pdf's from my desktop school folders to the Palm.

I have been starting a book on Neural Networks in C++

I borrowed a book on programming neural networks written in 1993. The book is

Masters Timothy Practical Neural Network Recipes in C++ (Toronto: Academic Press, 1993).

I read the first chapter earlier this morning.

Otherwise, I am marking a statistics test written by engineering students.

I updated my school web info page today.

I updated and made current my school hosted web page about myself in a school context. It is at this address:
http://chat.carleton.ca/~ptimusk/

I printed and read the web page describing the systems science department and program.

I printed the web page from the university of Ottawa that describes the systems science program. I have read this page a few times now. I am particularly interested in the reseach of the professors that extend the study into social impact of computers and other technology.

Loading Portable Document Format school files on my Palm.

I am installing all the lectures from the data mining course I took taught by Dr. Shirley Mills in winter 2005. I am also installing a collection of thesis that were found searchng to the term "Victims" at Carleton's thesis collection. I will read these on the move like when I am on the bus.

I have a copy of the school year's schedule for systems science now.

The administrator sent me a copy of the course schedule for the up coming school year at the university of Ottawa. I am thinking of taking two courses per term in this program. But I am also thinking of taking one course at Carleton in media and technology to start the diploma in sonic design. Speaking of which I bought a few computer accessories just this weekend on-line.

I did some marking this morning

I worked on some marking this morning. I marked a question about what type of probability theory various problems needed for solution. Theories the students could choose included Classical, Subjective, and Relative Frequency. I also marked an eight sided dice problem involving conditional probabilities. This marking is due this Wednesday along with the 100 tests.

I studied the role of Information Systems Security Officer

I read a few chapters of a book describing the role of information systems security officer.

I read three or four entries at wikipedia about systems science

I got a little worried about studying for the fall so spent some study time reading at wikipedia.org the background of systems science and systems theory, another word for this science. I found the International Society for the Systems Sciences organization for professionals in systems science and considered joining this coming week. This is their home page http://www.isss.org. I read about famous systems scientists and their writings at both web sites.

I have been marking tests the past few mornings.

I completed marking about 100 tests for one question concerning a histogram and one question concerning a stem and leaf plot. I still have to mark some calculations for this set of data and also a box plot.

I am not going to be studying in an MA program in legal studies.

I got a letter from the law department saying I was not admitted to a legal studies MA at Carleton. I am now back to just being happy to be able to study in graduate school anywhere in my city. But wait there is more. I am now possibily going to join the camp that says the U of O is a better school as evidenced by their admitting little ol' me with my strengths to grad school where Carleton would not. I feel the U of O may have treated me with more fairness and assessed my record in a more balanced fashion whereas at Carleton I believe it may have only been my grades that mattered. Perhaps I should have left Carleton 24 years ago when I first started to have trouble there with my marks affecting the decisions and not my abilities and professional experience.

In another way of looking at this, I have always been a keen computer student and user and programmer. I am only now in my middle life finally entering a program of study of the computer. Perhaps this is in fact a further refinement of my looking within myself to see what I truly enjoy and respect.

I have three marking assignments right now.

I have to mark a test of about 100 students. I also have two assignments to mark this week. I need to get working on this but I have also been managing to clean our apartment, do some carpentry and look for work. So I have work to do as a teaching assistant.

Reading about social networks.

I searched out some books on schizophrenia at the school library. I read this chapter of a book last night.

Abrahamson, David. Social Networks and their Development in the Community in France, Jenny, & Muir, Niki. Communication and the Mentally Ill Patient: Developmental and Linguistic Approaches to Schizophrenia (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1997).

The author looks at some housing options and the observations of social networks amongst discharged patients. This was a study based on some housing in England where social networking was encouraged and studied.

I am reminded of Barry Wellman's paper on using SAS to study egocentric networks. I am planning on doing some mapping or writing down of my own networks but will read Wellman's paper again, as I do this and try to set something up in SAS.

I am posting this from the Math tutorial centre.

I am at school connecting to the Net wirelessly. I am giving my office hours. There don't seem to be any of my students here yet. They may in fact not show up today. My next office hours are on Monday at 17:00. I am just about to reboot my Macbook and launch SAS inside WinXP.

I completed marking the two first assignments and am starting the second assignments.

I got my marking done that was due this week. One assignment was about two days late. I now have a second assignmet to mark. I am giving some office hours this afternoon at 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Then besides the marking I am not working in this job until Monday when I proctor a test for one course and give more office hours. But next week there are no labs or tutorials scheduled.

I completed marking the question I was working on.

I completed marking the question I was working on. I now have two more questions to mark. I will do this marking this morning.

Marking continues

I just started marking for the evening. I am just completing marking a basic histogram problem and a stem and leaf problem. The problem asks students to construct both of these types of pictoral data description and then compare these description methods.

I got some marking done just now.

I got one courses' first assignment all marked now and the marks recorded. I now need to take a break and then mark the other courses papers. I am then going to a large labour protest today then I have a volunteer board of directors meeting in the late afternoon.

I started to study for my first course in the systems science certificate

I printed the course outline for SYS5130 Systems Optimization and Management. I then used the Carleton university library web journal search and found these ebooks at the Knovel Library and read this book:

Rao, Singiresu S. Engineering Optimization - Theory and Practice (3rd Edition) (John Wiley & Sons, 1996).

I type set equation 1.1 from this book in TeXshop and then stopped studying.

I did some more marking and am half way done one assignment.

I did some marking. I am going to do some more this morning. I am behind on this what with a recent job interview and getting excited about the graduate school admission.

I have also had some family time in the past few weeks and travel. I have been trying out on-line games that involve commerce. I have spent no money on these games yet. My big problem right now is cleaning my living quarters. I am also doing some carpentry at home.

But back to marking now.

I have been admitted to a graduate program in systems science.

My goal of being an interdisciplinary scholar is continuing. In the foot steps of scholars such as Rob Kling I might be treading. I got a letter saying I had been admitted to a graduate school program at the university of Ottawa in systems science. I have studied various studies in systems science all my life. Terms from cybernetics like feedback, systems, components, parts, wholes and sub systems etc., ring in my mind in regards systems. Optimzations, estimation, convergence, bifurcation are other terms from systems. There are financial systems. There are illegal and legal systems. There are banking and other industrial systems and international goveranace systems and there are biological systems and the king of them all, the planetary ecosystem.

Marking begins for the spring/summer term.

I began marking this morning. I marked for about half an hour. I got about a quarter through the assignment for one course. I was marking some very basic questions that would have the answers in the first chapter of the textbook.

I read about bargaining equality.

I started to read about bargaining equality in a binder provided by my national union office. I read this on the train. I am becoming a member of the teaching assistant bargaining team for the next contract. This contract might cover the next two years. At this point we have served notice to bargain.

I was talking about R software with my father.

My dad needs to do graphs on the computer of experiments in optics. I was discussing the use of R software for graphics with him tonight.

Social design of computer systems.

I have been reading about the need for social design of computing systems.

I faithfully completed my TA duties for today.

I had office hours today. I waited for students but none came. I did take the time to study the social design of ICT systems. I also took the time to enter all the lab and tutorial hours into my Palm agenda. I met with a new contract instructor and budgeted my hours, I got the assignment of duties form submitted now. While in the tutoiral room I talked briefly with the TA on duty and told him about monies available to him through his TA work. In other words I did some shop steward work with the other TA. I also had some union email to do today but otherwise it was quiet day. I got my new laptop and installed some statistics software and tried out some of the multimedia features of the new laptop.

I should start to study object oriented programming at least at a basic level for the U of Ottawa next year.

If I am admitted to the university of Ottawa certificate in systems science I will be required to do object oriented programming. I should prepare this summer by learning some more C++ and also learning some Java programming. I have some books to do this with and should start reading them this month, June.

I have been admitted to a diploma in Sonic Design.

I have been admitted and accepted the offer to study towards a diploma in Sonic Design. This program is only five credits about 1 credit per year at Carleton university from the School for Studies in Art and Culture, and there is a web page describing it here at this URL http://www.carleton.ca/artandculture/sonicdesign/index.html.

Laptop bought for graduate school.

I ordered a new Macbook computer on-line and it is now on its way here from Suzhou, China. The intention of this laptop which is meant as a graduation present is that it will be used in graduate school. I am not sure I have a flat surface to work with the laptop. I like to use the coffee table to work on with my laptops. But our living room coffee table is always piled high with papers, books, phone, ashtrays and various remote controls. We have a very nice coffee table with six shelves underneath the table. But these are mostly jammed full with books.

The last books I bought I think were some health and safety reference books I ordered on-line. The ordering was done on a German web page and they just sent the books and invoiced me in Euros. I wasn't even sure I had read the web order page correctly because my German is very weak. I got the books in the mail a few weeks ago and just read some more of one tonight after getting home from work at school. I finally after about two days of trying, a few weeks ago was able to afford to buy a money order in Euros from my bank and mail it to the German publisher. This money really comes from my union who give me money every school term for doing this health and safety representative work at the campus. The latest magazine I bought I bought today and it is about Linux computers.

"SAS" search at library.

I used a keyword search for the term SAS and then copied and pasted all the library entries I found into a word processing file. I also explored some on-line links to SAS data sets.

I am downloading 745 MB of compressed SAS and ASCII files of crime data from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data a US clearing house on mostly US crime data. I am going to use this data in SAS and may be design some statistical learning problems and practices with this data.

Union convention almost over.

We are having a union convention for our TA union and today is the last day. I was only able to attend the first day, Wednesday and yesterday, the third day Friday. I am up over night now and will stay up to attend the last day today. The convention is only a half day today. I am staying up all night and then attending the convention. The convention includes all the union locals from Ontario. I am meeting and talking to many other union members as well as leaders of the union. I am listening to a diverse set of voices from other union members and leaders. I am pressing people on disAbility issues and the rights of workers who happen to have disAbilities.

I am up because I was excited with a friend and of course the union convention and then spent the last hour helping my friend transfer his Internet Explorer Favorites to a new computer I sold him. This was the computer I bought this past January for my SAS work in my experimental design course. I needed a windows computer then to use SAS. I now have SAS running in Win2K on my eMac so do not need a windows computer right now. So I sold him this windows computer. Most of the help was done over the phone with instructions and closed questions. He simply told me what he saw on the screen and I then told him what to select.

I am receiving a laptop from my father as a graduation present and am just about to order it on-line from Apple.ca. It will be a new Macbook computer. I will use this Macbook for my graduate school studies.

I have applied for a certificate in systems science.

I have applied for a certificate study program at the University of Ottawa in systems science. I will also apply to work as a teaching assistant in statistics at the University of Ottawa. This could mean I change schools next year.

I have been admitted to a diploma on Sonic Design.

I have been admitted to the study of Sonic Design. This is a program where one studies music making on computers. It is only a five credit program and I would study it concurrantly with my MA next year. I should hear about the MA admission in June.

Returning books to the library.

I returned the book on digital crime and digital terrorism. I read about a third or a half of this book. I also returned a book about statistical machine learning.

I have not been studying much the past few weeks.

I have been reading the past few weeks but I am not studying a course formally this spring term. The spring term started on Wednesday. My TA work will start this coming Wednesday.

I did some reading into the vulnerable worker.

I read a disccussion report from the Law Commisson of Canada on vulnerable workers. I got quite angry about my poverty after reading this report.

I am no longer studying environmental sciences but I did do some green party official unpaid labour in the last 24 hours.

I attended a green party meeting yesterday and today did some cyber organizing for this part of the green party which is the local part here. Don't mind my obtuse English; it effects no one; mind your own.

The mayoral candidate.

I have been bumping into the Mayoral candidate recently. I just sent him a web based comment. He said feels tax payers should not pay for disAbility benefits. He seems to be dividing the community while he says he is out to unite people. He seems to be a politician who claims he will handle diversity. He is gay so I think he should be a politician of difference(s). I think he speaks out of both sides of his month.

Criminology's Promise conference

I am attending a conference today at my school. It is called Criminology's Promise. One of the presenters is a former professor of mine in drug law. Some of the presenters are graduate course professors so this is a chance to get to know them a bit better.

Where I went on-line this morning concerning health statistics

I used the book from the university library on health statistics to search on-line journals, the WHO and US government health institute for information on health statistics. The US document was here http://www.ncvhs.hhs.gov/21st%20final%20report.pdf, concerning health statistics and health statistics models. I got lead astray at the WHO web site looking for this document on disease classifications http://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/ which is on-line. I went to something on noise and ended up in Germany at a national occupational health and safety web site here at http://www.baua.de/ which is available in English. So another research adventure over night.

Of course disease classifications included stuff on schizophrenia, so I printed that out from the WHO classification. But to put it in popular language it means we are being put in little shoe boxes by doctors. In academic terms, classifications like the WHO's and the DSM are contested areas and suggest viewpoints that priviledge scientific knowledge above other forms of knowledge. When, in fact, experimental science can not study the whole of life. Even just feelings and emotional reality, or friendships and real human to human relationships, and the effect these have on mental health and mental illness recovery, will be unrecorded as experimental sciences can not record these factors. So these factors will be ignored and left out of a scientific and classifications world view. Thus we need narratives i.e stories from friends, family and professionals a bigger story.

Digging deep into an book introduction.

More and more these days I search out references in things I read. I just completed the first read of an introduction to this book:

Friedman, Daniel J. & Hunter, Edward L. & Parrish II, R. Gibson. Health Statistics: Shaping Policy and Practice to Improve the Population's Health (Oxford: Oxford University, 2005).

Tonight this inspires me about community. The model presented for identifying gaps in data shows the topic of social change as but one of about 40 topics. Social change and law is the theme of the graduate school I hope to enter this fall.

I am now going to look up the references at the end of this introductory chapter on the internet and using the internet at our school's library.

My proctoring duties are done.

I have completed my proctoring duties for the winter term. I have been hired for some extra proctoring duties though which I started last night for five hours.

My final exam in my course in statistical design of experiments is done now.

I finished another term by completing my take home exam in statistical design of experiments this past weekend.

My winter term TA work is done.

I marked a series of questions concerning cluster sampling as an appropriate choice for a sampling technique. This took two hours of marking. I am now done my TA duties for another term.

I have been doing mundane computer tasks today.

I have been backing up computers and testing my new used iBook today. I am also preparing a bibliography post for my meeting with a professor that may occur today. I am also surfing a little on the new used iBook. I am surfing a couple of conventions' web pages. One is the teaching assistant union's Ontario convention coming up in May and I am already registered as a delegate so this is just research that will help me participate in this event in Ottawa. This union represents more than just university workers and I attended a university worker's convention with this union a few weeks ago. The other convention is not until November and it is a convention of disAbled students and I am thinking of doing a presentation on working as a person/student with a disAbility. This convention is also in Ottawa. Speaking of conventions I was going to make a proposal to the Association of Internet Researchers to hold our 2007 convention in Ottawa and did get two Canada Research Chairs to say they would attend but the deadline for proposals approached too fast and I gave up.

Focus on experimental design for the next week of studies.

Whether the term focus comes from photography and optics or revolution and guerilla warfare I need to apply it to studies. Too many times the confused academic advisor is devalued by me in a form of elitism where I see their lack of understanding of me as evidence of their lesser intelligence. I need to learn from this because I am now becoming the academic and employment advisor for other students. As a teaching assistant my role of advisor is optional but it can make be a better teacher if I do it right. Also I need to focus on experimental design for the next week of studies.

Reading critiques of Wired magazine.

The first critique I read of Wired magazine was

Pauline Borsook's, Cyberselfish (New York: Public Affairs, 2000).

This book enlightened me to the dangers of Wired magazine and clarified some of my own thoughts as a Wired reader.

This past few months I have been reading

Stewart Millar, Melanie. Cracking the Gender Code: Who Rules The Wired World (Toronto, Ont.: Second Story, 1998).

This book builds on the sexist reality of Wired magazine. I have not read the whole book yet but am rereading parts of it with interest.

Preparing to meet Sheryl Hamilton.

I am following my dad's advice to meet with professors of the law department to help my application along. To do this I have a meeting being scheduled with Sheryl Hamilton a department of law professor. I have read some of her M.A. on cyber feminism. I have also gathered all the reading for her course in communications law. I read some of this material. She feels that a productive meeting will help my application. Here I am going to list the gender books I am reading at present. I will also list the gender books I am borrowing or own but am not actively reading. I will also list books I have read in the past about gender and computing.

These are two books that look specifically at Wired Magazine

Pauline Borsook's, Cyberselfish (New York: Public Affairs, 2000).

This book enlightened me to the dangers of Wired magazine and clarified some of my own thoughts as a Wired reader.

This past few months I have been reading

Stewart Millar, Melanie. Cracking the Gender Code: Who Rules The Wired World (Toronto, Ont.: Second Story, 1998).

This book builds on the sexist reality of Wired magazine. I have not read the whole book yet but am rereading parts of it with interest.

These are the other gender and technology books I am either reading now or have read in the past year or two:

Consalvo, Mia, & Passonen, Susanna. Women & Everyday Uses of the Internet: Agency & Identity (New York: Peter Lang, 2002).

Mostly the articles I read in this book concern web sites that are designed for women or marketted to women. I read about three articles. One article, concerned women as web masters, and pointed out that women tend to be graphic designers of web sites, rather than programers and are paid less in a rather involved case of discrimination in employment.

Cooper, Joel, & Weaver, Kimberlee D. Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide (London: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003).

I am about half way through this empirical study of girl's and boy's uses of computers in schools. The big idea I learned from this is that educational software is designed or has been designed in the past to appeal to boys rather than girls. But the thesis around the digital divide, that high tech jobs are a good thing is questionable these days.

Haraway, Donna. A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s in Haraway, Donna. The Haraway Reader (New York: Routledge, 2004)

This inspired me to create my www.cybercitizen.org web site

Wajcman, Judy. Techno Feminism (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2004).

I have read this book which was basically a critical view of other feminist writers of technology including Haraway.

These are the general women's studies books I am reading at present:

Marking this morning.

I am up early this morning marking. I had meant to get this marking done today but it is taking longer. I am marking the largest Q right now and when this is done the rest will be a breeze. So this is the last major part of the work this term. Then I can focus on my own exam. I am also being employed to proctor exams again. This is fairly easy work proctoring but this time I have some days with two exams per day.

Reading more Donna Haraway and doing end of term marking.

I am reading more of the Haraway reader. I am also just doing my end of term marking. My radical union is preparing to attend the Montreal Anarchist book fair later this spring.

School work is becoming focused on statistics.

I also sorted books out this morning and I plan to study for my exam for two hours a day until the exam. That is for the next six days then two days break then five days then get my exam. I will spend three days writing my exam. I borrowed books on the so called advanced topics in the experimental design course. These are fractional factorials and response surfaces. I also borrowed a book on simulations. I am applying to attend a systems science graduate school next year. At the moment I do not know how I will afford all my professional dues that are late at this point. But I am realising that the professional statistican qualification might be put off for awhile. I can instead pay the late dues and pay for the application to systems science. In systems science I could study simulations. I would really like to do this. But perhaps I will not be admitted. Oh well it costs 75 dollars to try. I am almost at this point in the morning finished my alotted time for studying experimental design. I have another hour and a half but I am going to do some job searching and looking at my systems science application in this time. I am keen to look for work even full time work now because I could end my education here at this point. I am also basically working full time hours now so I am sure I can put up with the stress levels of full time job at this point. But I am keen at this moment because the job statistics that came out yesterday tell a story of full time job hiring. I am going to try to capitalise on this moment in the economy.

I completed reading Donna Haraway's famous Cyborg Manifesto.

I completed reading Donna Haraway's paper written in the 1980's. Here is the cite: Haraway, Donna. A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s in Haraway, Donna. The Haraway Reader (New York: Routledge, 2004) at 7-45. This is the paper that inspired me to establish www.cyborgcitizen.org.

Homework at end of term completed.

I completed a factorial designs assignment for my last assignment in the term. It took about 20 hours to do the various analysis projects. I now only have a take home exam and I am done this course.

I have some marking to do too before the term is over. I will also most likely be working as an exam proctor and that should begin in a couple of weeks.

Adventures in library attendence

It is near end of term at our school. I canceled the last lab I was to give tonight because no students showed up. I had my bosses permission to do this. I then went to the library.

The library is something I fell in love with in my first year of living with the schizophrenia label. But perhaps I was in love with these places long before that. When my parents read me the story of Robin Hood or The Wizard of OZ, they read me not one book but tens of books borrowed from the university library. When I was first living with the label of schizophrenia I read a story called the Labyrinth by Borge. It had an illusion of an infinite library building based on the repeated hexagon pattern.

Tonight I took back most of the mental health books I was borrowing. I also took back books on MIDI, and one virtual war book, and one women and computing bibliography. I was trying to take books back for the end of term. I was also trying to focus my studies more on either law or statistics but in particular statistics. So I took back a lot of other subject books. I then searched out an author my statistics professor recommended, who she had learned from, when she studied experimental design. I borrowed that book and read it on the train platform. I was able to understand a little better this past weeks lecture material and will now be fine for the fifth assignment and the final exam should be easier too. I borrowed other books on experimental design. I also borrowed a book by Emma Goldman on anarchism. And the other famous scholar I borrowed a book by was Max Weber. I borrowed a book of his writings on universities.

I am now going to sleep after writing this entry and proof reading it.

I am doing some calculations for my statistical and experimental design course.

I did some calculations this morning following the teachers notes. These checked out with the software's analysis, so no mistakes were made with the software data entry or the calculations that I did with a word processor and a calculator. The data relate to a machine tool process involving speed of the tool, geometry, and cuting angle. I am supposed to figure out which has more effect on the life of the tool which is our response variable.

Read another chapter in a study into gender and computing.

I completed reading chapter 3 in Copper, Joel, & Weaver D, Kimberlee. Gender and Computers: Understanding the Digital Divide (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erbaum, 2003).

I have now read up to the fourth chapter of the computer crime book. I might start the fifth, later today.

I borrowed this book on the 17th. Here is the citation: Taylor, Robert W. et al. Digital Crime and Digital Terrorism (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2006). I was able to read the first four chapters now. I would like to have this book read by the end of April before I pick summer term courses.

I wrote the first page to my spring talk on R.

I wrote my first page for my spring talk on R. I will give this hour long talk at the Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group(OCLUG). I was going to test my R code on my linux laptop but might wait until tomorrow evening. At least I now have the talk started.

I did not get accepted into the legal studies MA program at the first committee meeting.

I received a letter today saying the admissions committee will need to wait to see my winter term marks before deciding to admit me to the legal studies MA program. I am not sure why because my present course which will produce this mark is in experimental design which is not directly related to legal studies.

Reading another critique of Wired.

I was reading more of this book which I am about two thirds of the way through now.

Stewart Millar, Melanie. Cracking the Gender Code: Who Rules the Wired World ( Toronto: Second Story, 1998).

This book is partially about how Wired magazine is a sexist and racist magazine because they never cover African Americans or women in a neutral tone if they cover them at all. It is also interesting as an analysis of the graphics and demographics of Wired magazine.

I am waiting for an MA admission decision.

I am waiting to hear if I have been admitted to the M.A. program in legal studies. I read the MA program handbook a little yesterday. I would not be starting until the fall. This would mean I could stay in the union if I am also hired to be a legal studies Teaching assistant.

This mornings readings including AoIR researchers.

I am reading these two books this morning:

Consalvo, Mia, & Passonen Susanna. eds. Women & Everyday Uses of the Internet: Agency and Identity (New York:, Peter Lang 2002).

I have already read one chapter of this book but am reading the introduction this morning. These women editors are AoIR members I believe.

Taylor, Robert W. et al. Digital Crime and Digital Terrorism (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2006)

I just borrowed this yesterday while waiting to tutor a student. I read the first chapter last night and started the second chapter this morning. It is very biased towards US security and US centric defintions of warfare.

Human resource studies and practice.

I studied a little of the sub field of human resources known as managing volunteers. I studied this at one of our local community colleges in the middle 1990's. Today I am will be doing some human resouces work. I will interview three candidates for a part-time job at a self help group I am president at. I may try to read some books or on-line documents to prepare for this. I may even do a journal search in human resources journals.

I am continuing to grade statistics homework this morning.

I was grading some proportional allocations homework this morning. I am also getting ready to derive some quantities that describe or represent various ways of looking at treatment effects in balanced incomplete block designs (B.I.B.D.'s). I am using latex for this writing these derivations with texShop on my eMac. I also have some SAS homework I would like to do this morning. I think I will run the SAS work now.

My morning and stretching into sleep.

I am clear on what I need to do for the assignment now. I called the professor and clarified what she wanted us to do. So I don't need to go to school to see her. But there is a lecture today. I also have to do at least one shopping errand before I can sleep. I have been doing a little blogging this morning. I got a marking goal completed and rewarded my self with corn chips and coke. I am avoiding marking and need to get moving on this procrastination. I did my web work for the day and am waiting probably for another month to hear if I have been selected for an interview for another web master assignment. I read a little more this morning about gender and computers and also read some on-line society studies. Yes, I am studious. But I need sleep so may miss the lecture today. If I leave for school now I can do my errands and take the SAS disks back to school and be home about noon and sleep and thus limit my day awake to 24 hours.

Experimental design assignment is not so much SAS after all.

After reading the 4th assignment it looks like the home work is more math work in latex actually than SAS coding. I will go in to school early this morning to see the professor during her office hours to ask some questions about this homework. I need some clarification about what we are being asked to do. I also have to take back the SAS disks to the school office this morning. I am up from yesterday and need to sleep after I get home from school at about 3:30 PM this afternoon. I also need to do some more marking this morning and a little web mastering at one of my paid web mastering jobs. I think I will do the web mastering next after a brief break from this computer. I have been reading a book about gender and computing which is a report from some psychological researchers who have studying this topic for almost 20 years in various studies. This is also a QA 76.9 book.

New academic blog opened.

I started a new blog that I am actually paying money for now. It is at http://www.cyborgcitizen.org/blog1. It is a web experiment and I hope it is used to feature radical academic work of mine. The domain name was inspired by my readings in sociology of science and technology and in particular my present reading of the socialist feminst cyborg manifesto of Donna Haraway, I also want to use it for creative writing as academic work. But that is just for the blog and a few web pages. The rest of the site will be an all out graphic/web design work. Also I will use some server side tools and programming as an experiment and testing ground for improving and broadening my set of web design and blogging technical skills.

I also have live journal blog for academic writing about community networks. It is here http://pierre-anoid.livejournal.com.

Working continues.

I quit the stock market day trading job I was investigating. I could not commit the time to it. I continued to mark statistics homework this morning. I gave a lab last night in regression and SAS.

The next experimental design assignment has been posted.

The next experimental design assignment for my winter term fourth year course has been posted. I am just printing the assignment and example code and also some extra lessons the professor has posted to her web site. One of her graduate students is giving a thesis defence this Friday. I am interested in this thesis because it is about GIS and crime analysis. I have written some legal studies papers on this topic and also read a few introductory books on this topic. BTW it is pie day today. 03/14/1:50. Of course the minutes are wrong but I don't know pie off hand better than four decimal places what a hopeless mathematician eh?

I did not do so much studies on Monday as I did other school related work.

Instead of going to the library on Monday and reading about survey methodology I did building inspections. I inspected the mechanical engineering department's labs for safety issues and hazards. I worked for about an hour and half. I then came home and studied and did install SAS 9.1.3 on my eMac on the Win2k side of my eMac. I was exploring SAS -> Analysis > Design of Experiments at school today.

I have turned comments on now on this blog.

If I understand the blogspot settings for comments right this should be the first post on this blog that one can comment on. I will test it now with my own comment.

Reading Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto.

Here is the cite for the work I am reading tonight:

Haraway, Donna. A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s in Haraway, Donna. The Haraway Reader (New York: Routledge, 2004).

I am ready to be inspired by this writing because I have read so many references and even a critique of Haraway before coming to reading this work. I started reading sociology of science and technology in 2002 or 2001. I started to read QA 76.9 in the middle 1990's actually. I still read many books from this library call letter. These books are between computer security and computer databases. But this lead to sociology of science and technology and studying this with Philip Thurtle in winter 2003. It was a cold winter. This winter upon us now is the warmest on record. I learned early on my academic career as I ended my first academic job that talking about the weather is polite. [Note on the topic of computer word processors: this has lead me to reading with nostalgia, for my own existing in the early 1980's as a young intellectual and beginning anarchist/socialist, the work Donna Haraway is most known for. In fact, this was her first writing on a computer. I would liked to have been able to write English on a computer and print it on plain 8 1/2” X 11” paper back the in the early 1980's, but instead I could only program computers then not write with them.] I reflect on this politeness in Haraway's comment on anarchists not seeking truces. I could trash Haraway from an anti-psychiatric stance in that she refers to psycho analysis. But perhaps psycho analysis is trashed by pro med doctors. Perhaps I should point out that the bio neuro powered psychiatry that came out of the decade of the brain was also parallel to the cyborg of Haraway's eco bio animal machine hopes for a rebellion from the father war machine of nuclear annihilation.

I like the term blasphemy of law which I coined while reading the introduction to her piece. When one studies law and mentions one is a criminal or suggests that crime is a solution one commits a blasphemy, but blasphemy rhymes with femininity, which is just another word that rhymes with the science fiction title Trinity. There an obvious religious blasphemy referring to a basic religious Jungian word as a science fiction name. And Trinity is some nuclear bomb reference too. But these days Trinity is the first super powered Matrix character, pictured as a running criminal, who can fly and do very quick Kung Fu. Crime is Kung Fu that hasn't been paid for. I doubt people who pay for Kung Fu lessons do crimes. I am rabbling. almost read to sing in this piece.

I got in a little discussion about music with the famous sociolgist of networks Barry Wellman on the weekend, when I came home from work. I was manic and it seem my manic states are ways of producing academic emails. This should stop. I don't need to be a 24-7 academic I need to be a 24-7 front line wage slave. Speaking of conversations I think I will open this blog up for comments tonight and leave the comments open for one month and see what happens.

Lecture today in experimental design.

I am actually looking forward to the lecture today in experimental design. The professor follows the text quite closely and I have read the text this past weekend. I am also fairly excited about my growing knowledge of survey methodology. Maybe I will borrow some new books on survey's at school today from the business section of the library or the sociology section. I would like to do a crime knowledge survey in grad school. I also might attend a Field's Institute lecture in the evening today.

I read a lot of my statistics text book in the last 24 hours.

I reviewed the first six chapters in my experimental design text. I also read more closely the third, fourth, fifth and sixth chapters. I will need to read the 5th to 8th chapters in the next week. These chapters cover various views of factorial designs.

I helped hire a statistical analyst for our union and also did some human resources work for our self help group.

At the end of this week I helped with a team of other union members to hire a statistical analyst for our union. I also did staff evaluations and short listed candidates for a new position at our self help group. We are hiring a peer/drop in coordinator for our self help group. We are scheduling interviews for next week. I also evaluated staff for the past year. These are good activities to add to my CV.

I am studying experimental design this morning.

I did some SAS coding and must write this up now. I need to study the SAS printout some more, but I did notice that I have unequal variances with two blocking variables in my latin square design. I am wondering if I can look at the trends in these blocks and perhaps chose a transformation that might correct the unequal variances. I also know there is a technique for finding an appropriate transform but I may just try guessing.

Just posting an update now. I tried the standard transformations of the response variable, squaring, taking the square root, taking the log, taking the log to base 10 and none of these worked to reduce the unequal variances of the residuals. I also tried coding the data by subtracting 10 and this did not work. I will try subtracting 16 now and then write this whole transforming attempt up.

I then need to check the reduced and full model F test. I also need to show how to solve this for a missing value using the Q prime analysis. But then I am done with this and I should be able to do it today.

Calculating the sums of squares for the latin square was the same by hand as in SAS.

I did this homework using SAS already and doing it by hand it was the same once I corrected mistakes in arithmetic. I have this all typed up now too. I have some tests of hypothesies to do and some validity checks but then I am done and maybe I can hand this in Monday.

I should do some marking now. I have almost completed 6 Q's out of 9 now. The next two Q's will be fast and the last one maybe not too difficult. I should have had this done last week but I have now promised it for Monday.

I am working on a latin square analysis for my experimental design course.

I have some straight forward home work this weekend. I must analyse a simple latin square experiment.

Starting new books from the library.

I borrowed more books recently. Here are the music books I am borrowing at present:

Jungleib, Stanley. Generl Midi (Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1995).

This seems to be a book about MIDI written about the time sound cards became popular. I remember trying to buy a sound card for my IBM XT in the middle 1990's.

Rothstein, Joseph. MIDI: A Comprehensive Introduction (Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1992).

This book I have read the first chapter and will continue reading it even if it seems MIDI is more for keyboard players.

Brice, Richard. Music Engineering: The Electronics of Playing and Recording (Oxford: Newness, 1998).

I have read a few chapters of this book now. It is highly educational and I have learned a lot from it and discussed music waves with my dad who is an experimental physicist.