"Whoa! Dr. Franklin, that was fast."

One of my students made such a comment on the speed with which I entered numerical data into a spreadsheet using the 10-key number pad. Being well into a 3 hour class, I decided it was a good time to give a bit of a break to the stats lecture by reminiscing on how I developed speedy 10-key skills. After the fact, I recognize that taking this excursion gave the students an interesting perspective on what makes their professor tick and helped them see how technology has developed over the last 20 years.

During the summer after my sophomore year of college around 1996, I lived with my grandparents in Amarillo and went to summer school at Amarillo College. To support myself, I also went to work as a temp. When I first went into the temp agency, I was given a test on some basic clerical skills: mostly typing and 10-key speed and accuracy tests. Honestly, this was the first time I learned that 10-key was something to master or even be tested over. My Mom was excellent at 10-key which know because I’d seen smoke rising from her desktop calculator at home when she flew through those numbers. I guess her prowess came from years at an S&L and a bank. Nevertheless, when I took typing in school, we were never taught 10-key just the basic "asdf ;lkj" home-row kind of stuff. That kind of typing clicked for me. (har har!) I got up to around 120 words per minute and did fair in the keyboarding competition among area schools.

So at the agency, I sat down to take my keyboard test. First, on the standard typing test I scored around 80 wpm. Down from high school days but still surprisingly impressive for a male temp (or so I was told by the person administering the exam). Then I took the 10-key test. Something I didn’t know existed. Now, I don’t remember the units that the speed was measured in, nor do I remember the score I made. What I do remember was that it also was surprisingly high and impressive. So, why was I good at some skill I didn’t even know was a skill? Ahhh, yes, I remember.

The answer dates back to the first computer my parents bought for me. The machine was a Laser-128 which from the Wikipedia article I just learned was manufactured by V-Tech. It’s interesting that one of the first console games that we purchased for our own children was the V-Smile also made by V-Tech. Nice symmetry. The Laser-128 was an Apple II clone with 128 kilobytes of RAM. This was in the days before hard drives and the operating system was loaded from a floppy disk. And yes, these floppy disks, the 5 1/4" variety, were actually floppy. It was on this machine that first began learning about computer programming. I can’t honestly say that I was learning how to program just what programming was.

I was subscribed to a children’s magazine called "3-2-1 Contact" and in the back of every issue were a couple of programs in BASIC (as in the BASIC programming language). I can still vividly remember one of the most exciting and exhilarating moments of my childhood, perhaps of my whole life. The moment came after seemingly endless hours of trying to get the very first program to run. I knew nothing about how I was supposed to type it in, whether punctuation or case had anything to do with the code, whether the line number needed to be typed and I definitely had no idea what the code meant. Yet, I tried and I tried and I tried until finally, after pressing the "Enter" key at the "RUN PROGRAM", something happened. Something beautiful. Something amazing. Something that made me jump up and down, hoot and holler, clap and do a little jig. Okay, specifically what happened was so basic and ordinary that no one but I would be impressed. It was the fact that it ran that made me so happy. The program just drew a multicolored box around the edge of the screen and then criss-crossed a multicolored "x" on the screen. It repeatedly drew the box and the x over and over again. It was essentially the most boring screensaver you could imagine. But, the code I entered ran. Brilliant! Genius! I still feel the excitement in my gut when I think about that moment.

A little later when I had begun to master the art of typing in the code on those last few pages of the children’s magazine and I actually started understanding what a majority of the BASIC code meant, I stumbled across a set of programs that would use the speaker in the PC to play music. The code itself was relatively short but there were tons and tons of data lines at the end of the code. The data codes were just lists of numbers separated by comma values. The numbers were pitches and lengths. Correctly coded and executed, a song would emerge from my speaker, complete with harmonies but still sounding like a robot out of movies from the 1970s. There were hundreds if not thousands of numbers in these lists to get a song to play. The first song I ever had play was the "Grand Old Flag". Debugging the data lines was a pain in the rear because you’d hear a pitch that was wrong or note length wasn’t right and you’d have to hunt for the mistyped value.

It was the hours I spent typing in those numbers that gave me my own prowess in 10-key. You just never know what skills you’ll pick up just by pursuing your passions. For me, I knew from those early days of coding that programming had to play a role in what I would do for a living. I still get that feeling of hooting and hollering when I find that bug in the code that I’ve written. To this day, that excitement is still there when I solve the problem after hours of eye-straining scrutiny.

I guess the moral of the story, particularly as it relates to the stats class I was teaching when I chased this rabbit, is that you never know what skills will benefit you later on in your career. Also, it should remind you to find your passion. Something stirs your interest and excites you. If you’re a nerd like me, it may be debugging code. If you’re normal, it might just be solving problems or helping people. God designed you with passions that fit you neatly into his plan for your life so don’t overlook those moments that get you hooting and hollering.

Just came across these in reading random blogs and thought they were very good.  My favorite is #7. 

Here are ten tips from Pope John XXIII about how to live a better life, day to day:

1. Only for today, I will seek to live the livelong day positively without wishing to solve the problems of my life all at once.

2. Only for today, I will take the greatest care of my appearance: I will dress modestly; I will not raise my voice; I will be courteous in my behavior; I will not criticize anyone; I will not claim to improve or to discipline anyone except myself.

3. Only for today, I will be happy in the certainty that I was created to be happy, not only in the other world but also in this one.

4. Only for today, I will adapt to circumstances, without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes.

5. Only for today, I will devote 10 minutes of my time to some good reading, remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.

6. Only for today, I will do one good deed and not tell anyone about it.

7. Only for today, I will do at least one thing I do not like doing; and if my feelings are hurt, I will make sure that no one notices.

8. Only for today, I will make a plan for myself: I may not follow it to the letter, but I will make it. And I will be on guard against two evils: hastiness and indecision.

9. Only for today, I will firmly believe, despite appearances, that the good Providence of God cares for me as no one else who exists in this world.

10. Only for today, I will have no fears. In particular, I will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful and to believe in goodness. Indeed, for 12 hours I can certainly do what might cause me consternation were I to believe I had to do it all my life.

For those that don’t know, LaTEX is a tool used by mathematicians, scientists, and engineers to typeset their print or electronic documents.  In order to render the symbolic notation in a readable format, quickly and easily, LaTEX documents are written in a text format that is then run through a compiler that produces a file (dvi, postscript or pdf) that can be distributed. 

ScribTEX is an online editor with a full LaTEX environment. It has all the flexibility of LaTEX with all the functionality of an online editor.  ScribTEX also has that great web 2.0 feel to it.  You can create projects and type your LaTEX code directly online. Then, click the compile button and your pdf document is ready to be downloaded. There are tools that make collaboration easy.  I can store all of my documents up in the cloud so that I can access them from anywhere. 

I currently have a solution using LiveMesh that allows me to get to most of my files anywhere but its sometimes clumsy and delayed in getting the files synchronized.  This way, all my information is available anywhere I have the internet.

You can download your projects and upload them again if you need to work offline.  You can easily upload any of your current content up to ScribTEX. I still want to do more testing so that I can make sure that all my old projects play nice with their system.  But at this point, I highly recommend it for any of you LaTEX afficionados.  Give it a try if you haven’t already!

For years, I’ve been using a Windows implementation of LaTEX called MikTEX alongside the WinEdt text editor that integrates with LaTEX.

I’m switching to ScribTEX!

(Thanks, James, for your comment on the earlier post!)

What I just learned was something I’d never heard before:

“The modern, so-called Hindu-Arabic number system, developed in India between 200 and 700 A.D., was the first truly efficient way to record and compute with numbers, though the system was not available in the West until Leonardo of Lisa (whom later historians dubbed ‘Fibonacci’) learned it from North African traders and described it in his book Liber abaci (The Book of Calculating), which first appeared in 1202. ”

Fibonacci! What a guy!

I discovered it the same way I discover most emerging technologies.  I was listening to TWIT and heard them refer to a tool that they assumed everyone had heard about and everyone was using.  So, as a joiner, I had to run out at play with it.  It certainly was intriguing but a bit flashy for me.  It ranked up there with animations and sound affects in Powerpoint (proper use is rarely or never).

What is Prezi? 

At it’s simplest, it is a zooming presentation editor.  Instead of emphasis on components of your presentation being controlled by slides or by bulleted lists, you emphasize with size and zooming.  There is a good video explanation at prezi.com.

I’m still not sold on it but the attendees of my talk seemed to enjoy it.  One thing I really enjoyed is that is was easy to use and it certainly served as a great “canvas” to map out my talk before I even knew how I was going to structure it.

I have embedded the presentation below if you would like to take a look.  If you can’t see it, visit http://prezi.com/h44djwbxp0ul/

Title of Talk: Developing Online Video Lectures for Online and Hybrid Algebra Courses

Short Description: An approach to deploy a comprehensive lecture video series for Intermediate and College Algebra is presented. This specific approach utilizing tablet technology combined with software for screen recording and for journaling was designed to obtain small video size for relatively low bandwidth online access.

The Prezi:

I highly recommend this book as a quick read.  It’s a heartwarming tale that wraps a love of mathematics and a touch of number theory into its narrative.

In this story, an  interesting malady has befallen one of the main characters, referred to throughout as the “professor”.  The story is told by a housekeeper who has come into the employ of the professor through his sister-in-law.  We learn very early on that the professor was involved in a car accident that left him with the ability to only remember that last 80 minutes.

If you’ve seen “50 First Dates” starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler then you’re familiar with this condition, at least as a premise for an interesting tale, and you’re familiar with “10 second Tom”.  To deal with his illness, the professor has taken to pinning important information to his clothing such as the condition that plagues him, the identity of the new housekeeper and her son, and many other day-to-day items.

What is most interesting about the book is how the author ties the professor’s love of numbers and mathematics into his interactions with people he never remembers having met.  The charming tale is built on the ability of the professor to continue his work as a mathematician by solving puzzles published in mathematics journals and how he interacts with the housekeeper and her young son through a common love of Japanese baseball.

Again, I would highly recommend this book for anyone with the even smallest love for mathematics or, perhaps, a mathematician. The only complaint that I have for this book is one that only makes it better for many of the readers of this blog.  The mathematics while intriguing and well explained doesn’t get too deep.  I’m no number theorist but this book inspires me to learn more about the field because the topics dealt with in this book left me wanting more.

More specifically, I’m grateful to one of the co-chairs of the ICTCM conference for watching twitter and seeing my lament that I would not be able to attend the conference this year because I didn’t have the travel funds.

On February 11th, I posted:

Still trying to decide if ICTCM is in the cards for me this year. I’m short a couple hundred on travel funds. Bummer.

On February 15th, I received a reply from the co-chair of the conference:

@SplineGuy D option for ICTCM: volunteer 4 hrs get $100 off reg fee, or 8 hrs for free reg. interested, send me DM w email add. I’m co-chair

After a few back-and-forths, I was registered for the conference with fees paid and an accepted abstract for a short talk. I’m very excited to be going. As I said last time I attended ICTCM, I belong at ICTCM!

On Thursday, I’m flying out from Lubbock before 6 AM and arriving in Chicago mid-morning.  That’s a little early for check-in but I’m okay with that.  I’ll nap in their lobby if I have to.  I’m heading back home on Saturday evening.  I’m also looking forward to a tweetup in the hotel lobby on Friday evening around 8:00 PM.  Any tweeps that will be around should come on by. (#ICTCM)

My short talk for ICTCM this year will take place on Friday, March 12 at 10:30 AM.  The short description and abstract that were submitted and accepted are below:

Short Description:

An approach to deploy a comprehensive lecture video series for Intermediate and College Algebra is presented. This specific approach utilizing tablet technology combined with software for screen recording and for journaling was designed to obtain small video size for relatively low bandwidth online access.

Abstract:

In this paper, an approach to deploy a comprehensive lecture video series for Intermediate and College Algebra is presented. The tools employed include Camtastia Studio® for screen recording, video editing and encoding, as well as Microsoft OneNote® with a Wacom Graphire® Tablet for screen writing and lecture note development. An alternative approach providing similar results that uses freeware and open-source software is also described. Extensive testing was done in order to optimize the video encoding, keeping the size of the videos at a minimum. These videos were launched as part of two online algebra courses at Wayland. These techniques have also served to facilitate the development of hybrid courses and to supplement traditional courses. This approach can be easily adapted to most mathematics courses and in the days of “Snowpocalypse” and the H1N1 pandemic, it can serve as a backup when traditional course content may need to be provided online.

In preparation for the writing portion of the project, I required the students to read a short essay by Dr. Kevin P. Lee at Purdue University.  I spent almost an entire class going over such important principles as:

• Follow the basic rules of grammar, including the use of expressions and equations.
• Use symbolic notation appropriately.
• Organize your paper.
• Define all variables and formulas.
• Make sure that the paper is readable aloud.
• Use appropriate figures that effectively explain the mathematics.

As I was giving this lecture, I began to realize that I missed out on this kind of instruction at an undergraduate level.  In fact, most of my experience in mathematical writing came only through experience both from reading many, many papers but also from getting my work critiqued by fellow grad students and my graduate instructors.  There was never a time that I was given such specific instructions such as the use of “=” in an equation as a verb.  Or that the paper should be readable aloud even with all the mathematical expressions.

I think I even commented out loud during my lecture that I was jealous of them getting to see this as an undergraduate.  I have assigned writing in many of my classes over the years, particularly in Math Models (a projects course at Wayland).  However, I’ve never spent this much time on instruction on how to write. We also covered the use of the new equation editor available in Word® 2007.  I’m convinced now that it has been worth they time.

In addition to the increased focus on writing in class, I also decided on some effective motivation for the groups.  I made it clear that I didn’t believe that they could produce a quality paper on the first try, since for most of them, this will their first attempt at a mathematics paper. (Can you say reverse psychology?)  I told them I would expect to completely butcher their paper and hand it back for them do over (and over and over, until they got it right). 

However, as a proper incentive I also told them that in the extremely unlikely scenario that one of the groups turns in a “perfect” paper, they could receive a free pass on one of the courses exams.  In other words, they would be allowed to drop the lowest exam grade for the semester.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to have to give out the award, but after a first read on each of their reports, at least one group has a reasonable chance.  I did give them a checklist (provided at the end of Dr. Lee’s essay with a couple of modifications) and I’ll be checking very closely.  Once I’ve finished graded, I intend on posting their papers here on my blog to see what you guys think.

Here’s a short summary of what I’m using it for these days.

1. Reading Books. 
   Duh! I know.  Who would’ve of thought that an ebook reader would work so well for reading books?  I’ve been impressed with just how easy it is on the eyes.  The font size is easily adjustable and there are times when I fill the page with tiny text and times when it is more comfortable on the eyes to have a large print. 

   The first book I read was “A Study In Scarlet” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, first of his Sherlock Holmes novels.  As a huge fan of House (the medical drama on Fox starring Hugh Laurie), I have been intrigued by the incredible similarities between the characters of House/Holmes and Wilson/Watson.  Plus, with the new Sherlock Holmes flick at the movies, I felt it was time to brush up. 

   The best thing about starting with these books is that they are all free!There are a huge number of public domain classics that you can put on your kindle for free and with the Whispernet service included in the Kindle, you don’t even have to plug it into the computer.

   For the record, I have actually purchased two books so far for the Kindle.  The first was “The Complete User’s Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2: Tips, Tricks, & Links To Unlock Cool Features & Save You Hundreds on Kindle Content (#1 Guide to the Kindle US & Global)” by  Stephen Windwalker.  The second was a Bible (which I’ll go into in more detail later).

2. Lecture Notes. 
   I’ve begun using the Kindle for my lecture notes in all of my courses that I teach.  This was the deciding factor when wavering on whether to buy the Kindle or not.  I was fortunate enough to have a friendly neighbor lend me their Kindle so I could test out the PDF rendering.  Scanning my hand written and occasionally typed up lecture notes is a breeze with the copier at my office.  Once converted to pdf, I just move the files over via USB and the Kindle 2 natively renders the pdf.  As long as I’m careful to scan with the darkness turned all the way up, they are perfectly readable.  It’s extremely convenient to only have to bring my thin little gadget to class in lieu of the 1.5” binder.  Plus, it remembers where I left off.
3. Daily Bible Reading
   Thanks to a free but awesome piece of software called Calibre, I have a daily bible reading downloaded from BibleGateway.com.  I’ve not missed a day since I bought the Kindle.  I’m well into Exodus and wrapping up Matthew.
4. News
   Using the same software, I can also have a USA today news feed prepared daily for my Kindle.  You can subscribe to newspapers and magazines through the Kindle store at Amazon, but cheapskate that I am, I have found a nearly as good solution for free.  Calibre has recipes built-in for several news sources including NYT, WSJ, USA Today and many, many more.  I do have to manually plug in my Kindle each morning to move these “subscriptions” over but the minor inconvenience easily outweighs the cost of these subscriptions on Amazon, in my opinion.
5. Bible
   At first, I did not plan on putting the Bible on the Kindle.  However, the fact that I saw a friend using one in church combined with the fact that you can highlight and insert notes into the Kindle for any book convinced me to give it a try. I did some reading of reviews and found that the NASB by the Lockman Foundation is probably the best choice.  They were smart enough to include the book name with each chapter heading so that you can quickly look up a passage by just typing in the book name and chapter into the built-in search tool on the Kindle.
6. Samples
   Just about every book in the Kindle Store at Amazon has a sample that you can have sent directly to your Kindle.  You can ready a chapter or two and see if the book is really something you are interested in.  You can shop for these books right on the Kindle or through the Amazon website.  When you click to send a sample, it shows up on the device within a matter of seconds.
7. Checking Email/Facebook/Twitter
   The Whispernet service which delivers the books to the device is actually a data network just like I use on my Blackberry, only it’s free!!  I can log into my gmail, facebook, twitter, etc. and check all my stuff out from anywhere I have access to the the mobile network.  I’m pretty sure AT&T provides the service so if my Blackberry works, so does the Kindle.  It’s not a great browser and it’s relatively slow, but it’s still everywhere accessible and occasionally that comes in handy.

I’m aware that Apple’s probably about to announce the next big thing with its “iTablet” and I’m sure it will make a big impact on the world of ebook readers. And yet, I can’t imagine an Apple device that’s going to appeal to me in any way. I can guarantee it will be out of my price range.  I can guarantee that once I had it in my hands, I would be wishing it could run my windows stuff natively and that I could figure out how to get it to do what I want.  I’m not saying that Apple does things worse (or better) than Microsoft, but that I know how to do what I need to do and I don’t have the patience or the mental fortitude to balance my life between the Windows world at the office and an Apple world at home. 

Of course, the Kindle is not a device that runs Windows stuff natively but its niche doesn’t require it to.  If the iTable/iSlate or whatever it is going to be called, comes out and is basically an enhanced color ebook reader with awesome battery life and is in the neighborhood of $250 – $300, I will be totally bummed and will probably admit to having made a mistake in buying the Kindle.  Fortunately, that scenario is extremely doubtful.

In the end, I’m going to be very happy with my gadgetry for a good long while (at least 3 months, I’m sure).

The post was on Talking Squid, entitled “Five Easy Lies”: Two of the most common ones I’ve seen in talks are below:

• Choose your cutoffs
   

“The trend shows no increase for the last [n] days/months/years.”

Don’t mention the previous [20 n] data points.

• Talk about the trend of the trend
  
  

“Sure the graph is going up for now, but the rate of increase is going down.”

If this fails, talk about the rate of increase of the rate of increase. Keep on differentiating until you find a curve that matches your needs. If all else fails, try logarithms.

Read the rest…

The last comment reminds me of Mar’s Law that stumbled upon a couple of days ago:

Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.