So my friend Andre Malan asked me to fill out a survey about the role of technology in my education. You should too (and if you’re going to you should do so before reading my response below).

It should be noted that my response, though written in a comical tone, is deadly serious:

What you think about Educational Technology

Survey to help me generate ideas and bring data to a talk that I am giving in Victoria. It will be live-streamed so you can see what I do with the data in the end.

On submission of this form you will receive a lot of gratitude and IOU for 2 hugs.

Basic Information

Name: Nicholas FitzGerald

Faculty: Science

Program: Cognitive Systems (Computational Intelligence)

Please Tick the educational technologies that you have used for class (either with or without being asked) at university. *

* paper
* WebCT/Vista/Blackboard
* Course Website
* Google Docs
* Facebook
* Wikis
* Blogs
* Twitter
* School Email
* calculator

Other Please list any others that you have used.

SVN <—- wooooooooo!
Python
Clickers
CS Handin
VPN
Ballpoint Pen
Fountain Pen

Disliked technology

Please list the 3 technologies from above that you disliked the most (including ones from “others”) and explain why you did not like them.

1. WebCT Vista

I COULD answer this question, but to do so thoroughly would far exceed the “approximately 4 minutes” you suggested for filling out this survey. WebCT Vista is by far the worst bit of technology I have even been forced to interact with. I say that as someone who’s used it both as a student and as a TA. Seriously. It. Sucks.
Terrible Stability. Incomprehensible UI. Way too many unnecessary features. No obvious integration with other technologies (would it be too much to ask to get an email reminding me I have an assessment due or that an assignment has been posted?). Seriously. WTF?

2. Clickers

Clickers are the worst example of the kind of crap which has come out of this new movement to make classes more “interactive”. Seriously, I go to class to be taught things, not to sit through a one-hour pop-quiz day after day after day. Here’s an idea: Instead of treating me like an elementary school kid who needs constant supervision and hand-holding to get my HW done, why don’t you give a good lecture, teach me some interesting material, and then give me an exam at the end of the term to make sure I actually took some personal responsibility for my education. Seriously. Kids these days…

3. Ballpoint Pen

These things are crap. You have to press so hard it makes your hand all tired, and by the time you’ve written a paragraph you’ve got a crippling case of carpal tunnel. Everyone thinks they’re so great because they can write under water – but can the write upside down?! No. Seriously. Ballpoint? More like FAILpoint, mirite?

Liked Technology

Please list the 3 technologies from above that you liked the most (including ones from “others”) and explain why you did not like them.

1. SVN / CS handin / ssh / pretty much anything involving commandline

Setting up an SVN server was the best thing I ever did. Makes it so much easier to coordinate my files between the 3 or 4 computers I use. No more messing around with emails etc. Plus, I feel like a bad-ass hacker every time I open a terminal and type “cd ~/school; svn update”. Same with CS handin. LOVE seeing how many tape blocks my homework used. Plus ssh tunneling is like some serious “Matrix” shit. Seriously. Chicks go wild for that kinda thing.

2. HTML + SMTP

Best use of technology for a course I have experienced: Philosophy 441 (Philosophy of Mind) with Dr. Murat Aydede. Simple HTML page with links to necessary PDF readings. Email address to contact for clarifications. Perfection. Doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID! Seriously. CSS is for chumps.

3. Fountain Pen

Once you go fountain pen you’ll never return to crappy ballpoints. This thing glides so smooth it’s like writing with melted butter (like the kind you get in that little candle-heated dish when you order crab). Plus I feel like I’m some sort of bad-ass Victorian gentleman every time I whip this thing out. Seriously. Like some serious Mr. Darcy shit up in here.

Your Dream Technology

(most important part of this whole survey…)

So if your professor could use some technology in class that would make school much better what would it be? * this can be something you know of or something made up. Sky is the limit, think outside the box, all that jazz. All I ask is that it is something that you would really, really want to use.

I really can’t think of much. The vast majority of times I’ve had some sort of opinion regarding use of technology in education, it’s usually along the lines of “I really wish this prof would stop messing around with this new-fangled edumacational gizmo and just give a good lecture”. There are a few really good examples of pedagogical tools (AISpace is great), but those are really only useful in “algorithm” type courses. Most of the time they’re just annoying and a poor substitute for a good lecture and a good textbook.

That said, my one wish is for E-readers to reach a stage where they are satisfactory substitutes for hard-copy textbooks in terms of ease-of-use, portability, durability etc.

Pursuant to my earlier investigation into Unintentional Pilish occurances, a correspondence with Mike Keith, author of “Not A Wake: A dream embodying (pi)’s digits fully for 10000 decimals“.

Nicholas -

Thanks for the interest in this problem, and for your results.  I’ve also done similar searches in years past with various subsets of PG, but I think you have used a few more GB than I have, and you have found a few examples that I did not find.  My favorite one (which I had already found) is the Captain Cook, since it starts at the beginning of a sentence.

I know that I haven’t seen the one with the 15-letter word, which is nice.

However…I recently found a 9-word example, which I’ve attached as an image file (this book is not available in PG, of course, since it is recent and copyrighted).  This is the current world record.  Somewhat shockingly, I found this one by simply playing with Google for a few minutes using partial-Pilish phrases that I thought would tend to be common.  Nonetheless, it seems clear that searching massive amounts of text mechanically is the way to go for further records.

So, we have the following records (as far as I know):

Starting from the beginning of a sentence: 8 (Capt. Cook)
Not necessarily at the beginning of a sentence: 9

I would, of course, be very interested to hear of new records in either of those categories.

Best Pilish Regards,

Mike Keith

Great! Thanks! Would you mind if I were to post what
you wrote on my blog?

I’m planning to make my little script for searching for these strings
more efficient (via multithreading etc) and maybe I can rig up a
webcrawler so it can be searching continuously. I’ll let you know if
anything  interesting or any new records emerge!

Also I was trying to come up with a way of determining the probability
of finding a Pilish string of length n in a document length m. The
most obvious way is with a Markov Chain, based on probabilities
calculated from the dataset, so I’m planning to give that a try also.

Cheers,
Nicholas

Nicolas -

Sure, no problem – feel free to post what I wrote. Could you delete my 3rd sentence, and tack on to the end of the 2nd sentence the following:

, and you have found a few examples that I did not find.

Your 15-letter-word example led me to do another Google search with “straightforward” as the root of a manual search. I eventually found another new record! Look at the 4th post on this page:

http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/164153.aspx

It begins

David has given you a very straightforward procedure to follow. Since you have not done any CV programming you should…

with the part I have colored in red giving 3.141592653 (10 digits). Interestingly, this was written just a few months ago, in Dec 2009.

Keep me apprised of any new results. It’s great to have another person interested in the search. Would love to see some probability results based on Markov chains.

Cheers,
Mike K

Background:

This post is a little late for Pi Day, but it’s never a bad time for discourse related to everyone’s favourite mathematical constant. Twas on Pi Day of this year that I somehow came across this site, which describes the Constrained Writing task of Pilish, in which the length of each word in letters corresponds to the digits of pi:

The first word in this sentence has 3 letters, the next word 1 letter, the next word 4 letters, and so on, following the first fifteen digits of the number π.  A longer example is this poem with ABAB rhyme scheme from Joseph Shipley’s 1960 book Playing With Words:

But a time I spent wandering in gloomy night;

Yon tower, tinkling chimewise, loftily opportune.

Out, up, and together came sudden to Sunday rite,

The one solemnly off to correct plenilune.

Michael Keith, the author of the above website, has created several works in Pilish, including a full-length book covering the first 10,000 digits of pi!

Trying to write under such constraints can feel extremely awkward, but this made me wonder: How often would strings of words adhering to the constraints of Standard Pilish occur unintentionally? Afterall, with the amount of text out there – the sheer rate at which words are being put together by people all over the world every second of every day – it is to be expected that these things should occur with some frequency p > 0. Such is the Law of Large Numbers.

In order to determine this, I would need a large data set. Luckily, such things are readily available. I settled upon the Project Gutenberg ebook catalog – specifically the union of the July 2006 DVD (17,000 books) and the March 2007 Science Fiction Bookshelf CD (most of PG’s Sci-Fi titles). Altogether, this gave me almost 9GB of text (although I later discovered this contained many duplicates, it’s still a hell of alot of words!)

Next I hacked together a small python script which would find, for each file, the longest string of Standard Pilish. Code for this can be checkedout from my SVN repository: http://svn.nfitz.net/pilish

Results:

Somewhat disappointingly, the longest of any Pilish string was 8 digits of pi. The vast majority of books had a longest Pilish string of around 3-5 words. See the histogram below (note the logarithmic scale in the y-axis).

Five books achieved this 8-digit benchmark, listed below, with the section of Pilish text bolded:

• The Winning of Barbara Worth, by Harold B Wright (1872-1944)

Dismounting and throwing the reins over his horse’s head he came to her smiling, sombrero in hand. “Buenas dias, Senorita. Please may I have a drink?”

“Certainly, Mr. Holmes ; help yourself.” She pointed to the olla hanging in the shade of the ramada.

• Humphrey Bold- A Story of the Times of Benbow, by Herbert Strang

I was weary of the humdrum life of idling on shore or aimless sailing up and down the channel. The admiral’s was a peaceful mission, and no fighting was expected, but I felt a great curiosity to behold new scenes.

• Captain Cook’s Journal During the First Voyage Round the World, by James Cook (1728-1779)

And I have a great Objection to firing with powder only amongst People who know not the difference, for by this they would learn to despise fire Arms and think their own Arms superior, and if ever such an Opinion prevailed they would certainly attack you, the Event of which might prove as unfavourable to you as them.

• Lectures on Modern History, by Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834-1902)

One was part of the empire, the other was enclosed in Poland, and they were separated by Polish territory. They did not help each other, and each was a source of danger for the other. They could only hope to exist by becoming stronger. That has been, for two centuries and a half, a fixed tradition at Berlin with the rulers and the people. They could not help being aggressive, and they worshipped the authority that could make them successful aggressors.

• Anne Bradstreet and Her Time, by Helen Campbell (1839-1918)

With the most ambitious of the longer poems–”The Four Monarchies”– and one from which her readers of that day probably derived the most satisfaction, we need not feel compelled to linger. To them its charm lay in its usefulness. There were on sinful fancies; no trifling waste of words, but a good, straightforward narrative of things it was well to know, and Tyler’s comment upon it will be echoed by every one who turns the appallingly matter-of-fact pages…

That last one is the only of the five to have one word of double-digit length, thus covering two digits of pi (‘straightforward = 15 letters = ’15′).

Future Work:

I would like to do a similar analysis of an even larger dataset of more modern language. One possibility is a full archive of Wikipedia. I wonder what is the longest string of unintentional Pilish ever produced?

Another interesting question is how the maximum length of Pilish sections in a document scales with the length of the document, and how well this can be modelled with a simple statistical model such as a Markov Chain.

As part of UBC’s Celebrate Research week, a great event is happening this Saturday at UBC:

MULTIDISCIPLINARY UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH CONFERENCE (MURC)
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, Jubilee Room (4th floor)

Saturday March 6, 2010

MURC celebrates the contributions of undergraduate research at UBC.  The conference provides an opportunity for students in any discipline from across campus to present a research project they have been working on while engaging in scholarly debate amongst each other.  Students have the choice of giving an oral, poster or performing/visual arts presentation of their work.  Presentations are judged by graduate students, and prizes are awarded at the end of the conference day during a celebratory gala.  The conference is held every year in March as the kick-off event to UBC’s Celebrate Research Week.

There is a great variety of presentations spanning the full range of subjects from the Humanities and Science, from Literary Criticism, to Molecular Biology, all researched and presented by undergraduates from UBC and UBC-O. A full list of all presentations and posters, and a schedule of the day’s proceedings can be found here: MURC 2010 Program

Shameless Plug! I will be presenting my own research project entitled “ASSESS: Abstractive Summarization System for Evaluative Statement Summarization” at 4pm in room 355!

Since I can find no previous mention on Terry, I thought I’d share one of my favourite webcomics. Hark, A Vagrant!, by Canadian Kate Beaton is in many ways to the Humanities what XKCD is to science and engineering (with suitably better illustrations).

In fact, one improvement is that Beaton, a History and Anthropology graduate from Mount Allison University, often accompanies her comics with a blog post explaining the obscure historical references sent up, so while laughing at her witty and hilarious illustrations, you can often learn something, too. Also, in true Terry spirit, she often pens works which deal with the history of science:

So if you’ve got some time after (or while) studying for midterms, why not start from the beginning? Also, post your favourite, if you have one. Here’s one of mine:

Dear Ubyssey,

I have to write to register my displeasure at your coverage of the Ignatieff talk, namely how it focuses almost exclusively on the rather embarrassing display by Greenpeace, while ignoring the much more important and interesting discussions which occurred during the hour and a half. Amongst other things, an image captions reads “Jessie Schwarz leads the audience in a loud chant protesting the tar sands”. It should be obvious to anyone who was there, or even anyone who has simply seen a video of the event that “Jessie Schwarz” did not “lead the audience” in anything. Jessie Schwartz lead a small fringe group in a rather pathetic chant which was soon drowned out by the vast majority of attendees who were more interested in hearing Ignatieff’s response to the question asked than witnessing yet another juvenile stunt pulled by one of UBC’s many unrealistic fringe groups.

I attended Ignatieff’s talk with no prior opinions regarding the man, but I left rather impressed at how he responded to tough questions honestly, while making no apologies for the hard facts which must be acknowledged, and yet again disgusted at how a mature, respectful attempt at dialogue can be hijacked by a small group of juveniles with an axe to grind. When will UBC’s fringe groups cease pulling this kind of childish stunt? My guess is not before the Ubyssey ceases giving them legitimacy by providing them with more coverage than their impotent attempts at advocacy deserve.

Sincerely,
Nicholas FitzGerald

As the latest in our Terry obsession with Science-Inspired Music, check out Jim Bumgardner’s “Wheel of Stars”

Image: European Space Agency/Hubble

To make this, I downloaded public data from Hipparcos, a satellite launched by the European Space Agency in 1989 that accurately measured over a hundred thousand stars. The data I downloaded contains position, parallax, magnitude, and color information, among other things.

…

As the stars cross zero and 180 degrees, indicated by the center line, the clock plays an individual note, or chime for each star. The pitch of the chime is based on the star’s BV measurement (which roughly corresponds to color or temperature). The volume is based on the star’s magnitude, or apparent brightness, and the stereo panning is based on the position on the screen (use headphones to hear it better).

Jim has a series of other fascinating projects blending mathematics and geometry with music, including the Whitney Music Box.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks (or buried in textbooks, as the case might more likely be), you’ve probably heard about a the case of a group of hackers stealing and releasing emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. This has kicked off a ludicrous knee-jerk reaction from climate-change deniers who want so badly for there to be a conspiracy that, apparently, they neglected to actually read the emails. YouTuber potholer54 convincingly demolishes the only “examples of fraud” which have thus far emerged (linked here via Pharangula):

(incidentally, potholer54, who’s channels stated goal is to “explain in simple terms the conclusions of scientific research and correct some of the unsourced crap you get fed on the Internet” has a great series of videos on cosmology, biology, and climate change)

There is a larger question here, which is about the constant assertions of a “scientific conspiracy” which is so often levelled by anti-scientific types of many stripes: be it Climate Change deniers, Intelligent Design, or Anti-Vacciners. I’ve always wondered how these “conspiracies” are supposed to work. As the above video puts it, are we really supposed to believe that thousands of independent researchers are collaborating to fake results, hide counter-evidence, and tie all their “fake” data together in such a way as to tell a convincing story and beguile the unwitting populace? Add to this the fact that for a scientist, one of the best career moves you could make, to ensure your name would forever be entered in the annals of history, would be to convincingly overturn the dominant theory of your day. If there were really good scientific grounds by which to doubt these “conspiracies” we should expect researchers to be clambering over one-another to be the first to prove it, and the evidence to be pouring in. E pur si muove!

Also, I’ve always thought that if I were going to go to the trouble of orchestrating a giant conspiracy involving thousands of researchers and a monumental (impossible?) effort to suppress dissent and fake the evidence, I’d choose something a bit more… sexy than Climate Change, or Vaccines. Maybe I’d have my evil Ph.D-wielding minions brainwash the hoi polloi into believing that first-contact had been made with an extra-terrestrial civilization and we must begin colonizing our solar system – that would be a great way to kick-start the space program again. Or maybe I’d convince people that a new “super-caste” of humans had evolved, with superior capabilities in telepathy, empathy, and responsible fiscal policy, and that I was one. That would be a good way to ensure the continued dominance of my Evil, Science-Wielding Liberal Empire of Doom.

So I ask you, Terry readers, if you had control of a massive, complex conspirational network of thousands of researchers, what would YOU have them trick the unwitting populace into believing?

After last night’s message from UBC V-Day, I returned home today to find an altogether more happy surprise:

Dear UBC V-Day Mailing List,

We apologize for flooding your inbox. We would like to address an email that was sent out last night concerning a letter sent to us by the AMS President.  As an AMS club the controversial issues involving the council of the AMS effect us, too. We feel that it is important for students to be involved in expressing their opinions and views. We apologize for initially presenting only one side of the debate. This was the first email we’d received on the issue, and now that we’ve received alternate viewpoints we wish for you to have those as well. We continue to maintain a non-partisan stance on this issue as a club. We simply wish for students to take a stand and get involved.

However, we understand that this issue is not directly link to V-Day or any issues of violence against women. For this reason we also apologize. If you would no longer like to receive emails about other issues on campus or abroad that are not directly linked to our mandate, let us know and we will refrain from sending those types of emails in the future.

We sincerely hope that we did not cause anyone distress and we would love to hear your feedback so that we can continue to learn and develop our communication.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ahna, Chrissy, and Lau
UBC V-DAY Coordinators 2010

This was accompanied by this email:

As per our non-partisan stance in regards to UBC politics, here is another view on this controversial issue. We stress that UBC V-Day remains neutral on this issue, but does encourage you to get involved!

The following is a letter from Councilors of the AMS:

Fellow students;

As you heard yesterday, your AMS has initiated proceedings to remove President and the VP External Affairs. We would like to say, first and foremost, that this debate has never been about tuition. This is about democracy and representation. When the executives filed a Human Rights Complaint to the United Nations alleging that Canada and BC are violating human rights by allowing a 2% increase in tuition, they did this without consulting either the Student Council, or students at large.

Your Student Society is governed by a student council made up of representatives from each Faculty. It is their job to make sure that what the AMS does is representative of your student voice. The UN Human Rights Complaint from Council should have been brought through AMS committees. We feel council cannot tolerate rogue actions by executives when they are purported to be on behalf of the student body.

The executives never initiated a debate in Council about tuition policy, and instead spoke without the approval of your representatives. We feel this is an affront to your right to democratic representation. We could have had this debate months ago, but Blake and Tim never brought it forward. We feel we can’t continue trust them to respect your representation on Council.

If you believe that we should stand up to executives overstepping their bounds and misrepresenting the students of UBC,

1.       Fill out our online feedback form, here: http://ow.ly/GkdW

2.       Come to the meeting tomorrow (6:00 PM in Council Chambers, SUB 206) and demand accountability from your student executive.

3.       Email your representatives.Sincerely Yours;
Concerned Councilors of the AMS

I am very happy that my concerns have been addressed and that the system works. I was never angry at UBC V-Day as an organization, just at Blake for going through such a channel to communicate his lies. Here is my response to UBC V-Day:

Ahna, Chrissy and Lau,

Thank you very much for this response. I realize that you did not intend to cause any damage with this action and I respect your honesty and forthrightness in responding to my concerns. I wish you the best of luck with your organization’s efforts this year, and I look forward to attending this year’s Vagina Monologues.

Sincerely,
Nicholas FitzGerald

Update: The situation has been resolved

Another shocking development in the sad affair which is the Frederick/Chu AMS Scandal. This evening I received this email from UBC V-Day, the group behind The Vagina Monologues on campus, and an advocacy group against gender-based violence:

AMS Student Union to Decide Tuition Policy

Fellow students,

If you are not already aware, your AMS Student Council is seeking to impeach your elected AMS President, Blake Frederick and Vice-President of External Affairs, Tim Chu who are taking action against the high cost of education. The current AMS Student Council policy is that it is acceptable for tuition to increase by up to two percent each year. Your President and Vice-President of External Affairs were elected on a mandate and made a commitment to lobby for lower tuition and are now seeking to change the official tuition policy of the AMS, but we need your feedback.

If you want to make your voice heard on the cost of education, you should take three actions:

1)  Email your Council representatives and let them know what you think about tuition fees (see email list below).

2)  Write an email under 300 words for the Ubyssey student newspaper and send it to feedback@ubyssey.ca before 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 1, 2009.

3) Attend the AMS Council meeting on Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. in SUB room 206 and make your voice heard.

The AMS needs your input so that we can decide together on how to move our student union forward.

Sincerely,

Blake Frederick

President

AMS Student Union

* We have been asked to pass on this message. UBC VDay does not take a particular side on this issue, however, we do encourage students to be involved in their community and ensure that their voices are heard on matters of importance

I cannot believe that Blake Frederick could find another way to sink even further. I am so angry that a club like UBC V-Day would allow itself to be abused as a vector for such a partisan political statement, which has nothing to do with their purpose.

The following is an open letter I sent as a response:

To UBC VDAY,

I fully support the UBC V-Day organization, and think what you do is an amazing and important part of UBC. I have attended the Vagina Monologues many times, and am friends with several current and former members of the club. However, I must express my utter shock and disappointment that you would allow your club email to be used as a vector to spread partisan messages about a sensitive political issue on campus which has NOTHING TO DO with the purpose of your club. You claim that “UBC VDay does not take a particular stance on this issue”, but by allowing Mr. Frederick to use your club as a vector, you have allowed him to once again cast this as an issue of tuition, again attempting to deflect attention to the real reason for his being asked to resign, which is his consistant and repeated abuses of power and the democratic process (of which this email is yet another example). By allowing him to send email through you, you are implicitly endorsing his position.

I must say I am extremely disappointed that a club such as yours, which is a valuable and extremely important part of UBC, would allow itself to be abused in this way.

Sincerely,

Nicholas FitzGerald

To UBC VDAY,

I fully support the UBC V-Day organization, and think what you do is an amazing and important part of UBC. I have attended the Vagina Monologues many times, and am friends with several current and former members of the club. However, I must express my utter shock and disappointment that you would allow your club email to be used as a vector to spread partisan messages about a sensitive political issue on campus which has NOTHING TO DO with the purpose of your club. You claim that “UBC VDay does not take a particular stance on this issue”, but by allowing Mr. Frederick to use your club as a vector, you have allowed him to once again cast this as an issue of tuition, again attempting to deflect attention to the real reason for his being asked to resign, which is his consistant and repeated abuses of power and the democratic process (of which this email is yet another example). By allowing him to send email through you, you are implicitly endorsing his position.

I must say I am extremely disappointed that a club such as yours, which is a valuable and extremely important part of UBC, would allow itself to be abused in this way.

Sincerely,

Nicholas FitzGerald

This is not, and never has been, an issue about tuition. It is an issue about two executive who have continuously abused their power, and the democratic process. I said as much as last Saturday’s council meeting: