Hey!

Hey you!

…

YEA YOU!

check it: inflatR.com

My new site.
Still raw – soliciting for feedback.

SO GIVE FEEDBACK.

kthxbai.

Guten tag, all.

I just had an awesome weekend.  I attended San Francisco Science Hack Day  and it was awesome!  It was two full days, so let me lay it out for you:

about me: programming & science n00b
mission: to make & hack things with SCIENCE
vision: to hack data from Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider for better accessibility and understanding, esp for enthusiasts but n00bs like me.

results:

• my knowledge of particle physics went from 0 to … some? probably 1 if it’s on a scale of …100.
• crash course in python and javascript programming
• +5lbs from bountiful free food and alcohol
• Increased tolerance to caffeine
• I made THIS!
• The group collectively put THIS website together!
• 10 GBs of LHC data, out of the gazillion terabytes of data both available & unavailable to the “public” (I say with quotes because not exactly sure where I could even get the publicly released data…)

Note: If you’re interested in the source code, it can be found on GitHub under mattbellis.

So, what those two graphs mean that I put together is [I THINK, IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY] a reflection of two different ways to calculate mass of muons. Muons produce when two protons collide together, along with other particles, including mesons. The second graph (using Einstein’s equations/special relativity), you can see a second “hump”, signaling that there actually is a second meson existing that the first graph didn’t show.

All ‘n all, thanks to my intro course to computer science, I was able to have somewhat of an understanding of what was going on, as well as built upon my skills (especially for my final project coming up!).   All I have to say for those n00bs to any new skill: Dive right in.  That’s the best, most fun way to learn!

♠

Other hacks that were done over the weekend here.

I had the interesting experience of attending a Seattle tech talk with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Unfortunately I was too scared to ask him if he felt $70 billion was a fair value for the FB IPO estimate, or if he needed any analysts to help him justify such a number.

But what I though was interesting that he said, beyond all that geeky coding and infrastructure talk, was that he believes the rate of people “sharing” stuff via Facebook will double each year, so within 5 years people will be sharing 32x as many things compared to today.

Is that even possible? ~1024 things/day being shared/liked/commented. We’d have to be FBing nearly every minute.

What I think is more accurate is an exponential growth of a person sharing, then as one gets older, the activity tapers, slows down, and maybe even fall to zero/very rare. What would be important would be to look at that age where exponential growth happens and see how that is growing.

Just quick thoughts post-talk. I enjoyed it, plus the free pizza & booze. Although I wish I could have gotten some free swag…

Has there been any other species that has declined in energy levels and physical productivity like the humans?  Is there any other animal that was once very active in its environment, that now can capture its food with simply keying in a credit card and watching the progress meter go by as it’s being delivered?

This thought provoked by the following blog: Overcoming Bias.

Introducing…

In an effort to pursue my creative outlet, I’ve developed a new site: stickynote.it!  Please add to your RSS feeds, bookmark, visit regularly, etc.  I have a lot lined up so far  Don’t forget to hover your mouse over the graphic.

Also, follow the site on twitter: @stickynote_it

Please refer to this list if I have not gotten back to you in a timely manner:

This will not be a post on retirement age and the economics of social security or retirement planning.

It’s more posing a question: who coined the term “retirement home?” It’s not those who retire instantly go off into a home.

Please, when/if I retire, put me on a plane with a one-way ticket to Tahiti, or Crete, or the French Mediterranean. I think I’ll be fine rotting away there.

Just a thought, err, question.

An interesting post from the Library of Economics and Liberty regarding the hate towards the field of economics.

I’ll conceed to the point Mr. Caplan makes regarding mathematics used in economics.  I still like math, though.