Now, as any self-respecting Computer Science degree-wielding person should, I, too, think it’s important to celebrate the day named after the world’s very first programmer.

For me, the first math teacher I remember making a big difference was Shirley Theis – who taught me Algebra in 8th grade at McKinley Middle School in Redwood City, CA. Mrs Theis, an energetic dynamo in her mid fifties, was a deeply motivated and caring teacher, who expected a lot out of her students, but never in a disciplinary manner. She was full of enthusiasm, which projected out and infected even the most timid or disaffected student: in her class, you couldn’t be just a sack of potatoes planted in your seat.

She often lead class in a nearly theatrical manner – pacing back and forth, egging students on by eagerly repeating their partial responses, getting exponentially more excited if the student was on the right track, barely containing herself from jumping up and down in anticipation of that lightbulb going off — and yet just as quickly waning in her enthusiasm,becoming a personified caricature of hopelessness and despair to let you know the instant a response was starting to go astray.

It may have been the only math class I’ve ever taken where there were group assignments – we would work with a partner or a few classmates in trying to figure out an assignment, first trying it solo, and then putting our heads together to figure out why our answers disagree and which is the right one. I believe it was Mrs. Theis who succinctly captured a value I hold in high regard: “it’s not about how far you go – it’s about how many people you bring with you.”

There was one other mathematics teacher I had in my life who clearly stands out: it was Professor Evelyn Silvia who had a comparable level of enthusiasm and energy, and from whom I had the pleasure of taking the first upper-division math course (Math 108 – Intro to Abstract Math) during my second quarter at UC Davis. Dr. Silvia was the real deal – she cared, gesticulated, encouraged us to question why something was true, and had an approach which demanded we each take ownership of our education. The book for the course, Introduction to Abstract Mathematics: A Working Excursion by D.O. Cutler and E.M. Silvia was a blue workbook – each of us had our own copy, and there were blanks left out for us to write our own answers to the exercises. The fact that the book had blanks for me to fill in was so inviting, there was a kind of “working mathematician” approach that came with it with that it made me really enjoy and look forward to working through the material. I still have mine.

Dr. Silvia was incredibly sharp, not just intellectually but also interpersonally. Not only could she gauge when the class was lost, but she also had a knack for spotting if something was affecting you outside of class. She was really committed to helping you not just as a student, but as a person. I remember spending hours at Mishka’s, or Cafe Roma, or the CoHo, reading and writing, wanting to do well and not let Silvia down, because she invested so much energy in placed a great deal of trust in us.

So thank you both, Shirley Theis and Evelyn Silvia – you both encouraged me to grow a lot as a person, challenged my concept of what it means to be a student, and by your example provided a template of what it means to be an effective teacher, which I’ve imitated and embraced with pleasure in my own teaching.

(tagged scipy to spread word of Ada Lovelace day to Planet SciPy)

There are five propositions on tomorrow’s ballot. In researching them, Lena came across the Cal-Access Campaign Finance Activity: Propositions & Ballot Measures.

Unfortunately, for each proposition, you have to click through each committee to get the details for the amount of money they’ve raised and spent. Here’s a run-down in visual form, the only data manipulation I did was round to the nearest dollar. Note: no committees formed to support or oppose Proposition 13.

Here’s how much money was raised, by proposition:

Money Raised

Just in case you didn’t get the full picture, here is the same data plotted on a common scale:

Money Raised (common scale)

And the same two plots for money spent¹:

Money Spent

Money Spent (common scale)

It could just be my perception of things, but I get pretty suspicious when there’s a ton of money involved in politics, especially when it’s this lopsided.

The only thing I have to add is you should Vote “YES” on Prop 15, because Larry Lessig says so, and so do the Alameda County Greens!

Update #1: Let me write it out in text, so that the search engines have an easier time finding this. According to the official record from Cal-Access (Secretary of State), as of May 22nd, 2010, there were $54.4 million spent in support of various propositions, most notably $40.5 million on Prop 16, $8.9 million on Prop 17, and $4.6 million on Prop 14. Compare that with a “grand” total of less than $1.2 million spent to oppose them, with a trivial $78 thousand (!!) to oppose Prop 16′s $40.5 million deep pockets.

Update #2: The California Voter Foundation included more recent totals (they don’t seem to be that different), as well as a listing of the top 5 donors for each side of a proposition in their Online Voter Guide.

Also, here’s the python code used to generate these plots (enable javascript to get syntax highlighting):

# Create contributions and expenditures bar charts of committees supporting and
# opposing various propositions on the California Ballot for June 8th, 2010
# created by Paul Ivanov (http://pirsquared.org)

# figure(0) - Contributions by Proposition (as subplots)
# figure(1) - Expenditures by Proposition (as subplots)
# figure(2) - Contributions on a common scale
# figure(3) - Expenditures on a common scale

import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import locale

# This part was done by hand by collecting data from CalAccess:
# http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Measures/
prop = np.array([
     4650694.66, 4623830.07    # Yes on 14 Contributions, Expenditures
    , 216050, 52796.71         # No  on 14 Contributions, Expenditures
    , 118807.45, 264136.30     # Yes on 15 Contributions, Expenditures
    , 200750.01, 86822.79      # No  on 15 Contributions, Expenditures
    , 40706258.17, 40582036.58 # Yes on 16 Contributions, Expenditures
    , 83187.29,	78063.91       # No  on 16 Contributions, Expenditures
    , 10328675.12, 8932786.06  # Yes on 17 Contributions, Expenditures
    , 1229783.79, 965218.48    # No  on 17 Contributions, Expenditures
    ])
prop.shape = -1,2,2 

def currency(x, pos):
    """The two args are the value and tick position"""
    if x==0:
        return "$0"
    if x < 1e3:
        return '$%f' % (x)
    elif x< 1e6:
        return '$%1.0fK' % (x*1e-3)
    return '$%1.0fM' % (x*1e-6)

from matplotlib.ticker import FuncFormatter
formatter = FuncFormatter(currency)

yes,no = range(2)
c = [(1.,.5,0),'blue']  # color for yes/no stance
a = [.6,.5]             # alpha for yes/no stance
t = ['Yes','No ']       # text  for yes/no stance

raised,spent = range(2)
title = ["Raised for", "Spent on" ] # reuse code by injecting title specifics
field = ['Contributions', 'Expenditures']

footer ="""
Data from CalAccess: http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Measures/
'Total %s 1/1/2010-05/22/2010' field extracted for every committee
and summed by position ('Support' or 'Oppose').  No committees formed to
support or oppose Proposition 13. cc-by Paul Ivanov (http://pirsquared.org).
""" # will inject field[col] in all plots

color = np.array((.9,.9,.34))*.9 # spine/ticklabel color
plt.rcParams['savefig.dpi'] = 100

def fixup_subplot(ax,color):
    """ Tufte-fy the axis labels - use different color than data"""
    spines = ax.spines.values()
    # liberate the data! hide right and top spines
    [s.set_visible(False) for s in spines[:2]]
    ax.yaxis.tick_left() # don't tick on the right

    # there's gotta be a better way to set all of these colors, but I don't
    # know that way, I only know the hard way
    [s.set_color(color) for s in spines]
    [s.set_color(color) for s in ax.yaxis.get_ticklines()]
    [s.set_visible(False) for s in ax.xaxis.get_ticklines()]
    [(s.set_color(color),s.set_size(8)) for s in ax.xaxis.get_ticklabels()]
    [(s.set_color(color),s.set_size(8)) for s in ax.yaxis.get_ticklabels()]
    ax.yaxis.grid(which='major',linestyle='-',color=color,alpha=.3)

# for subplot spacing, I fiddle around using the f.subplot_tool(), then get
# this dict by doing something like:
#    f = plt.gcf()
#    adjust_dict= f.subplotpars.__dict__.copy()
#    del(adjust_dict['validate'])
#    f.subplots_adjust(**adjust_dict)

adjust_dict = {'bottom': 0.12129189716889031, 'hspace': 0.646815834767644,
 'left': 0.13732508948909858, 'right': 0.92971038073543777,
 'top': 0.91082616179001742, 'wspace': 0.084337349397590383}

for col in [raised, spent]: #column to plot - money spent or money raised
    # subplots for each proposition (Fig 0 and Fig 1)
    f = plt.figure(col); f.clf(); f.dpi=100;
    for i in range(len(prop)):
        ax = plt.subplot(len(prop),1, i+1)
        ax.clear()
        p = i+14    #prop number
        for stance in [yes,no]:
            plt.bar(stance, prop[i,stance,col], color=c[stance], linewidth=0,
                    align='center', width=.1, alpha=a[stance])
            lbl = locale.currency(round(prop[i,stance,col]), symbol=True, grouping=True)
            lbl = lbl[:-3] # drop the cents, since we've rounded
            ax.text(stance, prop[i,stance,col], lbl , ha='center', size=8)

        ax.set_xlim(-.3,1.3)
        ax.xaxis.set_ticks([0,1])
        ax.xaxis.set_ticklabels(["Yes on %d"%p, "No on %d"%p])

        # put a big (but faded) "Proposition X" in the center of this subplot
        common=dict(alpha=.1, color='k', ha='center', va='center', transform = ax.transAxes)
        ax.text(0.5, .9,"Proposition", size=8, weight=600, **common)
        ax.text(0.5, .50,"%d"%p, size=50, weight=300, **common)

        ax.yaxis.set_major_formatter(formatter) # plugin our currency labeler
        ax.yaxis.get_major_locator()._nbins=5 # put fewer tickmarks/labels

        fixup_subplot(ax,color)

    adjust_dict.update(left=0.13732508948909858,right=0.92971038073543777)
    f.subplots_adjust( **adjust_dict)

    # Figure title, subtitle
    extra_args = dict(family='serif', ha='center', va='top', transform=f.transFigure)
    f.text(.5,.99,"Money %s CA Propositions"%title[col], size=12, **extra_args)
    f.text(.5,.96,"June 8th, 2010 Primary", size=9, **extra_args)

    #footer
    extra_args.update(va='bottom', size=6,ma='left')
    f.text(.5,0.0,footer%field[col], **extra_args)

    f.set_figheight(6.); f.set_figwidth(3.6); f.canvas.draw()
    f.savefig('CA-Props-June8th2010-%s-Subplots.png'%field[col])

    # all props on one figure (Fig 2 and Fig 3)
    f = plt.figure(col+2); f.clf()
    adjust_dict.update(left= 0.06,right=.96)
    f.subplots_adjust( **adjust_dict)
    f.set_figheight(6.)
    f.set_figwidth(7.6)

    extra_args = dict(family='serif', ha='center', va='top', transform=f.transFigure)
    f.text(.5,.99,"Money %s CA Propositions"%title[col], size=12, **extra_args)
    f.text(.5,.96,"June 8th, 2010 Primary", size=9, **extra_args)

    extra_args.update(ha='left', va='bottom', size=6,ma='left')
    f.text(adjust_dict['left'],0.0,footer%field[col], **extra_args)

    ax = plt.subplot(111)
    for stance in [yes,no]:
        abscissa=np.arange(0+stance*.30,4,1)
        lbl = locale.currency(round(prop[:,stance,col].sum()),True,True)
        lbl = lbl[:-3] # drop the cents, since we've rounded
        lbl = t[stance]+" Total"+ lbl.rjust(12)
        plt.bar(abscissa,prop[:,stance,col], width=.1, color=c[stance],
                alpha=a[stance],align='center',linewidth=0, label=lbl)
        for i in range(len(prop)):
            lbl = locale.currency(round(prop[i,stance,col]), symbol=True, grouping=True)
            lbl = lbl[:-3] # drop the cents, since we've rounded
            ax.text(abscissa[i], prop[i,stance,col], lbl , ha='center',
                    size=8,rotation=00)

    ax.set_xlim(xmin=-.3)
    ax.xaxis.set_ticks(np.arange(.15,4,1))
    ax.xaxis.set_ticklabels(["Proposition %d"%(i+14) for i in range(4)])
    fixup_subplot(ax,color)

    # plt.legend(prop=dict(family='monospace',size=9)) # this makes legend tied
    # to the subplot, tie it to the figure, instead
    handles, labels = ax.get_legend_handles_labels()
    l = plt.figlegend(handles, labels,loc='lower right',prop=dict(family='monospace',size=9))
    l.get_frame().set_visible(False)
    ax.yaxis.set_major_formatter(formatter) # plugin our currency labeler
    f.canvas.draw()
    f.savefig('CA-Props-June8th2010-%s.png'%field[col])

plt.show()

1. I don’t fully understand what these numbers mean, as some groups’ “Total Expenditures” exceed their “Total Contributions” and still had positive “Ending Cash”

One of the excuses for the tour is the paperback release of Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times by Amy and David Goodman.

Now that I’m a tenured grad student, I can actually allow myself to read for pleasure – guilt free! So I went to the library that Thursday, and picked up the hardcover, which came out last year.

What I liked about this book is what sets it apart from other political books of today. Amy and David don’t just provide us with a laundry list of wrongdoing by the Bush administration, congress, various governmental agencies, as well as highlighting some of the ongoing local struggles. Though the book is chock-full of such details, they are all provided in the context of a particular vignette. What’s more – instead of simply stating the problems, or providing an outline of the authors’ opinions regarding what course of action should be taken, the book highlights the work average citizens have already done to oppose injustice, censorship, racism, etc. One example is T-shirt “terrorist” Raed Jarrar, who wore a shirt with the words “We will not be silent” – written in both English and Arabic – a reference to the White Rose – and was forced to put another shirt over it because JetBlue customers were threatened or offended. With the help of the ACLU, Jarrar sued the TSA and JetBlue, who ended up paying $240,000 to settle the discrimination charges.

Like Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost¹, this book is non-fiction that reads like fiction. Not because it is well-written, though it is, but because of the shocking realities of the content. Leadership cannot be taught, it can only be revealed. Standing up to the Madness gives us dozens of snapshots of the ongoing work of ordinary heroes.

1. which, after I first read it in 2001 became my measuring stick for gauging the quality of non-fiction

I want to thank Curt Siffert for granting me permission to use his song “All Aboard (v2)” which you can download (for free) here. This is the first video¹ I’ve ever made, but I’ve wanted to make films for as long as I’ve been writing² (even before Sally said “Hey guys, I’m going to make movies!” and then did), so I’m glad I’ve finally started.

I put this together for a video contest here at I-house. You can see all of the videos for the contest here, the winner was Life At I-House, A Glimpse by KirstyandEliana.

1. yes, okay, it’s more of a slideshow with an intro, but my brother Mike told me that Ken Burns would be proud
2. creatively, which would be 1999 – warning: link contains some extremely cheesy content, including an early version of what evolved into this journal

I went to Linux World Expo today and played with one of these upcoming One-Laptop-Per-Child project’s XO-1 laptops at the Creative Commons booth.

Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid (cc)

While OLPC is a noble effort, I think it still feels like another example of trying to solve a problem with technology where technology is not the bottleneck. For example, I was bummed that they took away the hand-crank power-supply a while back because I think this severely limits who’ll be able to eventually use these. The UI and networking stuff is pretty novel, but my overall impression is that it’s too gadgety. I felt pretty lost in all just the buttons on the keyboard, but then again I only used it for 20 minutes and this wasn’t made for me. With that said, I’m not holding my breath, but it could be a great thing if this takes off. I say “could” because technology by itself just isn’t enough¹. This is a point I keep coming back to again and again.

1. A point the OLPC project acknowledges in their vision.

The basic gist of the book is that knowledge is no longer tied to the physical (e.g. books), which used to limit how one went about organizing and finding it (e.g. Dewey decimal system). Now we can attach as much metadata as our hearts desire, which technology helps us sift through to help us find what we want. Instead of each book having a particular place, as in a warehouse, or a relative position (alphabetical within a subject), an individual leaf of information lives on a multitude of trees simultaneously, and the trees themselves are dynamically created and rearranged for each user on the fly.

The first few chapters focused on how knowledge has been historically organized over the centuries. I did skim through a few of the middle chapters, it seemed to be pretty straightforward commentary on the digital lives most of us now lead – user created content, social tags and lists, auto-recommendation, etc. Some over-simplified, in that sometimes unavoidable awkwardness that comes out of describing something neat and complex yet obvious to those leading digital lives. It was refreshing to read about the downsides of scientific publications like Nature and Science (e.g. good science isn’t enough² to publish because of how few articles get in, the research has to be “sexy”) and how the new comer PLoS One aims to correct these shortcomings. Because this was just the topic that was discussed at the Neuroscience retreat last year (in a lecture about the then-upcoming PLoS One), scientists care about this stuff and it comes back every so often.

Although I never considered it myself, I totally got it when Danae started her Master of Library Science. I would argue that more than anything else, what we’re producing most of in the world today is information. Perhaps capture and disseminate is a more appropriate description. Information, by itself, is agnostic to how it gets used (or abused). But the Cliff Stoll-ian side of me says that we should be weary of the exponentially growing amount of information, and not just for the obvious Big Brother / privacy reasons (e.g. “Plate reader draws objections of ACLU“).

The non-obvious threat of information is that we’re drowning in it (my claim). Here I’m glad Weinberger mentions Cass Sunstein’s book Republic.com³, the basic thesis of which⁴ is that with more and more information out there, we can all end up listening, watching, and reading only that which reinforces our world view – drowning out everything else without even having to plug up our ears and going “LALALALALA”, but by finding podcasts, channels, and blogs where others are doing the “LALALALALA” for us.

In many ways, this leads to huge portions of the population nonsensically parroting something like “Evolution is just a theory” to one another. Scientific theories both explain observed phenomena (why living organisms share so much of their DNA) and make predictions about future observations (my niece’s hair color based on that of her parents, or maybe one you don’t hear about so often: regular use of antibacterial soap might be a bad idea, placing evolutionary pressure on the bacteria to evolve immunity to the soap). Moreover simpler or more elegant, straightforward theories are preferred (aka Occam’s Razor). Which is why Intelligent Design is on par with Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, not science. But this has been better described in other places and elsewhere (suggestions welcome). The point is that I’m worried that there’s no way anyone get through to the people that end up isolating themselves in their own feedback loops. I worry that not enough people engage enough to think on their own. Technology can’t fix this problem. No amount of metadata will ever be enough⁵.

In this entry, I’ve linked to Wikipedia a few times, and while I agree it should not be regularly used for primary research, I also welcome the explicit uncertainty inherent in a publicly editable wiki, as it reflects the tentative nature of information, and I think we should be somewhat skeptical about a great deal. I have also been recommended, though I have not yet read Manuel Castells’ The Internet Galaxy, though perhaps it is more topical for a future post I’ve been brewing for a while. Has anyone read it? …Anyway, this is my first pass at processing this stuff, hope it’s not too scatterbrained⁶.

1. In three evening sittings at Moe’s Books
2. some might even argue “isn’t required”
3. Republic.com starts with a succinct vignette: “the daily me“
4. on my quick skimming at the UCD bookstore this past Picnic Day.
5. a point I think the book misses
6. Cory Doctrow does a better job reviewing the book.

last year and this year.

After watching the videos, you can play with Gapminder yourself as it is a web-based tool.

More info and tool links at gapminder.org.

The practical: After getting lunch with Robert and Jon on Saturday, I got the chance to hear recent UCSB alum Logan Green talk about Zimride, this new cool webapp he’s just put together. Carpooling made easy and safe. Here’s what it looks like:

Zimride integrates with facebook, so you actually get to know something about your potential drivers/hitchers, and they might even end up being someone you know! Moreover, you can advertise your ride via those facebook stalker feeds.

It became a really familiar place, the same classical music, the same new book smells. I never really had to talk to anyone, or say anything, so it very much became a place where I could go and clear my head, just sort of process my thoughts. Then it went out of business and closed, which really made me sad. Luckily, Tower Books, nearby, had just started operating, and though it didn’t have as large of a selection, I migrated over there, and got used to the music, atmosphere, and the staff there. So Tower, too, became familiar with time, and they were open till midnight, which suited my fancy more. Going down there at night became a ritual, whenever I was feeling uninspired, I’d just head over to there and immerse myself in some new book, if only for a few hours. I think I’m kind of different that way. If you’ve ever been in a bookstore with me, you’ll know that I always want to stick around for a while, even though I usually have no specific book in mind, I just like to go and sit and read something new for a while. For example, I always like to drop by Borders whenever I’m on University in Palo Alto, but also usually overlook that whoever it is that I’m with, whether it’s Elaine, or Philip, or Jon, doesn’t have the same approach to visiting bookstores.

Cody’s Books on Telegraph closed earlier this year, though Moe’s is still around. Now Tower’s closing up shop, I just walked around the all of the empty shelves and saw very few books that’d be of any interest to me. Ended up picking up two DVDs: Before Stonewall, and Брат (Brother) for $6 each. It’s really makes me uncomfortable and sad knowing that I won’t have that little place to escape to, anymore. I’m not a big fan of changes like these.

I’ve started getting involved with the (currently small) Campus Greens organization (which meets Mondays at 7:10 in 200 Wheeler).

So today I heard Todd Chretien, Green senatorial candidate speak to a group of about 30 as part of the ASUC Speaker Series. Todd titled his talk “Why Students Should Never, Ever Vote for the Democrats,” which I think is somewhat unfortunate. Todd has an eloquent platform and I share a lot of the same views, but I also think that the title incites the type of reaction that eliminates any possibility for reasonable discussion or discourse.

I think that people don’t want to listen to you if you insult them, or just say something shocking – the novelty (if any) quickly wears off (it’s taken me a while to figure this out, but I think I learned the difficulty in trying to actively engage those who support the Democrats when talking (ranting?) to Janet on the streets of Brussels over the summer).

I think that we need more boring nitty-gritty politics, because no one will hand over the helm to people with big ideas (even if they are the right ideas). The big picture is important, but it has to be negotiated with real, tangible, local progress.

Todd gave a short run through of his top three issues ( war in Iraq, education, the two party system), and then opened it up for Q & A. In answering the questions, he covered a lot of ground in both domestic and foreign policy, but I felt like it was a discussion of issues larger than those someone who admitted he had no chance of winning could hope to influence….

So as the last question for the night, after expressing these sentiments I asked what we could do locally, that’s within our power, mentioning current choice voting efforts in Davis and Oakland. Unfortunately, Todd stuck to his anti-war protest-in-the-streets approach (even taking an outlandish pot shot at proportional representation by mentioning something about Hitler getting elected).

Most of my life I, too, have been a big ideas person, but I can’t say I’ve accomplished much with them, which is why I’m trying something new…

Until I came to UC Davis, I had never realized that there *could* be different voting systems. Choice voting is a way of reaching a majority (greater than 50%) consensus.

Choice voting allows everyone to vote their conscience without the fear of having your vote “wasted.” After the polls close, if your top-ranked candidate, Alice, has the least amount of votes, she is eliminated and your vote transfers to your next choice, Bob, in your order of preference. This process (“instant run-off”) continues until candidates reach enough votes to be elected (the threshold). This consensus building mechanism ensures that the elected officials will represent the greatest possible proportion of the voters.

Contrast this with the current system: candidate Mallory and Minnie, representing a minority of the population could get elected when multiple similar candidates (Alice, Bob, Chris, and Debra) representing the viewpoints of the majority of the population split the vote between one other.

This would not happen under choice voting, because when Alice is eliminated, those votes would go to the next choices of her supporters. This would provide more votes for the remaining majority candidates, ensuring that one of them gets elected.

I encourage Davis voters to vote yes on Measure L this November so that the City can continue looking into this effective system.

Paul Ivanov
UC Davis Class of 2005

(cute choice voting promotional video)