Mathematics After The Fall

Archive for the ‘Notices’ Category

MS in Statistics: FAQ

As some of you know, I attempted to complete my PhD in Statistics from the University of Chicago this year. Monday and Tuesday, I presented on my first 2 chapters and asked for a few months to finish the rest. This was unsuccessful, as the faculty thought I could not complete things in the remaining time. I received a MS, Master of Science, and was separated from the program.

Sadly, television footage of the event was nonexistent, as the Discovery channel did not choose to attend. Like all big events, we can imagine a sideline reporter, who peppered me with questions after the decision. This fantasy reporter will ask thoughful things, though. This will serve as a FAQ – Failure Asked Questions.

What did you think of your performance Monday afternoon?
Well, Hedy, I carried through, but it wasn’t my best day. There were two typos in the slide deck, which is very embarrassing by my standards. The audience was challenging, too, with six professors in the audience all free to ask questions.

We heard rumors that you had trouble with some of the questions because of an ear injury?
Yes, my right ear was clogged, and I couldn’t hear from that side. It’s no excuse, though, in the playoffs. After all, hockey players take out their own teeth. This was nothing.

Before this, you thought you could get through. [Flashback to interview with Rosalind]
I always knew it would be tough out here, but I had put in a lot of effort this year and thought I had a chance.

What changed?
A few things. Maybe most importantly, none of the members of my original committee were available, so nobody there was very familiar with my work.

There are very few good stories when the entire committee has been lost.
Sure. Losing everyone is no Fairytale, though I might be cursed. They set a different standard than what I had been working towards. It might not be enough to finish code, simulations, and some basic applications. Maybe I should also need to show superiority over a variety of models, or one big model. I should have asked for clarification 6 months ago, or even 3 years ago.

What about your motivation? There seems to have been dissention at times.
It’s not a secret that I haven’t always been enthusiastic about my thesis. I’m not, and have never been, a theoretical statistician. I like model building and teaching. It’s been a struggle. This year, though, I set aside other things and really attacked the problem. Most of you have seen and heard a lot less from me this year. It wasn’t enough. While I disagree with the opinion that I would need a year more, I needed full time support and effort. I just didn’t have it.

What comes next?
Well, I have a one-year contract with my current employer. Then I’ve got options. As much as I’d like to just take a community college job with an MS, those jobs are disappearing, thanks to accreditation and rankings. I can go to industry and become wealthy, or I can find a place to complete a terminal degree. For instance, Quantitative Research Methods at the Michigan school of education would fit me well, as would Minnesota’s statistics education program. The problem is that both of them are in cold, dark climates. That got me into trouble at Chicago. I’ve got time to make that decision.

And how do you feel?
Yes, I’m tired, disappointed, and hurt, but not Johnny Cash hurt. While I wish we would have ended things 3 years ago, if this was going to be the standard, I gained a lot of experience in this time. I now have ideas for a career, not just a PhD and promise. Most importantly, I am so much healthier, overall, that I’d jump again. But if I’m going to come back for another season, it’ll have to be the right fit, both in work and location.

Thanks for your time.
You’re welcome.

Site Update

I updated the software for this site, Wordpress, from version 2.2.2 to 2.6 tonight. Yes, I missed a couple versions. I also changed the look, to Blue Mist. Though I still don’t have a Candyland-like white background, the black background seemed a little dark nowadays.

One problem with this conversion is that I lost all the listed categories. I’m restarting new categories, and eventually I’ll fix that. On the good side, now there’s a convenient search bar in the upper right corner. So, if you want to find out how many posts contain the word “tears”, you may do so. It’s nine as of now, by the way.

Enjoy.

Disclaimer

Because I sometimes get questions about old posts, until I manage to put this in the header or something, please remember that things published on this blog and website are accurate as of the time of publication. My beliefs, or the situation, may have changed since then.

At the Edge of the Bell Curve

I spent part of MLK Day Weekend reading the entire archive of xkcd, a webcomic so funny it immediately made the newly reorganized blogroll. It’s not for everyone, though. Let me repeat the warning:

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).    

This describes my current life about as well as anything I could create.

Connecting an OLPC XO to Airport Extreme WEP

I got my XO laptop from One Laptop per Child yesterday. It’s really cute. Unfortunately, it takes a little work to connect to an Airport network, and the instructions on The Getting Started page aren’t great. Until they get improved, here’s what I did.

After opening the laptop (you need to turn the antenna pretty far around to get space to open the case), go to the neighborhood screen. It’s the one with a circle of eight circles; you can push the button on the top row of the keyboard. If you have an open network. Just find your network, click on the circle, and wait 10-15 seconds until the outside ring turns white.

Assuming you have security, the ring will not turn white; you’ll have to enter your passcode first. You need to know the type of security. Airport networks can have WEP or WPA. If you don’t know, there are lots of ways to check. I use the widget Air Traffic Control, which is also good to find networks on a Mac. If you have WEP, you’ll need to enter the hex code. There are two options to get the hex code. If you have AirPort Utility and the password for the base station, you can start AirPort Utility. Then, select your base station and click on Manual Setup. Then, on the Base Station Menu, select “Equivalent Network Password”. If you just have the password, go to Core Coding’s page to enter the password and get the hex code. This is a DIFFERENT link than the one on laptop.org’s page; their link is for WPA. Core Coding will give you two possible keys, one for non apple computers and one for apple computers. You, of course, want the Apple password.

[This section was expanded on 21 December. Hopefully it's a little clearer.]

Once you get the password, you’ll have to enter the password each time you start the XO and connect. The XO does not save the password. When the password box appears, if you have WEP, the top drop down box will be called “Key Type”, and the option “Passphrase (128-bit)” will be selected. For Key Type, choose “Hex (40/128 bit)”. The bottom box, below the white space to enter digits, is called “Authentication Type”. Instead of “Open System”, which is there, Choose “Shared Key.” If you have different options in the drop down boxes, you have WPA, not WEP. These instructions won’t work.

In the white space, enter all the numbers and letters, then click OK. You should have either 10 or 26 characters, because your WEP password should be either 5 or 13 characters. The OK button will not light up unless you have 10 or 26 entered. The inner circle will blink three to five times, then the inner circle will become solid and the outer circle white. You’re connected!

Also, you may have an extra level of security called a MAC address. If you do, go to OLPC’s question page and search for “airport”. The information is near the bottom of the page. WPA appears more difficult, because as the page states, the connection is not automatic. If I get that going, or find a good set of directions, I’ll post again.

Converting the Musings

I’m slowly converting my old posts from Musings After Midnight, my not-a-blog, to this format. When I started Musings, it was difficult to install a personal blog. Because I wanted ownership control, I instead wrote my own HTML code. Though I learned a lot, that was timeconsuming. This is much faster.

In order to simplify my life and my website, I will convert Musings to this format, add a tag, and then have one source for small pages. Larger pages will remain on twelvefruits. Seamless transition is my goal, but that may not happen. Eventually it will work out. I hope.

Hello world!

The classic program from C seems appropriate.I decided to convert Musings after Midnight, my old not-a-blog, to this format. There are a few reasons.1) As a professor with 9 AM classes, I don’t stay up much after midnight anymore.2) The transition from primarily student to primarily teacher invited a new title.3) I wanted to add comments, just in case discussion ever develops.4) I’m tired of updating several pages of HTML just to make one post.There still will be some content at twelvefruits.com, any larger pages I want to write or summarize. For instance, the statistics job market pages will go over there. Shorter, integrated topics go here.Happy reading, everyone.

About Boys!

Recently, someone asked me why the main page of twelvefruits.com contains this poster, which I saw at an exhibit on Indian schools in Phoenix, Arizona. To quote, it asks Boys to “Participate in sports! Become a football player or a boxer. Learn to play a sport and become controlled and civilized. Develop manly aggressiveness so that you can win and get a trophy. Learn to obey a stern, fatherly authority – your coach! Learn to be strong and not to cry or show emotion.”

It’s there because it summarizes so many suboptimal parts of American culture. There’s the emphasis on violent games, which ignores the conflict between the violence and “controlled and civilized”. There’s the emphasis on victory, instead of constant improvement. There’s the unchallenged obedience to harsh authority. There’s the inappopriate use of familial names, for the coach. There’s the view that tears and emotion are bad, instead of part of life. Finally, and most importantly, there’s the idea that strength is emotionless, soemthing that this journal has argued very strongly against.

When I saw this poster, back in September 2004, I was shocked. It’s from an exhibit at the Heard Museum, in Phoenix Arizona, on Native American schools. That’s a sad enough tale; to break the strength of tradition, and to bring the brown into white Protestant culture (it’s not like Catholics were favored either), students were forced hundreds of miles away to boarding schools. This poster was near the end of the show. At this point, I wanted to cry. I took multiple photos to make sure one would come out, even through the tough lighting and the glass. The poster is not a symbol of my personal struggles, as the person hypothesized. I have different demons. Basically, it caricatures my adversaries, the forces of stoicism. It’d be more funny if it wasn’t so successful.