FW: National Science Foundation Update Daily Digest Bulletin

[Nick Thompson]

Doug,

I am too dumb to know the degree to which I am being kidded here.  Please explain..

Nick


----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas Roberts
To: nickthompson at earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 2/15/2008 8:41:18 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: National Science Foundation Update Daily Digest Bulletin


Run that lousy data through a simulation, and then publish the results as truth.

Works every time!

--Doug

--
Doug Roberts, RTI International
droberts at rti.org
doug at parrot-farm.net
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell


On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 8:16 AM, Nicholas Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:

All --

Has anybody thought about how to make use of truly lousy data?  There are
increasingly sources of public data on subject matters such as weather and
(see below) flowers and birds where the quality of the data is truly awful
by ordinary standards and yet there is so much of it that it seems a crime
not to try to make use of it.  So Sally writes in to say that her morning
glories are in bloom in April when what she means is her pansies.  Her
neighbor gets the pansies right but screws up on the tithonia.  Is there
any way to add this all up and get something?

thoughts?

nick





Nicholas S. Thompson
Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)
Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
(nthompson at clarku.edu)




----- Original Message -----
From: National Science Foundation Update
To: nthompson at clarku.edu
Sent: 2/15/2008 2:27:26 AM
Subject: National Science Foundation Update Daily Digest Bulletin


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From: National Science Foundation Update <[hidden email]>
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:35:16 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Volunteers Across Nation to Track Climate Clues in Spring Flowers

Volunteers Across Nation to Track Climate Clues in Spring Flowers

A nationwide initiative starting this week will enable volunteers to track
climate change by observing the timing of flowers and foliage. Project
BudBurst, operated by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
(UCAR) and a team of partners, allows students, gardeners and other citizen
scientists in every state to enter their observations into an online
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climate.
The project, which will be launched tomorrow, ...

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Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:58:55 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Scientists Reveal First-Ever Global Map of Total Human Effect on
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Scientists Reveal First-Ever Global Map of Total Human Effect on Oceans

More than 40 percent of the world's oceans are heavily affected by human
activities, and few if any areas remain untouched, according to the first
global-scale study of human influence on marine ecosystems.
By overlaying maps of 17 different activities such as fishing, climate
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The work, published in this week's issue of Science, was conducted at the
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Subject: A Newly Discovered Solar System Contains Scaled-Down Versions of
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A Newly Discovered Solar System Contains Scaled-Down Versions of Saturn and
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A team of international astronomers reports in the Feb. 15 issue of Science
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"NSF is delighted to have played a role in enabling such an exciting
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Subject: Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education (NUE) in Engineering

Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education (NUE) in Engineering
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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> I am too dumb to know the degree to which I am being kidded here.  
> Please explain..
Suppose 100 people give 999 responses to yes/no questions and all of
them answer by flipping a coin.  A final answer correctly answers the
question "Are your eyes blue?"  Just by chance, amongst those 999 coin
flips some can be weakly correlated to the eye color question and linear
combinations of them may turn out to be even more correlated (as there
are more bits for encoding, bogus covariation though it is).  So
sometimes there is a need to generalize or `regularize' high dimensional
data to reduce overfitting.   A simulation is potentially one way to do
regularization.  Another example is using an `average face' for face
recognition:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5862/435

>  
>  
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Douglas Roberts <mailto:doug at parrot-farm.net>
>     *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net
>     <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net>;The Friday Morning Applied
>     Complexity Coffee Group <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>     *Sent:* 2/15/2008 8:41:18 AM
>     *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] FW: National Science Foundation Update
>     Daily Digest Bulletin
>
>     Run that lousy data through a simulation, and then publish the
>     results as truth.
>
>     Works every time!
>
>     --Doug
>

[Phil Henshaw-2]

I think it's that the 'average' wave is a glassy smooth sea...
Statistics seems to depart from reality, for the convenience of science.

Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 11:19 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: National Science Foundation Update
> DailyDigest Bulletin
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > I am too dumb to know the degree to which I am being kidded here.
> > Please explain..
> Suppose 100 people give 999 responses to yes/no questions and all of
> them answer by flipping a coin.  A final answer correctly answers the
> question "Are your eyes blue?"  Just by chance, amongst those
> 999 coin
> flips some can be weakly correlated to the eye color question
> and linear
> combinations of them may turn out to be even more correlated
> (as there
> are more bits for encoding, bogus covariation though it is).  So
> sometimes there is a need to generalize or `regularize' high
> dimensional
> data to reduce overfitting.   A simulation is potentially one
> way to do
> regularization.  Another example is using an `average face' for face
> recognition:
>

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5862/435

>  
>  
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Douglas Roberts <mailto:doug at parrot-farm.net>
>     *To: *nickthompson at earthlink.net
>     <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net>;The Friday Morning Applied
>     Complexity Coffee Group <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>     *Sent:* 2/15/2008 8:41:18 AM
>     *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] FW: National Science Foundation Update
>     Daily Digest Bulletin
>
>     Run that lousy data through a simulation, and then publish the
>     results as truth.
>
>     Works every time!
>
>     --Doug
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org