Continue reading »]]> Data Visualization/Processing (Room/Table G 2-3pm)

Saturday Session 4G

Convener:   Stacia & Lesley

Summarizer: Lesley

There was a short discussion of what Data Visualization is and how we want to display the data.

Lot of discussions on tools, websites, resources for Data Visualization
- Open Exhibit – interaction display, multitouch multiuser software, for education and non profits
- d3.js (Data Driven Document)
- Processing – group member used tool in college to visualize sound in a room
- Non profit using social data (google group)
- Google Refine – website to clean data
- Argus Insights – look at consumer data, analyze it and make decisions based on it
- Golan Levin – Prof at Carnegie Mellon with tutorials on Processing
- There are children’s programs that teaches how to use Processing
- Rock Health – Health data tool
- Google Prediction API – pull out insights from data
- PK – question asking tool
- Data Wrangler – Stanford web tool to clean/analyze data
- Graffta – art based teaching for computer/hardware programming and technologies
- Digital art galleries SF (google it) – other Processing classes/tutorials

Demo
- energy efficiency for a building
- demo of visualizing energy use of a building based on lung
- choropleth map of U.S. Electricity prices
- IBM many eyes – word cloud based data

One interest is how to display data so that someone will be able to take action on it
Question: How to get into Data Analysis? Answer – join meet ups, meet other people working on projects
Where to get data? EPA is a good place to start

Conversation than moved to being mindful of all this data and our relationship with our data/tools/devices that we use
- Difficult because so much time is spent on collecting and cleaning data and small portion of understanding the data
- Need to mediate relationship with our products – can be overwhelming , intrusive – how do we create visual representation of our consciousness and our devices?
- Resources for this:
- Calming Tech Lab at Stanford
- Breathing Project – breathing pattern through iPhone
- Stacia has started Project Stay Awake (projectstayawake.com) – challenge to examine relationship with products – pay attention to habits, how often using device, survey daily, what you are aware of (potentially visualize data)
- Lev Manovitch – CUNY Professor that looks at big data and deeper exploration of what it means
- What becomes our reality if we’re not cognizant of it?
- Charles Stross – Rule 34 – AI fiction book where society may end up one day (dark side of nerd culture)
- In the end: how do we understand data, how do we make of it. Extremes – adopt or luddite – be more mindful of technology.
- One way is the anthromorphication our products – turn objects into something we can name to develop compassion towards non living produce

Continue reading »]]> Scratch – a lesson from a 10 year old

Saturday Session 3I*

Convener:   Cami

Summarizer: Dana

Resources:

http://scratch.mit.edu

Notes:

- It can be frustrating sometimes (no auto save and sometimes the program crashes… use the save button often!)

- Sprites are characters you can create, then add motion / looks / sounds

- Simple tasks to get started:

- Make a single sprite walk across the screen

- Add a second sprite and make them both do something

- Ideas for a project

- make a game

- tell a story

- a “scary movie” theme

- You can share your scratch project or browse and play with others projects/games on the scratch website

Continue reading »]]> Sysadmins Rock! Be techy with less coding

Saturday Session 4F

Convener:   Jennelle

Summarizer: Melody

 
Specific Resources/URLS:
Pacific IT Professionals – http://www.pacitpros.org/
Usenix/LISA – https://www.usenix.org/
LOPSA – League of Professional Systems Administrators – https://lopsa.org/

Key Points:

* Typically two different environments – 1) “small company type
environment” where you do everything. Soup to Nuts. “Big Picture” or
2) “large company type environment” where you have a chance to become
an expert in a very specific area or field.

* Keep paper journal of your disaster recovery procedures. Computer
only version does not help if your computers do not work. Test test
test test TEST your disaster recovery procedures with someone NOT
familiar with the procedures to make sure they are clear.

* If you do not test a backup then you have no backup.

* Know how a coworker will react under pressure BEFORE an emergency
occurs. Use social media and other methods to see how people react to
little problems. They can show how they may react to big ones. For
example, if a coworker tweets, follow their tweets, especially if they
tweet about work. It may clue you in early on if they are melting
under a small problem.

Continue reading »]]> LinkedIn – how to use it

Saturday Session 5J

Convener:   Stephanie

Summarizer: Dana

Resources:

http://linkedin.com

Notes:

- LinkedIn is a great resource for managing your professional contacts

- Learn how to use Settings

- access via the menu bar, click on your name

- change privacy settings, groups email frequency, etc

- your email address: add them ALL so that you don’t accidentally create a second LinkedIn account

- Groups

- you can have up to 50 group memberships

- use groups as a way to connect… you can directly contact anyone within a group that you both belong to

- Tag your contacts as a way to find and/or recall how you know people

- The endorsements feature is somewhat frustrating.  Everyone seems to hate that they get endorsed for skills by people that wouldn’t have a clue about their proficiency in that skill

Continue reading »]]> Meta Learning

Saturday Session 1E

Convener:   Lisa

Summarizer: Sarah A.

You have a “Learning Toolbox”

MetaLearning Action Plan

Awareness: of what you want, your learning style, your world, your place in the world

Your ZPD – zone of proximal development – not too hard, not too easy, know the zone which is the right level of challenge, not too hard, not too easy

What are your values?  What

Vision, direction, what do you want to create

SMART Goal

Specific

Measurable

Actionable

Realistic

Time-sensitive

Gather – research, experts, etc.

Filter – select for importance  —> iterate on Vision, now that I’ve learned stuff, does my SMART Goal lead me toward my vision

Create a team: personal advisory board, create a support system

Create a system for accountability

Assess

Continue reading »]]> Lightning Talks (Saturday)

Saturday 4B

Convener:  Akkana

Summarizer: Judith

1.  Cyndi:  Organization for Conference

- use a journal (with a rubber bands), multicolor pens, masking tape, double sided tape (tombow, swipe & stick)

- tape business cards into the journal, with note how & when you met them

- portable conference notes

2.  Judith:  The CLUB, a new organization in Silicon Valley to enable women in leadership, so that a woman becoming CEO isn’t front page news.

Connect – Lead – Unite – Build

theclubsv.org

3.  Akkana:  Fibonacci Series:  The Rabbit, The Nautilus and the Pine Cone

originally about rabbits reproducing (1 month to grow up, reproduction 1x per month)

creates the fibonnaci series.  (Fn=f(n-2)+F(n-1)

pine cones, scales in the spiral, as it spirals outward (also cauliflowers)

Golden ratio (phi): 0.618 (useful in art, photography, and converting miles to kilometers)

Golden spiral: 1-1-2-3-5-8-13  (exponential spiral)

Chambered Nautilus:  Is not actually a golden spiral (it’s not actually phi as the exponent)

4.  Alison:  Right to Repair

cars of the future will be software

right to repair legislation passed in Massachusetts (dealer & licensed/registered repair person must provide SW documentation)

introduced in US congress

Silicon Valley Automotive Open Source Community (Larry of Larry’s Auto Works has joined the group)

Continue reading »]]> Self-Tracking

Convener:   Lisa

Summarizer: April

TAGS: Quantified Self, Life Logging, Variables

Resources:

Fitbit, Zeo, Google Forms

“Cure Together” collective science

“Quantified Mind” baseline tests

Key Points:

Tracking variables externally about yourself: To better yourself, to fix a problem, to understand yourself.

Track things like weight, steps, food, water, sleep, exercise, and subsets. What do you want to fix? Use that as a motivation.

The less you have to do, the better. Zeo, Fitbit, those kinds of tools link to the cloud and with each other automatically. Ambient!

An easy way to setup your own forms if there are not pre-built tools is through Google Forms linking to a spreadsheet.

Notes from Jennifer:

By line: Self knowledge through numbers

From the blog:

“Quantified Self is a collaboration of users and tool makers who share an interest in self knowledge through self-tracking. We exchange information about our personal projects, the tools we use, tips we’ve gleaned, lessons we’ve learned. We blog, meet face to face, and collaborate online.”

Examples of variables tracked: diet, exercise, sleep, mood

Some questions to get started:

• What about yourself do you want to track?
• What do you want to change or fix?

Tool Examples

Zeo – sleep tracking

Fitbit – activity tracking

Links

Quantified Self

Meetup: Silicon Valley Quantified Self

Related

Quantified Mind

Cure Together

Continue reading »]]> Intellectual Property Primer & QA

Saturday Session 3K

Convener:  Judith

Summarizer:  April

Patents are for inventions

If you work for a company, it’s theirs if you find something on your own time—California is different and very flexible

The actual invention

Patents are implementation and copyright is the expression

Its expensive ($20,000), takes 3 years (will it still be useful in three years? Think about this)

March 16: US changing from first to invent (you would have to figure out who was the first to file) to first to patent

Defensive publication—keywords are the most important thing

Design patent is closer to a copyright than a patent

Provisional patent—a placeholder (e.g. going to a conference and you’re going to present, you can file a provisional patent)

Copyright: the actual expression you used (not actually about the content of the expression); needs to be a modification of creativity (e.g. a picture of a statue is creative enough to have copyright)

Extends to art, coding, writing

Protect you from someone copying

Current issue: what do you do with user contributed content (e.g. if you upload something with a song by someone, is it theirs or someone else); agency is pro-taking stuff down (because no liability).

Congress should represent issue in next five years and no one knows quite what to solve it

Trademarks

Most undervalued of IP; this is what people really care about (they don’t care about your patent or copyright)

It’s about the shape of something (e.g. apple)

Designed to protect the consumer; cant be confusingly similar in name (e.g. aple with one p—people will confuse it with apple)

When things become a verb, they become trademark (e.g. let me google that; they want you to actually google on their website and not “google” on yahoo)

Lots of info on import goods and gray products (e.g. a thai student saw that a textbook in states was selling 1/3 price in home country, he sold tons of books for thousands of dollars—case getting taken to supreme court; 9^th circuit addressed this—you cant import something unless copyright person says its okay)

Trade secrets: don’t tell anyone about it

Once its out, its out—no way to recapture it; not good for anything exposed to the user

Patent troll—a company that doesn’t make a product but has patents and enforces them (e.g. a company that has patent on wifi and are suing hotels)—current issue in US and becoming international

Creative commons is a licensing scheme

User interface to checkmark what you want; developed by smart lawyers

Patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets are protections

Copyright automatically gets registered for blogs and stuff; if you want to sue someone, you actually have to go to the copyright office; you can send people a take down notice because people don’t want to get into legal issues

Continue reading »]]> Get involved with STEM outreach

Saturday 3H

Convener:  Reena

Summarizer: Kate

TAGS for the session:

STEM, outreach, volunteer

Specific Resources that Surface in Your Session

URL’s and other Links, Books, Organizations, Articles etc.

• AppInventor/Scratch/ALICE
• Society of Women Engineers
• Technovation
• WITI
• Agilent Kits
• Techbridgegirls.org – local nonprofit focused on K-12 STEM outreach – can volunteer as a role model, mentor, speaker

Please list below the essences or key points of the conversation (3-5)

• How do you find time to volunteer?

o      Volunteer for things you’re passionate about, makes it easier to find time for it

o      Your involvement goes in phases, may be actively involved in hands-on activities when you have less demands

• How to have affinity groups involved with STEM outreach (such as corporate women’s group)?

o      Hold events that allow people to bring their kids too. Encourages people to do community service with their kids.

o      Survey members to see what they want to do for outreach.

o      Encourage managers to be involved; get executive support

• How to get more participants/volunteers for an event

o      Provide recognition for volunteers (even a simple email) to thank them for their time

o      Encourage people to volunteer in groups

• Frustration with STEM in public schools

o      Pair teachers with industry professionals to bring technical expertise into classroom