How might a person go about studying something elusive like serial murder or terrorism?  I have no formal exposure in this area.  Much of the technology that I mention in this blog is meant for another purpose.  That other purpose is to study characters in movies, which for me is a great diversion.  In particular, I like to map out where certain characters might be found (or lost - i.e. missing characters): the settings they occupy, their roles, their relationships.  It goes without saying…

The images on this blog are from an algorithmic environment that I first developed about 15 years ago - rendered using a graphical system that I wrote in Java.  A “differential lattice” is a structured array of differences between two points:  e.g. the difference between the closing price of a stock on day T-0 (today) and T-6 (a week ago).  Consequently, if the closing prices are $10.10, $10.20, $10.30, $10.40, and $10.50 (today), then 0/3 is from T-0/T-3 or $10.50 less $10.20 = $0.30.  A…

I spotted an interesting book in my local library recently:  The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada [1].  I thought to myself, our government spent considerable resources on this commission.  I should at least browse through the final report.  I flipped through the first few pages.  I found a note saying that the contents are public domain.  In this blog, I reproduce some of the contents of the report to create a setting for my discussion on operational data. …

About a month ago in a blog, I introduced what I described as a “spectral attenuation monitor.”  At the time I only had an image from MS Works that…

I am sometimes asked whether I am working on the stats, whether I am making progress on the stats, and what I do with all of the stats.  People are also prone to hyperbole.  I am told that I sure work on a lot of stats, I am always keeping myself busy doing stats, and I am the person to go to for stats.  I suppose my real job is more mysterious than the one others imagine that I do.  I first want to explain that for everyday people, the term “stats” or “statistics” often means historical…

In recent blogs, I wrote about using codified narrative as a form of data. I also discussed using attribution models to systematically evaluate codified narrative for ontological constructs: e.g. "child abuse" "physical confinement" "cannibalism." I provide a brief overview of these topics a bit later in the blog. The third important piece to make use of narrative data involves "attribution profiling" in a process that I call "catching scent." Following the odour of data involves…

In this blog, I will be discussing the use of attribution models in relation to codified narrative. For this purpose, I will be referring to the plots of two films: the 1974 horror classic “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”; and a 2014 dark comedy called “Tusk.” I have my own codification system called BERLIN: this is short for “Behavioural Event Reconstruction Linguistic Interface for Narratives.” An attribution model supports the inference of meaning from data. Imagine a student one day going…

BERLIN stands for Behavioural Event Reconstruction Linguistic Interface for Narratives. I introduced BERLIN a few blogs ago - in my "final blog." Theoretically after one's final blog, no further blogs are forthcoming. However, I am now posting bonus blogs reflecting aspects of the same closing subject. Today, I will be elaborating on BERLIN's syntax and how its searches are facilitated. As a general rule, the objective of BERLIN is to convert human-friendly narrative into computer-friendly…

I have been using the term "mass data assignment" in my blogs. I thought I should offer the community some simulated examples. These are simple simulations: all the data is in one place in an agreeable format. The file contents are meant to be easy to peruse. When I was younger, there was a television series called "Stargate SG-1." I have a number of seasons on DVD. In this series, a special branch of the U.S. Air Force visits offworld sites using stable wormholes: teams enter the wormholes…

The first computer program that I encountered mimicking or emulating human interaction through language was called "Eliza." The version that I knew ran on the Commodore PET. It communicated in English. Eliza made comments that made some sense but which indicated lack of understanding of the conversation. If a person mentions "mother," Eliza might…

I made a recent discovery that I would like to share with the community. In my previous blog, I introduced a special algorithmic shell that distributes stocks based on their price movements (along the x-axis) and volume movements (y-axis). Using this shell, it is possible to visualize the trading behaviours of dozens of stocks simultaneously. I noticed one day that the stocks seemed to be lining up in formation. I decided to test the accuracy of my visual interpretation. Below I present the…

Given the nature of the community, presumably many visitors already have a strong understanding of the nature of quantitative data. Perhaps more mysterious is the idea of qualitative data especially since it can sometimes be expressed in quantitative terms. For instance, "stress" as an internal response to an externality differs from person to person; yet it would be possible to canvas a large number of people and express stress levels as an aggregate based on a perceptual gradient: minimal,…

The idea of environmental determinism once made a lot of sense. Hostile climates and habitats prevented the expansion of human populations. The conceptual opposite of determinism is called possibilism. These days, human populations can found living in many inhospitable habitats. This isn't because humans have physically evolved. But rather, we normally occupy built-environments. We exist through our technologies and advanced forms of social interaction: a person might not be able to build a…

Somebody once mentioned to me that there is a need for a standard method of performance evaluation that can be applied to all employees regardless of their exact duties: e.g. to compare a janitor to an accountant. In my jurisdiction, there is a regulatory requirement for "equal pay for work of equal value" that can affect companies with government contracts. I consider the concept of "equal value" complicated due to its subjective nature. Certainly two people handling exactly the same work…

Above is a distribution of price differentials for the Dow Jones Industrial Average from the 1930s. The image was generated by one of my programs called Storm. I posted a few images from the same application in other blogs. If I recall correctly, the more volatile differentials (closer to the action) are at top; the more stable differentials (further from the…

I have always had a great interest in how businesses organize in order to get things done.  Here I raise some discussion points intended to stimulate debate.

Principle of Systemic Domains 

Not that long ago, I was completing a graduate degree in “critical” disability studies.  The critical part deserves to be in quotations since it is probably subject to interpretation and all sorts of misinterpretation.  I am going to suggest that in critical…

The commodification of labour coincides with technological advancements in production: it is perhaps most noticeable in relation to factories.  Factory processes replaced the labour once done by skilled tradespeople. It might not be obvious how this trend has continued to this day and is now affecting professionals in complex fields including those in the data sectors. I am talking about the "made to order" and "off the shelf" acquisition of labour commodities. What I describe as commodities…