Newsletter Updates for July 2014

Two aspects about leveraging machine learning are largely under-represented in the lit, especially when it comes to production use cases: feature engineering and the comparative evaluation of multiple modeling approaches. To that point, check out “Streamlining feature engineering: Researchers and startups are building tools that enable feature discovery” by Ben Lorica. The article mentions Spark Beyond, which “finds deep patterns in your data.” I was lucky to get a demo of Spark Beyond earlier this year and talk with the principals – and highly recommend taking a good look at their wares. Between the ongoing advances in deep learning and symbolic regression, a direction seems to be emerging … that perhaps one of the more difficult parts of machine learning workflows, namely the feature engineering aspects, could become more automated.

For another great article, check out Including Men in the Conversation About Women by Scarlett Sieber. Among my biggest peeves about Silicon Valley are the “brogrammer” lopsided demographics, and the gender bias which is quite real and nearly epidemic. Our data science teams have generally been quite mixed, why can’t engineering teams in general leave the 19th century behind, let alone stop being so hostile? Not naming names, but two of the SV firms in which I’ve worked in the past five years are both well known and well poised for harassment lawsuits. Taking a stand against that nonsense as an engineering manager is a great way to catch hell, which I’ve gladly engaged before. Another related pet peeve is where one of the same firms was actively pressuring their engineering interns to quit university degree programs. As a behavior for an engineering manager, I find that highly unethical. Some of those who are engaged in these practices know quite well who I’m talking about.

Spark Summit

The big, BIG news last month was … (wait for it) … Spark Summit. All of the speaker videos have been posted – those are probably the single-best resource for learning about Apache Spark. Of course, the big surprise at the conf was the announcement of Databricks Cloud. If you missed the conf, you can watch Ali Ghodsi’s spectacular demo which kicks in at about the 14:40 time marker.

Spark Summit keynote practice, T-15 hours

One surprise learning from the conf was that one product line from SAP generates more annual revenue than all of the other Big Data vendors (HW, Cloudera, etc.) combined. Other pleasant surprises included: Flambo, a Clojure DSL for Spark; and Thunder, for large-scale neural data analysis, which shows some excellent integration of PySpark, SciPy, scikit-learn, etc.

Our training sessions at Spark Summit set some kind of new records. In particular, check out the advanced material for great lectures there. Those who attended the conf received a free ebook preview for the upcoming Learning Spark: Lightning-Fast Big Data Analytics by Holden Karau, Andy Konwinski, Patrick Wendell, Matei Zaharia; O’Reilly Media (2014).

Also, I got to host the Research track of session talks at Spark Summit, which was a real treat. We had a special #geo break-out session following the Geotrellis talk by Rob Emanuele. We will hopefully be expanding that focus in future confs. There were so many other great talks that it’s hard to pick favorites. Even so, I’ll be studying up about two in particular: Quadratic Programing Solver for Non-negative Matrix Factorization with Spark by Debasish Das, Santanu Das; and Distributed Reinforcement Learning for Electricity Market Bidding with Spark by Vijay Srinivas Agneeswaran, Vishnuteja Nanduri. The latter seems almost ideal for integration with recent work on genetic programming.

Stay tuned for the next Spark Summit, which will be held on NYC in early 2015.

OSCON

I’ve just returned from OSCON 2014. What an excellent conference! Check out the content recently posted online: keynotes, photos, speaker slides.

Of course, this event was carefully timed to overlap with the Oregon Brewer’s Festival. Top two picks: Double Latte. by Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.; and Lorenzini Blood Orange Double IPA by Maui Brewing Company. Many thanks to Erin Rasmussen for suggesting about OBF!

Blood Orange IPA

Back at OSCON… one of my favorite Ignite talks was What Science Fiction Can Teach Us About Building Communities by Dawn Foster. Another favorite, speaking of #geo, was a preso/proposal for Open Aerial Map by Kate Chapman.

During the conf, Andy Orem did a video interview where we discussed perspectives and current projects: Ag+Data, Industrial Internet, sketch algorithms, Apache Spark, etc. Andy was the very first editor I worked with at O’Reilly Media, ten years ago. He’s a much better interviewer than I am an interviewee, so I enjoyed learning much through our work together. Also fun to work again with the amazing video team.

"With great power comes some data, plus wrinkled shirts"

The tutorial for Just Enough Math had 50+ people attending, and we got to evaluate an intermediate stage of a new tutorial software platform. For that, I needed to get a bunch of USB drives from Amazon, but the order/delivery #failed. At the last minute our 10 y.o. daughter and I made an emergency run to Fry’s Electronics (she was eager to observe ground zero for nerdliness) … but the only 4Gb flash drives that they had left in stock were Marvel Universe comix characters. Arriving back home, our 9 y.o. daughter was aghast that adults would be receiving comix figures in a lecture :)

The Data Workflows for Machine Learning talk received lots of great responses – as did earlier versions during meetups in Seattle and SF. It become of the “top-shared” slide decks featured on the SlideShare home page. Perhaps that needs to be turned into a mini-book?

new book kiosk

As my last-o’-the-day book signing was winding down, after almost everyone had left the convention center for “nearby locations of beer taps”, a friend mentioned “Hey, look there’s another pile of books – these look different.” So a few lucky latecomers got signed copies of the galley drafts for our new book Just Enough Math, which probably still won’t be released for months – this rev is quite rough :) Oddly enough, the first person to read it looked up and said, “Where are the other O’Reilly books about math?” Indeed.

Sketchy Things

Speaking of Just Enough Math, we’ve put up a companion site for the video+book+tutorial at http://justenoughmath.com/ to provide additional resources and related links:

• set up a Python programming envon your laptop
• code+data files for examples in the video+book
• “gists” that show expected results for the examples
• links to external resources that get referenced
• recommended books and videos for further study
• monthly newsletter sign-up

The tutorial at OSCON previewed a new chapter recently added about sketch algorithms, following from notes at an excellent Foo Camp session led by Avi Bryant. I will be focussing on Spark Streaming use cases for Strata EU in Barcelona this fall, particularly where approximation techniques (think: examples of monoids in action) can leverage both Spark and Cassandra. If you have examples to share of Spark Streaming production use cases in general, I’m eager to build case studies to publish in Radar. Meanwhile, for a great resource about sketch algorithms, check out the archives of the AK Data Science Summit – Streaming and Sketching from last summer.

Card-Carrying Green

A friend recently brought up the topic of navigating questions about extinction and climate change for preschoolers… I’m getting those too; however, in my experience the questions become much better formulated after an additional 5–6 years or so. As a parent, as a human, it kills me to see all the ginormous FUD spewing from the political lobbies for the coal industry, fracking, Monsanto, GM, etc. How about giving ample air time and consideration for some points from the other side?

First off, I’ve mentioned it before but it bears repeating: The Land Institute is a phenomenally excellent resource for understanding some of the insanity and pure tragedy of contemporary agricultural practices, particularly when it comes to monocultures, annuals, hybrids, let alone unnecessary tillage. To paraphrase Wes Jackson, “The plow share has destroyed more options for future generations than the sword.” On a related note, I’ll also point to an excellent article by Michael Pollan, as a forward to Grass, Soil, Hope: A Journey through Carbon Country by Courtney White. Moreover, check out The Solutions Project. That latter site has more substance than perhaps its web-design polish indicates: it’s about the work by Mark Jacobson, et al., on how to power the planet via renewables now while mitigating hurricane damages, etc. One would think that the reinsurance revenues alone would justify a significant investment. In any case, these three links point to the fact that any emerging “dialog of despair” about global warming, etc., is purely FUD. Much can and will be done.

Phylo, the trading card game

I’m particularly grateful to be associated with O’Reilly Media, which provided OSCON attendees with a nice treat in their schwag bags: Phylo, a trading card game. Its gameplay emphasizes endangered species, climate change, food chains, and other environmental pressures. “Phylo is a project that began as a reaction to the following nugget of information: Kids know more about Pokemon creatures than they do about real creatures. We think there’s something wrong with that. Apparently, so do many others.”

In a related development, check out Nerds Without Borders: “We are looking for all sorts of people to help: Engineers, Scientists, Writers, Artists, Dreamers, Activists, Organizers, Fundraisers, Financiers, etc…” Starting with use of IoT sensors and cell phone networks to protect sea turtle hatchlings. Good stuff.

Looking Ahead

Another fun follow-up from Foo Camp and OSCON: getting to talk with Scott Jenson about his work on The Physical Web at Google. Check out his preso, Why Mobile Apps Must Die. The big idea is a kind of “micro-DNS” for low-cost digital tagging of physical items that can be accessed by mobile devices. No app installs required.

In other news, Trafodion was recently released as open source by HP. The name is based on the Welsh word for “transaction”. If you recall about Tandem Computers and NonStop, this product line has a long history of tech innovations – for highly reliable, highly optimized real-time SQL at scale. My uncle retired from Tandem, and lately I’ve spent time with the Trafodion team and am quite impressed. This release brings an interesting new level of Enterprise robustness to real-time transactions+analysis atop Linux+Hadoop. One to watch.

Another to watch closely is The Distributed Developer Stack Field Guide by Andrew Odewahn, Courtney Nash, Mike Loukides, et al. This is a GitHub-based book from O’Reilly. If you see any points in there that need editing, embellishing, etc., then two words: pull request, for the win.

In terms of upcoming events, registration is now open for Data Day Texas 2015, and I’m really looking forward to that. Will be teaching Spark at Scala by the Bay in SF on Aug 8–9, speaking at #MesosCon in Chicago on Aug 21, followed by another Spark course in Chicago on Aug 25.

Flashbacks

I’ll close with a look back to a 1990 Documentary about Cyberpunk. That provides a good summary of what we up to in the early 1990s with Mondo 2000, bOING-bOING, FringeWare, WiReD, The WELL, Turkey City, etc. Tim’s monologue around 15:30-ff is hilarious – both because of his ever-optimistic “There will be mass democracy in the streets” miss, and how much it contrasts with just about every other major point coming true within 25 years. Warning: gratuitous F242 clips, throughout. Time marker 27:11 shows what I was doing as a vendor at many, many raves… Meanwhile, check out a recent bOING-bOING article Alien Autopsy: William Barker on Schwa, two decades later for some of the more astute counterpoint about what was really going on, then and now.

That's the update for now. See you in Chicago with San Diego on the event horizon!

shared memory: humdog

News came today that a long-time friend had died over the weekend: Carmen Hermosillo, aka "Humdog". I am very sad to hear. She is dearly missed.



Humdog generally kept Skype running on her computer all the time, which now shows "last seen on 2008-08-12 11:18 GMT-7". Someone must have turned off her computer just then.

Thinking back, it must have been about 1991 when I first "met" Carmen online, on The Well when I first joined as part of the editorial staff at bOING-bOING. Writers enjoy heady discussions, and Carmen had a knack for turning discussions on their head. She also had the most incredible ways of steering a group online.

More recently, I hired Carmen as a researcher for my team at HeadCase. Perfect for the job, she thrived in that role. There was one point, when the company was first getting started in 2006... Humdog tried to get each of the managers to read a particular article. Everyone replied, "Wow, great, but I'm really too busy now on a certain business planning document, blah blah, will catch up later, etc." As it turned out, that article broke news about virtual worlds which turned our first draft business plan inside out, but in a good way. Some of us finally listened to Carmen, in time to make necessary changes.

Oddly enough, Carmen and I never met in person until the final HeadCase team meetings in July 2008, held in San Luis Obispo. My hometown provided a beautiful, relaxed setting -- our first and last meeting in the physical world.

During most of the 1990s, I was privileged to lead a rather scruffy gang of media explorers called FringeWare. Humdog had a definitive role on our magazine's masthead and an exuberant voice in our online forums.

Among those who formed the core of FringeWare, Humdog becomes the first of us to go to our ancestors.

wash warm, tumble dry

Some time ago, I became fascinated by the use of sentence fragments and fractional grammar in English. One observes this especially on product packaging in the US.

For example, consider the statement:

shake before opening

WTF!?! Does that indicate that one must tremble prior to unfolding? Just what do all those fragments tell us?

On a related note... My first laptop was a Mac PB180, which I bought new in 1994. What a workhorse! Anywhooo, I used to lug it around everywhere. And when I encountered a new sentence fragment used on a product label, I'd pop open the PB180 and quickly make a note. Had one hell of a list of them going back then, which we used repeatedly in the production of FringeWare Review magazine.

This is the point where I must apologize to some of my friends from that period, for all the times I'd pour through their cabinets and pantries, searching for novel product packaging grammar. In particular, someone I was dating at the time was rightly most embarrassed by this behavior. Sorry, V.

Several years and many disk crashes later, I've lost that original monster list o' sentence fragments. But recently, I started a new one. Hopefully it'll grow over time.

Limited time offer.
Subject to change without notice.
Restrictions may apply.

schwa meets darpa

Engadget ran a story today entitled "US Army to arm UAVs with xenon-based paralysis inducer". The article describes that technology as a "non-lethal crowd-control device".

Wikipedia's entry for Schwa describes it as the "underground conceptual artwork" of Bill Barker. A true original among the popular alien image fetish / conspiracy theory "parody" themes of the 1990s. One of Bill's original serigraphs for Schwa hangs on my wall. We had lots of fun working with Bill at FringeWare, especially for the cover of FWR #5. That issue was our first to sell through completely, though I've stashed away a box or two for posterity.

Bill's first pitch to me about Schwa was that it was a government conspiracy for alien UFOs to use Xenon-based technology for non-lethal crowd control. In other words mass media brainwashing. Holy shit! Apparently somebody at DARPA was actually listening to us back in the 1990s. Either that, or Bill knew more back then than he could ever say in words. I'd bank on the latter.

BTW, Wikipedia states that Bill has been "MIA" since 2001. I've talked with him since then. More like doing fine while avoiding the paparazzi.

01/11 - rip dear raw

won't shed nary a tear
knowing that you're laughing
from the other side.

http://robertantonwilson.blogspot.com/2007/01/raw-essence.html
http://www2.blogger.com/profile/06504517528789477168
http://subgenius.com//bigfist/pics13/RAW/index.html

your not-so-gentle prodding as "mark cruise" on our FringeWare email list, and those $23 worth of margaritas at the airport may be dearly remembered.

greenling

I prefer my food slow, local, and organic.

Eating at restaurants too often - in other words, more than a few times per week - just does not feel wholesome to me. Eating fast food often at all just feels wrong.

For one thing, I cannot stand the size of portions which are typical at American restaurants. It's absurd. A friend of mine in Japan remarked that it's great when he visits because he can just order one meal and then carry home another entire meal!

The amount of fat, the horrid condition of ingredients, the excesses in packaging - all of these factors make restaurant food unlikely for me, except for really good meals, which are probably 4x food cost anyway and not what I'd care to buy other than for a special treat or a social gathering outside a home.

I prefer slow food. I love to cook at home - and spent a whole bunch on building a nice home kitchen. After those early years where I earned my keep as a cook at times, and after so many fun evenings hosting dinner parties - or "FringeWare Fridays" back when we had the bookstore in the late 1990s - a meal cooked by a stranger just doesn't necessarily sound fun.

Ah, but where do all those lovely ingredients for fine home-cooked meals come from?

There has been a notion of CSA and excellent farmers markets around Austin for a long while - quite appealing. Several years ago I met the couple who run Tecolote Farm... imagine getting a basket of fresh, locally, grown organic vegetables delivered to your doorstep weekly. Then imagine having to wait on a list for a year or two! Alternatively, the Austin Farmer's Market is a treat - I enjoy taking my daughters there on the weekend. For that matter, Austin is the headquarters for both Central Market (which I adore, admittedly corporate but supportive of locals and independents) and Whole Foods (which I detest, ultra corporate green-posers aka "Hoalf Udz"), and the area features some wonderful natural food co-ops. We even have an organic farm inside the city - Boggy Creek Farm, which has sustained since the years when Austin was the source for most fresh spinach in the region.

As a home cook, I've been a fan of growing veggies, herbs, raising chickens, etc., since I was a kid... Growing up on the Central California coast, I had not questioned the idea of "slow food"... Local seafood was abundant - each week we ate the abalone which my uncle couldn't sell from his catch. Many of the neighbors were from Portuguese families which had immigrated there, largely for the fishing - and they showed up everbody when it came to fixing seafood well! Local farms featured fresh berries, apple orchards, all kinds of vegetables - especially artichokes - and fresh dairy. We used to buy a side of beef for the freezer, selecting a steer out on the ranch... ranches tended by families who had gained the land 200 years earlier as Spanish land grants, or often some Swiss-Italian immigrants who brought Tyrolian styles. And of course, what wasn't ranch or farm was soon to become wall-to-wall vineyards, with soil and microclimates approximating a range from Burgundy to Tuscany.

Moving away from SLO, I found the rest of the US held no such values. Especially in Texas, where a "meal" seems synonymous with a drive around the block to Whataburger.

There have been exceptions. One chef transplanted from France to Austin - Jean Luc Salles - teamed up with Boggy Creek Farm to feature local, organic vegetables in season at his bistro. I was lucky enough to catch Salles and author Carol Ann Sayle from Boggy Creek give a cooking course at Central Market, and I highly recommend Sayle's cookbook Eating in Season.

Of course, all of this requires extra time and effort, and probably would seem obscure to people who don't share my values (or half-French blood?)


Which is why I've been stunned to find the wonderful value of a new service called Greenling. They take the notion of "CSA" plus home delivery and cooking foods in-season - and bundle it into a family-oriented package. Wonderful. It convinced my wife, and is convincing my neighbors - about as fast as they hear about it. Greenling delivers an ice chest of fresh vegetables, plus extras - each 1-2 weeks. For our family, we've chosen 2 week intervals at first, but we're switching soon to weekly. We get a surprise selection of in-season produce from local organic farms. We manage our delivery account on the Greenling website, and can take on extras like organic dairy, honey, etc.

We're forced now to cook at home, using whatever is seasonal and local. It's delicious. I'm actually learning to love okra again. We've reduced our trips to the grocery store (I have mixed feelings, because I love to shop at Central Market, but I appreciate burning less fuel to drive there.) We've been sharing with neighbors and friends.

The idea of a CSA is great, but the close pairing of one farm to a set of subscriber families - it comes out a bit awkward. With a service like Greenling, there can be some economy of scale, some buffering and variety, by incorporating producer/consumer relations between many farms and many residences. I could imagine this kind of service hanging around the farmers market just about when it closes - to bid on what's left over.

More importantly, one could imagine this kind of service going national. Soon.