- Jamie Raskin, American University law professor, November 2004 on the Democracy Now! radio program

Flickr user sandymichelle

Just this past Sunday I had to kill my television – in the best sense of the word. You know: denounce, unrecognize, and the such. It was really stealing away any free (and productive) time that I had. I mean, the idle brain cells spin out of control and zoning out in front of TV after a long day of work leads to: not caring about what you eat, not thinking critically about other great things in the world, not spending ol’ fashioned time with your family or friends. (Lots of great, original articles about Killing Your TV)

I remember about 4 years ago when I came across a similar “Turn Off Your TV” site online in the form of a podcast. And the 2 people were talking on and on about trans fatty acids. I was so compelled as to what they were saying I remember typing as fast as I could to take notes and replaying parts and looking up health terms and the such. Learning. Critical thinking. Sharing. I went on to write an article in the paper at my school and was excitedly telling everyone about my findings. I continued to look up more and more information – I was addicted to knowledge. Just a few minutes ago, I just finished my meal of baked chicken, couscous, and black bean soup with tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and garlic. And I know that most of that motivation to eat healthy as I do today came from that little audio finding 4 years back. Now it allows me, 4 years later, a chance for me to just sit and enjoy a meal – in peace and quiet – and experience the flavors of life one by one. Hmm, there was life before TV.

I kept running past the idea that parents talk to their kids about 28 minutes a day while the average adult watches 2.5 hours of television per day. Hmm. What are we doing to ourselves? Now, I’m not being anti-fun here, entertainment is great, and I make it through most of my day with a humorous outlook on life. But I see people ignoring food as they eat, sitting silently among family or friends, just gazing. Paying lots of money – to be advertised to constantly and have this machine suck away brain cells.

Flickr user janz87

I also came across someone who said – if aliens came to visit us and checked out the layout of our homes, they would think the television is some sort of god of ours, as our entire houses are arranged around the careful placement of the television set. And then comes the arguments about using a DVR to save time. Of course, it is better than just mindlessly watching channels and surfing without barriers, but there are other ways to go about getting your fix without paying a crapload (ahem). But I can think of many better things to do anyway! I don’t think you’ll lose sleep at night or have regrets on your deathbed – just wondering and wishing that you you had watched more TV.

Flickr user chrisdonia

On another note, it is awesome to see change and progress going on all around the world, from the recent election all the way down to the small world of fire protection engineering. Every time I watch one of the videos about technology and change in this era – I get all giddy and warm on the inside. It’s true.

There’s a giant conversation going on. And it doesn’t depend on power or money or anything. Just a passion – a want. I think of how one person that I know revamped and forever changed the world of fire modeling by utilizing a couple of free tools to bring together thousands of users who were all previously working in dark corners. I think of how a few scratches I made on a notebook one night turned into a tool that hundreds of fire model users use every week – and I think of the next step, and the next, constantly progressing. I think of those that are “too busy” to participate in this movement and think this is only for nerds and computer people – and how bad I want them to participate.

I came to the conclusion that the two ideas I speak about here are interrelated. Apathy and social sloth. Here’s what I think: no one is any more busy than anyone else. Some of us just want something more strongly than others. And that used to be okay, praised even – when the dark corners were predominant. But now, everything is public – the world pushes upon itself.

Don’t be “too busy” watching TV or sitting out on this big movement – wherever you are or whoever you are. This is big. Join in anytime.

Related posts:

1. Remove that reading examinee from the airport
2. Don't let the sun go down on your grievances
3. The Daily Priority

Related posts:

1. 18 minutes with an agile mind – video
2. On equal access to knowledge for all… on net neutrality
3. How to remove yourself and your thoughts from this world

Well, I happen to think that it not only affects your daily pursuit of knowledge and you work in whatever field you are in, but it also greatly affects the way we work together as a society, create and bring new ideas into fruition, and nurture successful generations to follow.

Last Thursday, the FCC held a public hearing on net neutrality. 5 commissioners from the FCC joined and heard from leading public scientists, network operators, and entrepreneurs. 2 commissioners were in support of network neutrality, 2 against, and one neutral (pun intended). Also, Comcast and many other carriers were invited to the hearing; however, they declined.

Here is the video from the hearing as well as other snippets on the topic:

Jason Devitt, CEO of Skydeck, testifies at the FCC Hearing

Law Professor Lawrence Lessig on Net Neutrality and the Rise of Google

From Barack Obama’s address at Google

You’ll notice I stuck a button on the right of my site in support of net neutrality. I’ll be calling my senator and representatives on Monday morning to let them know of my support of net neutrality and a new Act working its way through the House of Representatives. I urge you to do the same. It is critical to recognize that issues such as Verizon winning the FCC spectrum auction to Microsoft’s OOXML as a international standard to Comcast breaking fundamental ethical and technical ways of the internet are of utmost importance to our current age, culture, and political era.

In the end, regardless of the specific topic at hand, be cognizant of those trying to disrupt and block the progressive movement that is before us. Especially when it involves profit rather than progress. Especially when that blocking impedes our societal learning, sharing, innovation, creativity, and global and equal access to information for all.

Related posts:

1. 18 minutes with an agile mind – video
2. Passionate and Artful Communication in Science
3. The Arrival of Collaboration in Fire Protection Engineering

[Used from KPRC video click2houston.com]

Fire. It’s what I do. And I happen to subscribe to Google News alerts that have “Houston Fire” in the title. Helps me keep in touch with the fire. It also helpingly disturbs me as to what actually goes on outside of the classroom. Really, it’s quite a good way to keep yourself thinking and valuable if you are stuck with that stagnant smell of your job or classes.

Lots of fires happen everyday. Apartment fires always happen. A lot. Three apartment complexes burned to the ground within 48 hours over the past weekend. And then some. This is what I see:

Residents Say They Heard Gunshots Before 3-Alarm Fire

Blaze damages second apartment complex in 24 hours

Fire erupts at SW Houston apartments

Apartment Blaze Damages At Least 16 Units

Apartment fire sends 5 to Hospital

Yes, those are the most recent stories in my warm and cozy feed reader.

When is legislation going to get off of its ass and move at the pace that the rest of us do? When is enforcement going to follow? Sure, I guess we all are biased to the field that we are in and think that it is the most important thing in the world. But seriously, people are dying and losing their homes in the midst of an ocean of politics and code books wasting valuable daylight.

[Picture used from myFoxHouston.com]

A lot of the time, I am an optimist. I see what change has followed the positive move of a community-based and collaborative internet (see video in previous post) in other industries. And then I imagine progress and change happening in our daily lives. I dream of governmental processes being way more open and community-driven than we are used to. I can watch it in real-time, play-by-play happening with larger corporations – as they break down due to the epidemic spread of knowledge and awareness. And I imagine a world where fire sprinklers (technology that has been around for 130 years) and other fire safety systems make fire protection engineers obsolete before my industry has even had a chance to get popular and prestigious.

I suppose what I am saying is that I toil my soul, expand my brain, and work every breathing moment that I can, day-by-day on prediction of fire, contribution to the robust knowledge that we have on fire/combustion, and working using my technical skills. All of this to allow fire documentation, analytical and numerical tools, and scientific information to be available to all people around the world: engineers, scientists, students, and so on. Why? I’d say, in this century and society, I do it to contribute. And I think if just a few other key people did the same, our fire, death, and loss of home problems would vanish at amazing and mind-blowing speeds.

P.S. This thought process isn’t just limited to my field of fire science, but I write about it because it is what I do. Think about your field for a second. Finance, safety, technology, whatever it is. Mentally apply success to the field by working on and tweaking the top 3% of the people, systems, or methods that are in use now. Realize that these top 3% are there due mainly to tradition, and did not get there due to community-driven work.

Keep working at it. Align your work with your values. The change will happen. I’ll be waiting.

Related posts:

1. The Arrival of Collaboration in Fire Protection Engineering
2. A Glance Into the Minds of Care Homes
3. Updates on welcomed unstability

It’s a long, slimy article, I know. But if you can take time out of your day to read it… well, time out like time out to watch the previous video I posted, you know. Speaking of time, it tends to dilate depending on what you are doing – there is some correlation there based on how uncomfortable I feel before I do something versus how satisfying it is. We humans are built weird like that.

In other news, I took the Fundamentals of Engineering exam on Saturday, and wow. I cannot discuss the questions and stuff there lest NCEES sues me and makes me homeless, but that was the hardest thing that I have taken in my life. It was at the George R. Brown Convention Center with what looked like 800-900 students and, according to the NCEES stats, about 560 future engineers. I would show pictures but any phone or camera device would have you banned from the building and have you $130 lighter for no good reason. Anyway, about the test: this is why you have to kick ass in school, students. The test is the connector to the reality that is real-world problems.

Otherwise, I am off to sleep for another night. This week I will be working on a cross-platform launcher for Fire Dynamics Simulator, since the command line scares or hinders our users. In Python, of course. Python and Fortan, the story of my life.

Related posts:

1. How to remove yourself and your thoughts from this world
2. Updates on welcomed unstability

Stuff like this gives me a warm feeling of why I am so attracted to the fields of science that I am. Something tells me that this man doesn’t fret too much about the trivial stuff that we sometimes get trapped up in day to day. Click on the picture to watch. Enjoy.


http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2008/04/09/must-watch-18-minutes-with-an-agile-mind/

By the way, watch out for loose gravel! – I wiped out on my motorcycle gracefully right at this spot near UHD. Everything is okay with me minus a brake pedal that needs to be bent back into shape and a slightly bent handlebar that with bother my OCD.


View Larger Map

Related posts:

1. Why Do I Chase Fire? (and video)
2. On Breathing In Distinct Steps
3. Passionate and Artful Communication in Science

Along the way during the past month, I have sifted through hundreds of websites and quite a few beginner books. So here, I would like to share the links that I found most helpful in my quest for Python knowledge. As far as my past experience, I’ve dabbled in many other languages such as MATLAB, HTML, Fortran, C++, Java, Perl, and so on but never really grew to master a single one or use it in my daily life.

So, without further delay, on to the list:

Before You Start With Python

1. Python.org – I couldn’t make this list without including the main Python site. There is just a great amount of information there. Plus everything I link to can probably be found there, but my list is only those resources that really helped me along in my learning experience.
   
2. Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years – Article by the director of research at Google – A great overview of programming and learning to program, all the while avoiding the ides presented by the “Learn to program in X days” books.

Excellent Python Tutorials

1. Dive Into Python – This is one of the first tutorials that I read about Python, and it gave me an excellent overview of the language. It really broke down the code line-by-line, but it still reads like a mix between a reference guide, a cookbook, and a tutorial. It’s a freely available book and should definitely be within quick reach as you learn Python.
2. How to Think Like a Computer Scientist – This is by far my favorite tutorial in the entire list. I like this (freely available) book because of its plentiful and challenging exercises! I am usually picky when choosing textbooks on a new subject, and I will almost always get the book that has the most examples in it. I spent most of my time creating my own programs at the end of each chapter, and really got a feel for the language (and a nice sense of accomplishment!) at the end of each chapter. Highly recommended.
3. Python Videos at ShowMeDo – There are over 100 videos at the time of this posting over a wide range of topics. Anything from how to open a Python session to namespaces and more. It was nice when starting out to just sit and watch someone who knew what they were doing do routine tasks, and it helped to ground basic concepts before jumping in on my own. Don’t forget to thank the creators of the videos with a comment!
4. Learning to Program – This is one that I am going through last, because it gets into a bit more in depth discussion about basic and moderate topics. Very thorough.
   

Beginner Exercises and Projects

1. How to Think Like a Computer Scientist – I just HAD to list this again, because it goes at just the right pace and the exercises are well thought out. I am convinced that I really learned about 80% of my Python basics here when I put them to practice. Learn by doing!
2. Projects for the Beginner – Python – This is a thread on a forum with over 100 ideas for programs. Use this when you are low on inspiration but high on ambition!
3. Python Challenge – Neat implementation of puzzles that can be solved with Python scripts. They get harder as you progress levels. You might want to hit up the Python Challenge after getting a good hold on the basics and after you have many of these other links open in other tabs.
4. Useless Python Challenges – This site should be visited after you have finished all of the trivial Python exercises and projects. When you are self-sustaining on the language and eagerly looking for some projects to do, but are hitting a writer’s block for programs, go here.

Beginner Forums and Lists

1. Python Forum – Beginners – Not a very high traffic forum, but they have a beginners subforum with 15-30 posts per day, just enough to keep you busy. I find it helpful to attack the problems that other beginners are facing. And if you come up with a good solution, post it and help others while you learn. Everyone wins!
2. Learning Python Blog – One of the few “learning only” Python blogs. It is always good to see information shared from others while they learn. Sort of like this list.
3. Python Tutor Mailing List – I only recently signed up for this, but I must say that there are some very knowledgeable and helpful people on here and it keeps the Python information coming at you via email. Seems to be quite a few students on here and you will most certainly learn something with each email thread.

Interesting Python Projects and Libraries

1. Django Project
   
2. TurboGears
3. Google GData Python API – This is an amazing API from Google that allows you to interact with Google Calendar, Docs, Maps, Youtube, Notebook, and so on. It is very easy to install and use and I look forward to developing with this in the near future.
4. wxPython – GUI toolkit for interface development. I haven’t gotten to GUIs yet, but everywhere I turn I see references to wxPython.
5. matplotlib – 2D plotting library that produces very nice looking graphs. Supports many, many types of graphs and is very customizable.
6. SciPy – A collection of Python tools and modules for use in science, engineering, and mathematics. This is the light at the end of the tunnel for me and I hope to get more involved with this library as I progress with my Python learning.

Editing Tools and Shells

1. iPython – An enhanced Python shell that seems geared towards science, engineering, and high performance computing.
2. TextMate (Mac OS X) – This is such an amazing editor that I must list it here. I didn’t use it at all before I started with Python, and now I simply cannot go without it. I had previously heard it described by programmers as a magical tool, but I had no idea. It does autocompletion based on previous words, syntax highlighting for a ton of languages, has a quick and easy-to-read method to execute Python scripts. It is perhaps the only non-free item in my list, but very much worth it!
   
3. TextWrangler (Mac OS X) – This is what I used for a couple of years… until I discovered the greatness of TextMate a few weeks ago. TextWrangler is free though if you wish to use it.

Other Resources (References, Packages, Hosting)

1. Python Library Reference – Huge list of explanations about Python’s Standard Library. Made to help you discover the power of Python in your everyday programming.
2. Python Webhosting – List of webhosts that offer Python solutions on their webhost. Python can be run on most hosts via CGI, but these wiki pages explain exactly how they implement Python usability. Plus I found out about the cool idea of HCoop cooperative web hosting through this list; this is the host on which you are reading this blog.
3. Python Package Index – Directory of Python packages that you can learn about, download, and use in your own programming. Don’t reinvent the wheel!
4. Python Cookbook Code Samples – This is a directory in the same vein as the previous listing, but the solutions to problems are presented as code with user comments. As of now there are over 2000 recipes.
5. The Daily Python URL – Just as it sounds. News about Python in compact form.

Again, while there are many, many other resources for learning Python, this is a list of my personal favorites. These are the specific sites that have been very helpful and impacting on my venture to learn Python. So while I may not have listed a particular item – I probably saw it, but didn’t get much from it at this time.

Finally, you must forgive me if I got some detail wrong. I am learning, after all! Hopefully this list will help new and moderate Python users to utilize some of the best (and free!) Python resources that others have put up for all to learn from. Thanks to those people who shared their knowledge. And have fun with Python!

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1. How to install PyObjC, pygame, and gasp on Mac OS X for Python tutorial
2. The clarity of Python vs. the cloud of Perl
3. Python ImportError with backend_wx2.8 and wxPython when using Matplotlib

http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/

However, when I got to chapter 8, my fun stopped right away. The author refers to a Python library called GASP (Graphics API for Students of Python) and gives an example and case study of a small game. The thing is, he doesn’t tell you how to install the module and it abruptly interrupts your lovely Python learning experience.

http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/ch08.xhtml

I tried to use easy_install to install most of these, and it always ended up failing for some reason or another.

As I am using Mac OS X Leopard, I will provide the missing instructions for how to get the gasp module installed (and its dependencies) for anyone else who runs into this situation:

How to install PyObjC, pygame, and gasp on Mac OS X

1. I assume that you have already installed some version of Python; I am using Universal Python 2.5 from http://www.pythonmac.org/packages/ which is a nice, easy-to-install package and has other prebuilt packages like numpy, wxPython, matplotlib, etc. ready to be installed. You can see other ways to get Python on your Mac at http://wiki.python.org/moin/MacPython/PythonDistributionsForMac
2. You will need to install PyObjC, which is also available as a package from http://www.pythonmac.org/packages/ under the 2.5 link.
3. Now, you will install pygame from a package (pygame-1.8.0rc4-py2.5-macosx10.4.mpkg.zip) available at http://rene.f0o.com/~rene/stuff/macosx/. This is linked from http://www.pygame.org/download.shtml
   
4. Finally, we get to the part of installing gasp, which is confusing to find in itself. The FAQ page is at https://answers.launchpad.net/gasp-code/+faq/42 but the link to download is wrong. Get it from https://launchpad.net/gasp-code/+download. You will want to download the Code Release which is currently called python-gasp-0.1.1.tar.bz2.
5. Extract the bz2 file and there will be a folder inside called gasp. Copy this folder to the /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/site-packages/ directory and you will be in business!

   This is the command that I used: sudo cp -R ~/Desktop/python-gasp-0.1.1/gasp/ /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gasp

6. Open a python session and type import pygame and import gasp to make sure that they are installed correctly.
7. Carry on with the great tutorial linked above!

I found it odd that the beginners tutorial left out all of this information. Hopefully this will save someone the two days that it took me to find all of these links, packages, and methods.

Related posts:

1. The Golden Resource List for Python Beginners
2. The clarity of Python vs. the cloud of Perl
3. How to compile CFAST on Mac OS X and Linux

The book is good and has nice pseudocode examples throughout. It also has a companion website with all of the algorithms programmed in C, FORTRAN, Pascal, Maple, MATLAB, and Mathematica. For our assignments, we can use any program that we want, and I have been using MATLAB, FORTRAN, and Python as those make the most sense to me thus far in my computing experiences and are the most useful for my work.

However, the FORTRAN 77 programs on the website are programmed in such a way that they only work when using a FORTRAN compiler in Windows. At this time, my primary machine is an Apple Macbook Pro laptop, and I am using the Intel Fortran Compiler version 10.1 on OS X Leopard. When I try to compile the programs from the textbook website, I get errors. So, I went ahead and fixed the files so that they would work on with the Intel compiler on the Mac, and hopefully Linux as well.

The two problems were that:

a) The programs were trying to read and write to ‘CON’, which is a Windows specific way of writing to the command window console.

b) The programs had an extra line at the end and would crash the Intel compiler.

So, I fixed these errors in all of the programs and you can download the corrected files in .zip format from me and follow the instructions below to compile.

The original files are freely available from the author’s website here

Step 1: Download the above linked zip file of the corrected FORTRAN 77 programs

Step 2: Unzip the FORTRAN files. You will find several files with the .FOR extension.

Step 3: Run the Intel FORTRAN compiler using the command: ifort -f77rtl -o <outputname> inputfilename.
For example, to compile example 12.1: ifort -f77rtl -o alg121 ALG121.FOR.

Step 4: Make the output file executable with: chmod +x alg121

Step 5: Run the file with ./alg121

Step 6: Be sure to answer the first Y/N question with the y or n character in quotes, such as “y” or “n”

Step 7: Have fun learning numerical methods and dissecting the FORTRAN programs!

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1. How to compile CFAST on Mac OS X and Linux
2. The Big Move to MA
3. How to install PyObjC, pygame, and gasp on Mac OS X for Python tutorial

While I am not a programming newbie, my skill level sits somewhere in the moderate area as I have been exposed to many different programming languages at the beginner level. So when I look for programming tutorials, it leaves me somewhere between the beginner books and websites that assume that you barely know how to “download your camera to your PC” and the other side of the spectrum of which the tutorial looks about as exciting as a book of log tables:

(Flickr user quimby)

That being said, that leaves us moderate programmers who want to learn – stuck at a good and bad part of our learning experience. The part where you need to practice about every day writing real-world scripts over and over and over. So, after many weeks of lagging through with Python and putting off script writing, I attacked my first real Python program. It seems really trivial and would probably be one of the first few homework problems assigned in a programming course – but I will document my learning process nonetheless for the other moderate programmers that are out there.

Why Python? I chose Python after dabbling in each language and reading way too much information on each one and finally just trying them out for myself. Which language would be able to match my high-level idealistic mind but still be practical enough to have some power and force behind it? Well, take a look at my example program below. I wanted a program that would take in values from a CSV (comma-separated value) file, loop through a template file, and output new text files with the data from the CSV file’s rows in each output file.

For the more visually oriented:

I actually had my roommate last summer help me out with a Perl version of this program, and for comparison, here it is:

#!/usr/bin/perl

if(@ARGV < 2)
{
print "Usage: extractData <csv> <template>\n";
exit;
}</template></csv>

my ($file, $templateFile) = @ARGV;
my $lastTest = "";
my $templateString = `cat $templateFile`;
open DF, "&lt; $file";

while(<df>)
{
my $line = $_;
next unless($line =~ m/(^IT)|(^\,)/);
my ($test, undef, undef, $tray, undef, $cabletype) = split /\,/, $line;
$test = $lastTest if($test eq "");
$test =~ s/IT//g;</df>

$lastTest = $test;

print "test: $test; tray: $tray.\n";

$test = sprintf("%02d", $test);

(my $toPrint = $templateString) =~ s/TEST/$test/g;
$toPrint =~ s/TRAY/$tray/g;
$toPrint =~ s/CABLETYPE/$cabletype/g;

my $outFile = "CAROLFIRE_IT_" . $test . "_Tray_" . $tray . ".fds";

open OF, "&gt; $outFile";
print OF $toPrint;
close OF;
}

close DF;

Then, here is the version that I wrote last night using Python:

"""Module docstring.
Usage: python fdscsv.py <csv> <template> <output>
"""</output></template></csv>

import csv, sys, os, re

arguments = sys.argv
input = csv.reader(open(arguments[1],"r"))
template = open(arguments[2], "r")
lines = template.readlines()
counter = 1

for i, j, k in input:
output = open(arguments[3] + str(counter) + ".fds", "w")
for line in lines:
output.write(line.replace("IREP,JREP,KREP",(str(i) + "," + str(j) + "," + str(k))))
counter += 1
output.close()

Now, I realize that the function of the scripts are slightly different while the primary CSV functionality that I illustrated above still remains. I am not going for a line-by-line comparison here. I do want you to just look over the code and see which one makes more sense to your mind. For me, the Python is so easy to read and almost natural to understand while the Perl takes some serious brainpower for me to decode.In conclusion, I just wanted to show where I am at in learning the Python language. It really is enjoyable at this point for me when compared to learning Perl, which was just painful for me. So I hope to add to the resounding praise of Python by posting these examples for other programmers who may be stuck in the intermediate phase of their learning and need a little push of motivation to continue on.

Finally, if you are interested in what the Python code is actually doing, here is my commented version. Thanks for reading.

"""Module docstring.
Usage: python fdscsv.py <csv> <template> <output>
"""</output></template></csv>

import csv, sys, os, re

# Reads the arguments into a list
arguments = sys.argv

# Reads in the input csv file using the module csv
input = csv.reader(open(arguments[1],"r"))

# Reads in the template file
template = open(arguments[2], "r")

# Splits the template file into lines
lines = template.readlines()

counter = 1

# Labels the columns for the data read from the csv and loops through the lines in the csv
for i, j, k in input:

# Opens a new file with the user-input name plus a counter and an fds extension
output = open(arguments[3] + str(counter) + ".fds", "w")

# Loops through each line in the template file
for line in lines:

# Replaces strings in the template file with numbers from the csv file
output.write(line.replace("IREP,JREP,KREP",(str(i) + "," + str(j) + "," + str(k))))

# Increments the counter for the filename
counter += 1

output.close()

Related posts:

1. How to install PyObjC, pygame, and gasp on Mac OS X for Python tutorial
2. Updates on welcomed unstability
3. The Golden Resource List for Python Beginners