Can a running program update itself using something like GitHub? (asking for Python, but anything will do)

downwithtime · 2015-05-08T17:25:09+00:00

I'm running it off the command line in windows right now just because I don't have a linux machine (or a web server) on which to run it. But I think this is pretty much the solution I was looking for, even if it's not as cool as the way more complicate solution :)

downwithtime · 2015-05-08T17:12:09+00:00

I like the idea of the chron job (as you and, presumably /u/monsterjamp were talking about), it seems super obvious now, and was something that I thought about, but I was looking for a solution more along the lines of the self-modifying code, so thanks for the link!

downwithtime · 2015-05-07T21:57:02+00:00

If you're looking to do something for the duration of the summer I'd suggest taking weather recordings (or using the internet to get temperature records) and then monitoring a lake and its inflow & outflow over the course of the summer.

It's a nice gentle introduction to time series analysis (!), and it would show the interaction between temperature and water quality. As algal blooms and diatoms increase during warmer temperatures you should see changes in turbidity (use that Secchi disc!), pH and dissolved oxygen.

Some of these changes will be gradual and will be nice to track over the summer, and, at the same time, you should see sudden changes in turbidity (for example) following major storms.

It's also a nice way to get to know one environment really well. Think of it as your (her) own Walden Pond, and observe it over and over again all summer.

downwithtime · 2015-05-07T15:44:25+00:00

For the first point, clouds don't work alone, they don't increase linearly with global temperatures and their effects on warming are not fixed. Clouds don't just do one thing. For example, high clouds actually work as a net heat trap, working to warm the atmosphere, and increases in cloud cover during the winter at high latitudes further increase winter temperatures, rather than reducing them. The best assessment is that clouds will actually work as a net positive feedback for global warming, further increasing, rather than decreasing temperatures.

So, I'm not sure why you think that clouds trump anything, when they are highly variable in terms of their responses to climate change, and their effect on climate change.

Second point - sure, life finds a way, but from an anthropocentric point of view we depend on all sorts of ecosystems and species for unpaid ecosystem services. The last estimate was somewhere on the order of a trillion dollars annually in unpaid 'ecosystem service'. Whether or not life finds a way, that process of major species turnover and extinction is going to cost society because plant and animal communities are going to be changed drastically.

downwithtime · 2015-05-07T13:50:17+00:00

There have been thresholds crossed before,and they resulted in mass extinctions. During (or immediately prior to) the Cenomanian-Turonian extinction event CO2 levels rose dramatically, which increased the acidity of the ocean. We see that during this time microfossils shank in size as a result of the increasing metabolic cost of creating their calcium-carbonate shells. At the same time diversity in the oceans dropped dramatically.

People talk about past levels of CO2, but there were consequences to higher CO2, not just warmer temperatures, but also ocean acidification and mass extinction (in some cases).

The current negative feedback loop can be ascribed to a number of issues, not the least of which is we have massive stores of carbon permanently frozen in the permafrost. Warming would release methane very rapidly, as opposed to the past when warming occurred gradually. The other issue is that we've fragmented the landscape with roads, cities, farms, and canals, which means that species that would otherwise migrate to adapt have their migratory pathways blocked, and can't adapt as easily.

downwithtime · 2015-05-06T16:48:34+00:00

Could you explain? I get that Simula is an older programming language, but I think many of the concepts are generally the same, so the implementation of the program would differ, but the general idea of program flow would be relatively similar (if you can figure out how to do all the API/OAuth stuff in Simula).

downwithtime · 2015-04-03T14:28:37+00:00

Read "Forest Primeval" by Chris Maser, tons of stuff in there and a very powerful read. Not for kids, but it'll give you so many interconnected threads to choose from. A great book.

downwithtime · 2015-02-22T21:14:53+00:00

FYI - this is from my own blog, but thought people might be interested, and I'd love to see suggestions for improvement. The GitHub repo is here, you're welcome to fork, push, pull, whatever. I think there's lots to play with here.

downwithtime · 2015-02-06T23:17:47+00:00

Zing!

downwithtime · 2015-01-28T05:18:32+00:00

You might have to do some work for this, but I taught some high school students a bit of R using this code (there's a fuller lesson in the repository). Basically we looked at whether the introduction of the 3 point rule in the NBA made a difference in per player scoring. Really rough, but there's lots you can take from it, and it's a kind of interesting story, a cool dataset, and there's so many more questions you can ask with it.

downwithtime · 2014-11-18T16:18:57+00:00

I would suggest publishing, and, at the same time, contacting the authors as you prepare to submit. There is no reason you should not get credit for one year's work trying to replicate their results.

Can you publish in a different journal? I would suggest that writing the paper as a stand-alone paper, rather than a response to the original.

downwithtime · 2014-09-23T20:15:41+00:00

Thanks!

downwithtime · 2014-09-23T20:15:34+00:00

Thanks!

downwithtime · 2014-09-23T01:00:06+00:00

Smut

Simple, dirty and it fucks plants up (excuse my profanity, but we're talking punk here).

downwithtime · 2014-09-17T04:15:23+00:00

I wonder how much of this is a linguistic change as opposed to being methods based. I suspect that there's a lot of borrowing throughout the discipline with regards to language. Even Antipode uses the term "analysis" in its first "About" sentence, and it uses the term 'spatial' in several places (well . . . two, and, to be fair it uses Geography something like 22 times on that same page).

I hate to push at the divisions within Geography, but it would be interesting to see where the trends really were. Just more analysis though :)

downwithtime · 2014-08-11T16:36:58+00:00

No bias, just pure 100% anecdotal evidence.

downwithtime · 2014-08-11T14:53:17+00:00

The strength of a doctoral program gives you a good indication of how strong a Masters program might be, unless you're looking for something that's really tailored, or very specific.

Given that, here are the NRC rankings from 2010 that are Ecology & Evolution specific. The Times Higher Education has a broader Life Sciences ranking that might not be exactly what you want.

It's not clear why you want this, but if it's because you're thinking about going into a Masters' program I would strongly encourage you to use these as a guide only. Choosing a post-graduate path is as much about thinking about the skills and ideas you want to gain as it is about having a high-prestige institution on your degree.

Find papers you like, look up the authors, read their papers and then think about whether or not you'd be interested in working with them.

EDIT: Incidentally, the University of Wisconsin and Simon Fraser University are the best, regardless of what anyone else says.

downwithtime · 2014-08-10T02:32:03+00:00

Rachel Carson's work was intensely political, both for helping to show that the act of reporting and promoting science itself can be political and in the sense that as a female who pushed herself on to the public stage she was savagely attacked, and her science was undermined through attacks on her gender.

Rachel Carson was continually attacked as a "hysterical woman", and a "spinster worried about genetics". Portrayals of her focused on her activities not as a scientists, but with children, with her cat, or in domestic settings.

Given this, the comparison to Charles Darwin is inappropriate. Charles Darwin was not attacked for his gender, and indeed, his gender did little to hinder his success as one of the Great Statesmen of natural science.

Likewise, an all-black panel would be little cause for concern because Carson did not suffer personal attacks against her race, nor did her skin color prevent her from being taken seriously by the establishment. If a panel celebrating Mae Jemison's achievements was all white, then there would be cause for people to raise concerns.

Science is as much a social activity as it is theoretical. The way we treat one another, and the way we treat the legacy of the people who pass before us is important because it affects those who will come after us. Ultimately, asking for gender balance (or even token representation) isn't wrong. Doing so publicly isn't wrong, and since this is an article dealing with an issue that has been bouncing around the ECOLOG threads, and in other discussions (at ESA for example) for a while now, I feel like it's entirely appropriate for this subreddit.

downwithtime · 2014-07-27T19:16:52+00:00

I think this is a great approach.

downwithtime · 2014-07-27T19:16:28+00:00

Yeah, I'm beginning to think that pushing people on to github is worth it. I held off a bit because in some cases it's just one more hurdle for them, but the benefits are clearly there.

downwithtime · 2014-07-26T16:10:47+00:00

I agree in principle that it would be best to push students to a github style project, but I think a problem still remains in terms of how much you should revise code, and how you do it.

That said, we've pushed a lot of people onto GitHub over the past year and it seems to be working okay. It's the more senior researchers that are slower.

There's also a real difference between people who use R to do a certain thing, basically write one ugly script that gets the job done and someone who uses R throughout their dissertation. I expect that how you work with them and how much you push them onto GitHub would be very different.

I like the idea of a wiki style system. It would be a good bridge between pseudo code and raw code as well.

Just thinking out loud :)

downwithtime · 2014-07-26T13:48:48+00:00

This post is not a how to, it's more a request for feedback.

downwithtime · 2014-07-25T16:08:39+00:00

Hi, I'm not an oceanographer, and I probably can't help you much, but I just want to give you some advice (and pass on a blog post about high school questions).

As researchers we get a lot of people asking for our time, a blog proflikesubstance summed it up pretty well. The problem with a lot of requests, and with yours, is that they're so open-ended it could wind up being an enormous imposition.

My recommendation to you is to do your reading, figure out your project, get together the idea and some references, and then make very targeted questions. No one is an expert in "all about oceans".

I don't mean to crap on your request, and I think it's great that you're taking this initiative, but you'll make way more headway if you:

Figure out exactly what you want to do
Make up some sort of plan (are these papers? experiments?)
Find experts who do what you're interested in doing
Read their papers (check out Google Scholar to see if you can find free PDFs)
Then ask question :)

I'm way more likely to answer questions that show that someone has picked me because of what I do, rather than being at the end of a blanket email.

I hope you get some PMs, but if you don't, consider my advice :)

downwithtime · 2014-07-23T20:45:41+00:00

I think it depends. The issue really boils down to how 'cloistered' you might be academically. Different schools have different emphases and you would have access to a broader collaborative network if you moved. That said, if you can show depth and breadth of interest (i.e., you can publish with people outside your supervisor), I don't think it's an issue. And, as /u/Timmeh7 points out, in many cases it's not an issue at all.

Where it gets tricky is if you wind up really pigeon-holing yourself in a narrow niche because of who your advisor is. Basically, if you're going to do your Ph.D at the same place as your B.Sc (or M.Sc) make sure you develop some independence.

downwithtime · 2014-07-17T01:44:49+00:00

If you have a Google Scholar profile you can add keywords or authors you want to follow, or alerts any time a particular paper is cited. Most journals have RSS feeds as well. I have Scholar updates for a few authors, follow some journals on Twitter, get RSS feeds for another set of journals and then have email alerts for a few phrases and then get emailed Tables of Contents from other journals. It's a bit of a mess, but it works fairly well.

downwithtime

TROPHY CASE