Author Archives: schrodt735

How open source software is destroying Fordism 

Posted on August 7, 2022 by schrodt735

What is Fordism? In present-day economic theory Fordism refers to a way of economic life developed around the mass production of consumer goods, using assembly-line techniques. A few large companies came to dominate the key sectors of the economy, they … Continue reading →

Posted in Ramblings | Leave a comment

Seven thoughts on neural network transformers

Posted on July 28, 2022 by schrodt735

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.Arthur C. Clarke. (1962)[1] So, been a while, eh: last entry was … Continue reading →

Posted in Methodology, Politics, Programming | Leave a comment

Advice to involuntarily remote workers from someone with [almost] seven years of remote experience

Posted on March 12, 2020 by schrodt735

As I’ve alluded to at various points—see here, here, and here—I have been working remotely since leaving academic life almost seven years ago. I had, in fact, been planning an entry on how I believe remote work is going to … Continue reading →

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Seven reflections on work—mostly programming—in 2020

Posted on January 13, 2020 by schrodt735

Reading time: Uh, I dunno: how fast do you read? [0] Well, it’s been a while since any entries here, eh? Spent much of the spring of 2019 trying to get a couple projects going that didn’t work out, then … Continue reading →

Posted in Methodology, Programming | 1 Comment

Seven current challenges in event data

Posted on March 13, 2019 by schrodt735

This is the promised follow-up to last week’s opus, “Stuff I Tell People About Event Data“, herein referenced as SITPAED. It is motivated by four concerns: As I have noted on multiple occasions, the odd thing about event data is … Continue reading →

Posted in Methodology, Programming | 1 Comment

Stuff I tell people about event data

Posted on March 5, 2019 by schrodt735

Every few weeks—it’s a low-frequency event with a Poisson distribution, and thus exponentially distributed inter-arrival times—someone contacts me (typically from government, an NGO or a graduate student) who has discovered event data and wants to use it for some project. … Continue reading →

Posted in Methodology | 1 Comment

Instability Forecasting Models: Seven Ethical Considerations

Posted on February 20, 2019 by schrodt735

So, welcome, y’all, to the latest bloggy edition on an issue probably relevant to, at best, a couple hundred people, though once again it has been pointed out to me that it is likely to be read by quite a … Continue reading →

Posted in Methodology, Politics | 3 Comments

Yeah, I blog…

Posted on September 13, 2018 by schrodt735

A while back I realized I’d hit fifty blog posts, and particularly as recent entries have averaged—with some variance—about 4000 words, that’s heading towards 200,000 words, or two short paperbacks, or about the length of one of the later volumes … Continue reading →

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Happy 60th Birthday, DARPA: you’re doomed

Posted on September 6, 2018 by schrodt735

Today marks the mid-point of a massive self-congratulatory 60th anniversary celebration by DARPA [1]. So, DARPA, happy birthday! And many happy returns!! YEA!!! That’s a joke, right? Why yes, how did you guess? A 60th anniversary, of course, is very … Continue reading →

Posted in Higher Education, Methodology | 1 Comment

What if a few grad programs were run for the benefit of the graduate students?

Posted on July 16, 2018 by schrodt735

I’ve got a note in my calendar around the beginning of August—I was presumably in a really bad mood at [at least] some point over the past year—to retweet a link to my blog post discussing my fondness for math … Continue reading →

Posted in Higher Education, Methodology | Leave a comment