Introduction to Dynamical Systems and Chaos (Summer, 2016)
About the Course:
In this course you’ll gain an introduction to the modern study of dynamical systems, the interdisciplinary field of applied mathematics that studies systems that change over time.
Topics to be covered include: phase space, bifurcations, chaos, the butterfly effect, strange attractors, and pattern formation. The course will focus on some of the realizations from the study of dynamical systems that are of particular relevance to complex systems:
Dynamical systems undergo bifurcations, where a small change in a system parameter such as the temperature or the harvest rate in a fishery leads to a large and qualitative change in the system’s
behavior.
Deterministic dynamical systems can behave randomly. This property, known as sensitive dependence or the butterfly effect, places strong limits on our ability to predict some phenomena.
Disordered behavior can be stable. Non-periodic systems with the butterfly effect can have stable average properties. So the average or statistical properties of a system can be predictable, even if its details are not.
Complex behavior can arise from simple rules. Simple dynamical systems do not necessarily lead to simple results. In particular, we will see that simple rules can produce patterns and structures of surprising complexity.
About the Instructor:
David Feldman is Professor of Physics and Mathematics at College of the Atlantic. From 2004-2009 he was a faculty member in the Santa Fe Institute’s Complex Systems Summer School in Beijing, China. He served as the school’s co-director from 2006-2009. Dave is the author of Chaos and Fractals: An Elementary Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2012), a textbook on chaos and fractals for students with a background in high school algebra. Dave was a U.S. Fulbright Lecturer in Rwanda in 2011-12.
Course dates:
5 Jul 2016 9am PDT to
20 Sep 2016 3pm PDT
Prerequisites:
A familiarity with basic high school algebra. There will be optional lessons for those with stronger math backgrounds.
WordCamp Orange County is a great place to learn meet, talk, and immerse yourself in everything WordPress. From the absolute beginner to the hardest of hardcore developers, WordCamp Orange County will have something for you.
WordCamp Orange County is going to bring you two tracks of sessions and workshops to satisfy designers and developers, bloggers and beginners, business owners and burgeoning writers. Are you ready for the summer?
July 9-10, 2016
The camp sold out in just hours a month and change ago, in part because it was limited to about 200 people given the fantastic space provided by UC Irvine’s Advanced Innovation. There aren’t many spaces one could go with such spectacular amenities and support in addition to a huge plethora of screens, recording equipment, and audio/visual supplements. Thanks for hosting us Applied Innovation!
Sadly the limited space meant that some people missed out, and the most unrepresented group was likely new users who may not have heard about it in time to get tickets. However, this didn’t mean that anyone else was underrepresented: there were attendees of every ability, age (10 months to over 90), race, sex and creed. I was honestly astounded by the diversity of people in attendance.
One of the multiple food truck options over the weekend
One of the best programming decisions was having food trucks show up to cater lunch, which kept everyone close and socially engaged rather than dispersing everyone to the wind by means of forcing outside food options.
Sadly, even knowing that Sundays are always slower than Saturdays, there were 2-3 empty rooms with no sessions at all on Sunday afternoon. I wish there had been some type of offering to assist in putting together impromptu sessions or BoF sessions in these empty rooms. Alternately doing a beginner build track on Sunday and releasing “Sunday only” tickets might have been interesting and also better utilized the space.
Below are some thoughts on the individual sessions I attended. Most should be on WordPress.TV shortly and nearly everyone was posting slides.
This was a great quick introduction to most of the basics of WP Core and at just about the right time as I’ve been wanting to delve more directly into portions for a few projects. I’d definitely recommend the slide deck once it’s posted. This was one of my favorite sessions of the weekend.
This was one of the more entertaining sessions and had more conversation back and forth than any camp session I’ve ever attended. Sadly it stayed to the basics and in a room which seemed to have some more advanced participants, I wish it had gone further.
This was mostly what I expected, but included some additional tips that I didn’t know existed. In particular, knowing that I can provide formatting for others when they oEmbed my site is something I’ll have to look into.
This was a nice start to some intro information on talking about design patterns, but I would have preferred something at the intermediate or advanced level. In particular, it made me consider some quirky potential new visual grammars for mobile use (particularly in advertising). It also inspired me to think about creating a disorenting experience built on the visual/time grammar of the movie Inception.
Aaron was a fun and very dynamic speaker who obviously truly loves his topic. This was by far the best session I attended over the weekend. I want to try to get Elastic Search and ElasticPress set up on my site soon as it looks like what modern search should be on a website.
I’m somewhat shocked I’d never thought of doing this myself before, but just knowing the concept exists is more than half the battle. The sad part is that it sounds like for half the stuff you get for free, one needs to rebuild or re-engineer something else to get it working.
Andy is a practicing physician and a great WordPress “hobby-ist” who drove in from Palm Springs to give a great overview of the philosophy of Open Source and a broad range of tools used to help further that goal. One can’t help but be affected by his enthusiasm.
For a session meant to be primarily entertainment, I was actually surprised to learn about coding/development by hearing a panel of others critique four plugins. Condensed down, this could have been a session on the intangible things one would want to think about before building a plugin.
Since they’ve already made a Call for Speakers for the LA camp, I’ve already submitted the following talk application which focuses on the IndieWeb:
The IndieWeb is a people-focused alternative to the “corporate web” which has recently been covered in Wired, Fast Company, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Newsweek, and Slate. It encourages everyone to own their own data/content, be better connected to engage with everyone, and provide users with more control of their content and identity online. With the rise of social media silos everyone is seemingly incentivized to split up their online identity to participate in multiple various communities and a variety of platforms which are often bought out, shut down, or simply disappear, very often taking users’ data with them.
Why not allow your own WordPress site to truly be your primary hub online? Post your content on your own site/server so that you not only own it, but then, if you choose, syndicate it out to social media networks in a native and simpler fashion to take advantage of their network effects and engagement. Even better, new web specs like WebMention from the W3C (essentially a universal/internet-wide method of @mention) allow you to easily bring back comments, likes, and similar data back to your original post as native comments. You can now truly own all of the data and subsequent related data (comments) you place on most major social networks.
In this session we’ll briefly cover the basic history and philosophy of the IndieWeb movement before moving into more advanced topics like microformats, WebMention, IndieAuth, micropub, and a growing wealth of related tools which will be of interest to developers and designers alike. While primarily geared at individual users, these philosophies and techniques can be of huge value to writers/authors, bloggers, podcasters, and even businesses for drastically improving their reach and marketing efforts online while simultaneously saving them time and effort.
I spoke to a number of people over the weekend about some IndieWeb concepts and basics, but for those who can’t wait for more details, I’m happy to discuss more of the specifics at anyone’s leisure. If you’re really chomping at the bit, I’ll be at the WordPress Pasadena Meetup tonight and hopefully be setting up a Homebrew Website Club meeting in the LA area sometime in the next few weeks in anticipation of IndieWeb Camp Los Angeles in November.
Including Time Out, Time Further Out, Time Changes, Countdown: Time in Outer Space, and Time In, this series of albums commonly known as the Time Series from Dave Brubeck and the Dave Brubeck Quartet is a masterclass in how important time is in music as well as how it can evolve.
Here you’ll find Brubeck experimenting with time signatures including recordings of “Take Five” in 5/4 time, “Pick Up Sticks” in 6/4, “Unsquare Dance” in 7/4, “World’s Fair” in 13/4, and “Blue Rondo à la Turk” in 9/8.
This is a great way to spend the day/night when you have some active listening time.
UNAM Mexico City has an available free download of Carlos Gershenson’s 2007 text.
Complex systems are usually difficult to design and control. There are several particular methods for coping with complexity, but there is no general approach to build complex systems. In this book I propose a methodology to aid engineers in the design and control of complex systems. This is based on the description of systems as self-organizing. Starting from the agent metaphor, the methodology proposes a conceptual framework and a series of steps to follow to find proper mechanisms that will promote elements to find solutions by actively interacting among themselves.
Design and Control of Self-organizing Systems by Carlos Gershenson (2007)
The ability of humans to accumulate knowledge and information across generations is a defining feature of our species. This ability depends on factors that range from the psychological biases that predispose us to learn from skillful, accomplished, and prestigious people, to the development of technologies for recording and communicating information: from clay tablets to the Internet. In this paper we present empirical evidence documenting how communication technologies have shaped human collective memory. We show that changes in communication technologies, including the introduction of printing and the maturity of shorter forms of printed media, such as newspapers, journals, and pamphlets, were accompanied by sharp changes (or breaks) in the per-capita number of memorable biographies from a time period that are present in current online and offline sources. Moreover, we find that changes in technology, such as the introduction of printing, film, radio, and television, coincide with sharp shifts in the occupations of the individuals present in these biographical records. These two empirical facts provide evidence in support of theories arguing that human collective memory is shaped by the technologies we use to record and communicate information.
I know that there are lots of personal IndieWeb sites around, and even an indieweb site for a cat, so why couldn’t a library join the IndieWeb?
IndieWeb Core Principles and Libraries
Indeed, libraries are meant to store, protect, and help disseminate information. These functions alone should make them ground zero for the philosophies of owning your own data and making one more connected to their community which underpin the IndieWeb. Shouldn’t they? It almost makes me suspicious that all libraries aren’t part of the IndieWeb movement.
Now sadly, this particular library is ridiculously small, but that doesn’t make it any less important or special. If anything, it’s even more special now because Little Free Library #8424 (Adams Hill) is a proud member of the IndieWeb.
(And yes, for those interested, the library definitely also accepts Indie Book donations!)
[recipe title=”Slow Cooker Turkey Chili” servings=”15-20″ time=”8hr total; 1hr prep” difficulty=”easy” image=”http://i1.wp.com/boffosocko.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/1468784678.jpg” description=”A modifiable crock pot chili recipe”]
I always prefer a chili recipe with a higher proportion of meat, so this recipe goes much heaver in that department than most. Naturally, high quality ground beef can be substituted for the somewhat healthier turkey if preferred. The beans can be cooked in with the chili simultaneously, but I typically prefer to cook them separately for better doneness and quality as well as well as closer control of the overall soupiness of the chili.
[recipe-ingredients]
– 3 tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil
– 6 oz tomato paste
– 6 tablespoons chili powder
– 2 tablespoon ground cumin
– 3/4 – 1.5 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on one’s tolerance for heat)
– 3 pounds ground turkey (preferably dark meat), (could substitute ground beef)
– 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt
– ground pepper
– Two 28-ounce cans of (fire-roasted) diced tomatoes
– 1/4 – 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
– 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
– 2 tablespoon dried oregano
– 1 medium to large onion, diced
– 1 red bell pepper, diced
– 2 green peppers, diced
– 2 cups crushed corn tortilla chips
– 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
– 4 stalks of celery, finely diced
– 4 carrots, finely diced
[/recipe-ingredients]
[recipe-ingredients title=”Ingredients for pinto beans”]
– 3.5 cups of pinto beans
– 1/2 onion chopped
– 1 clove of garlic
– 1.5 teaspoon of bouillon (or 3 cups of chicken broth)
– 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
[/recipe-ingredients]
[recipe-ingredients title=”Optional ingredients for toppings and serving”]
– sliced scallions or 1/2 raw onion chopped
– shredded/grated sharp cheddar cheese
– sour cream
– chopped (pickled) jalapeno
– corn tortilla chips (or cornbread or white rice)
[/recipe-ingredients]
[recipe-directions]
– Bring the pinto beans, onion, garlic, and bouillon in a large pot with an equal amount of salted water to a low boil. Then reduce the heat and cook on low for 3-4 hours until done. Add additional water if necessary during coooking, but don’t allow the beans to become too soupy. Stir regularly to prevent burning to the bottom of the pan.
– Put the tomatoes, celery, carrots, onions, peppers, cocoa powder, vinegar, oregano, garlic, crushed tortilla chips, and a teaspoon salt into a covered 6+ quart slow cooker over low heat for 6 hours.
– While the above are beginning to cook, heat the oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat with the tomato paste, chili powder, cumin and cayenne and cook for about 2-3 minutes, stirring regularly, until the mixture is dark red and dry in texture. Add the ground turkey, previously seasoned with 1 teaspoon salt, and cook while stirring and breaking up into smaller pieces, until mixture is thoroughly combined. (The turkey doesn’t need to be cooked all the way through but should ideally be browned for better maillard reaction and subsequent flavor).
– When the oil, paste, and turkey mixture is done, mix it in with the tomatoes, celery, carrots, et al, and finish cooking. Stir occasionally.
– As the turkey/vegetable portion and the beans are done, mix them together in equal measure, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
– Serve with scallions, cheddar, sour cream, and pickled jalapeno over tortilla chips. (One could also substitute cornbread or even rice for the tortilla chips for alternate variations.)
[/recipe-directions]
[recipe-notes]
Optional cocoa powder may seem a bit out of place in most chilies, but it can serve two functions here: it adds some depth of flavor (without being chocolaty as one may expect) while simultaneously thickening the sauce in the chili.
The celery, carrots, onions, and peppers are all also optional: they can be used to enhance/modify taste, but also add to not only the overall heartiness, but make the dish more veggie friendly for children without detriment to flavor or presentation.
I suggest serving the chili on a bed of tortilla chips (which can also function as a makeshift spoon or eating implement), but it can also be great with cornbread or even served over rice as additional options.
Leftovers can be refrigerated or even frozen (for several weeks) if necessary.
[/recipe-notes]
[/recipe]
David Feldman is Professor of Physics and Mathematics at College of the Atlantic. From 2004-2009 he was a faculty member in the Santa Fe Institute’s Complex Systems Summer School in Beijing, China. He served as the school’s co-director from 2006-2009. Dave is the author of Chaos and Fractals: An Elementary Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2012), a textbook on chaos and fractals for students with a background in high school algebra. Dave was a U.S. Fulbright Lecturer in Rwanda in 2011-12.
