Quincunx via Processing (Sorta)

For my ICM final, I forecasted a month ago, collision was definitely the path that tortured me…again and again. The end result was about 80% there, but definitely didn’t do what I wanted. Thwarted again by Processing…the story of my semester.

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The Canon and The Lady Tasting Tea

In taking this class, I really gained an appreciation for authors who can write about statistics and methodologies well. The gold standard is Huff’s How To Lie With Statistics and dead last in the heat was The Canon. I actually found that book dreadfully dull and couldn’t get anywhere before I gave it up. The faux-naivete of the writer/narrator was totally noxious to me and I couldn’t stand to continue.

Another book more intriguing (but also with its faults) was The Lady Tasting Tea. I found myself torn about the book. On one hand, it was pretty fascinating to find out how a lot of the statistical theories and methodologies evolved over time. But the book also devoted way too much time in my opinion to the personal lives of some of the towering figures like the Pearsons and Fisher. I thought Gosset was the more interesting of the four and would have loved to read more about him.

How To Lie With Statistics

One of the first readings for the class was the amusing How To Lie With Statistics. I definitely got the sense while reading it that it had to be the Freakonomics of its day, with the same irreverent tone I know from those book and the blog. How to lie with statistics is a fairly simple task. It mostly involves presenting facts in a misleading visual style so the reader will be drawn to the false supporting conclusion the author is going for.

The book was a very quick read and entertaining, even if some passages were definitely dated (i.e. the “good” salary of the Ivy-educated man which approached the low $10Ks).

Melancholy: The Movie

Melancholy: The Movie from Candice on Vimeo.

As typical of most of my projects, my initial idea was pretty ambitious. I started off with wanting to create a track — actual singing and adding background effects, then combining that with a video footage and animation. The story line was about living life being chased by ghosts of the past. Once I realized that all of that is quite a bit to accomplish in a week, I reconcepted and came up with the idea of Melancholy.

I shot a lot of footage in places I spend most of my time: the initial setting is Trophy Bar in Williamsburg where I have a drink on their drink board in tribute to my regular status, then the Broadway G stop that I pass through often, and finally my apartment/building. The self-created sample idea was replaced with using a song I already knew. I was initially planning to go with “Mojo Pin” by Jeff Buckley,  but it didn’t invoke the sense of angst I wanted to get across. The audio clips were selected mainly from old movies (Gone With The Wind, Jezebel, All About Eve) and one more recent favorite (The Truth About Cats and Dogs). They went from sad/despairing in the beginning to ending on a hopeful note. The visuals were meant to be dark and the blurry, jerky movements to indicate a crazed state of mind.

It wasn’t a total success, but I like how it came out.

Human Subjects Certification Exam

Part of our class assignments was to venture into the world of social sciences at NYU and take the Human Subjects Certification Exam offered by the University Committee on Activities Involving Human Subjects aka UCAIHS (try to say any of that 3x fast!).

It’s all about understanding the ethical way to do research involving human subjects and the certification means you’ve got a good handle on what you need to know. I passed on the 2nd try with an 84 (got a 72 the first time around), so I’m apparently qualified enough to torture people at will. Yay for me!