hacklab.to

Quantified Self is a really cool movement of people doing self tracking using technology — for example, one might use a device to monitor their heart data or when they’re at home, and then analyze it. One idea several people around the lab have been toying with is applying these ideas to organizations one is a part of. Just like individuals can benefit from Quantified Self by gaining objective information about themselves, organizations may be able to similarly benefit. (We admit, our motivations mostly boil down to: data  is cool and graphs are pretty.) The natural place to begin, of course, was with hacklab!

We (Sen and Chris) were really excited about this and have done some initial analysis. Hacklab (like, we think, most hackerspaces) had a lot of sources of data laying around, waiting to be analyzed:

• doorbot (in my opinion, our gold mine)
• Google Calendar
• IRC Traffic
• Twitter Traffic
• Mailing List Traffic
• Blog Hits
• Hacklab Public Computer Activity?

So far, we have only worked with the doorbot data.

Activity Levels

Unless the door has been unlocked, entering Hacklab requires one to use a small fob, unique to each member. The program responsible for processing these, doorbot, will unlock the door if it detects a member. It also logs the entry in a database. This is a valuable source of data about activity at the lab, but there are a number of ways in which it can be flawed. If a member works on a project on the side walk outside, they may enter and leave a number of times in a matter of minutes, but this doesn’t actually mean there was more activity. On the other hand, a member may enter along with another or on when the door is unlocked, making them invisible. Furthermore, Fob’s may be reassigned over time, and we have no way to know who the former owner was. The first concern is mitigated in the following data by considering only the number of entries by unique members each day.

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Mark your calendars: Monday the 27th will be Toronto’s third RepRap User Group Meetup! We’ll be meeting at hacklab (location info) at 7pm! Bring your RepRap/Makerbot/3D printing awesomeness!

Meet your fellow RepRap enthusiasts! Share knowledge, learn about the awesome things people are doing, and have a great time!

Everyone interested in 3D Printing is welcome. People who are being driven insane by their obsession with the awesomeness of 3D printing are strongly encouraged so that they can benefit from contact with the similarly afflicted.

I’m super excited to have this happen and am really looking forward to seeing you there!

You can read a post about the second TRUG meetup on digital crusader. You can optionally sign up at eventbrite (this will make it easier for people to get in touch with you after the event).

On Saturday Feb 11th, I’ll be teaching an Introduction to Python workshop. It will go from 10am to 4pm, with a break for lunch.

Python is a popular programming language, known for its simplicity, ease of use, and elegance. An excellent language to start programming in.

We’ll cover some basic programming concepts. What that will include will depend on how fast we go :)

Please RSVP — we have limited space!

We just has hacklab’s first Burrito Night. It was a massive success.

Yay Burritos!

I organized vegetarian ingredients, Eric organized chicken, Nick brought Jalapeno peppers and Daniel lent us his grill/press. Our expenses were 40 dollars for generic ingredients and 6 dollars for the chicken. We made 65 dollars, after expense that left us with 19 dollars for hacklab. Yay!

Haskell is an awesome purely functional language that I’ve been becoming more and more obsessed with in recent months. I consider it to be the most elegant language I’ve ever worked in and want to introduce more people to it!

So, on Monday, August the 8th, 7pm/19:00 I’ll be teaching an introduction to Haskell workshop! Come and learn about laziness, type classes and (the awesome power of) monads!

Please note: This is not an introduction to programming class. You will not be able to follow along if you don’t have experience programming. I am planning to do a day long weekend Introduction to

Programming/Python workshop sometime in the near future that would be much more appropriate for you.

(Sorry about the late notice. I posted to discuss and then forgot to put up a blog post.)

Update: And it went awesome! There was a much bigger turn out than I expected. Here are some notes:

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On Monday May 16th, 19-21:00, I’ll be doing an introduction to transfinite numbers. Topics will include:

• Cardinals and Ordinals
• Cantor’s Diagonalization Argument
• The Continuum Hypothesis
• Transfinite Induction

Transfinite numbers are really cool, since, well they deal with infinity, don’t match your intuition’s about infinity, and have a tendency to drive people insane!

Unlike previous math workshops, there is no prerequisite knowledge for this workshop. It should be lots of fun! I hope to see you there.

On April 25th, at 7pm/1900, I will be doing an integral transform workshop. This workshop will introduce ideas like convolution and the Fourier Transform (and possibly L² Spaces, the Laplace transforms or Fourier Series). Examples of applications will include solving PDEs.

Integral Transforms and the Fourier transform in particular are very powerful ideas. The Fourier transform changes from looking at functions in terms of amplitudes at points in time to amplitudes at frequencies. It has applications to audio and image processing; see examples of what it does to these images (though note that the author is using discrete 2D Fourier transforms, which are a little different from what I’ll be showing).

They’re also very useful in ODEs and PDEs, making them invaluable in physics, including electronics.

NOTE: You should know what derivatives and integrals are if you intend to come to this workshop. I’m really sorry, but I simply won’t have time to teach introductory calculus and cover this material. And it isn’t nice for people who do know calculus if I try to do so.

I’m going to be running an openSCAD workshop on April 4th at 19:00.

OpenSCAD is a lot like a programming language except that instead of compiling into software it compiles into a 3D object. You have if statements, loops and functions. For a lot of purposes, it is way easier than using traditional 3D modeling software.

For example, it’s what the Hacklab RepRap is being developed in.

No reservations are necessary. It would be preferable for you to install it before coming (Ubuntu Users: there’s no package in the archives but you can use this PPA).

I hope to see you there!

I’m happy to announce that I’ll be running an introduction to LaTeX workshop on February 7th. What is LaTeX? LaTeX is a text markup language; instead of typing in word processor like MS Word or Open Office, you type in plain text and then compile it to a format of you choice, such as PDF. Unlike HTML, LaTeX is not terribly cumbersome to type by hand.

LaTeX is the industry standard for math and science publication. Look at a random math paper or book, at you can be very confident it was written in LaTeX. But LaTeX is also capable of doing many things other than writing papers, including slideshows and posters. Here’s an example, a sideshow I made in grade 11. As another example, I made this image in LaTeX for digimer.

This workshop is only an introduction. By the end you will be able to create simple documents and typeset equations. If there is time and interest, I will go into how to make slideshows and the basics of diagrams.

This workshop is open to everyone — that includes non-members. It will start at 7pm.