Uh this seems to be the thing to do so hi everyone I'm new here. As my name implies I like math. Mostly I like my fiance @idiomie who is pretty great.
NUMBER THEORY I LOVE. Stats I like too a little less than number theory but well enough that I'm starting working to a master's in it come later this month. I did enjoy the little bit of Fourier Analysis I got to do in undergrad. Beyond that I kind of just like doing cool shit with algebra and arithmetic.
Welcome! Same hat. Are you a fan of the adventure zone by any chance? Because if so we have a thread for that kicking around in the fan town subforum somewhere, as well as a more general DnD thread I think.
GOD YES, I need to catch up on a couple of the most recent episodes but beyond that I keep up with it.
What do you think of the new campaign? For me I don't think anything will top Balance but I'm loving the adventures of the Pine Guard so far :D
Oh god it's wonderful. I knew I loved it the moment the test run happened to be honest. Like. The others were cool and I was thinking about what I wanted most and the Griffin just fucking drops this nuke on the table and goes "what do you think". And oh my GOD I am so excited to learn more about Sylvain (is that spelled right? I'm not checking) and Aubrey and the Abominations and just fuck, dude, it's so great.
Yes I can’t wait to hear more about Sylvain (I’m pretty sure that’s right)!! I’m really psyched that it’s apparently not another universe but another, very distant planet. Seems like Griffin has a thing for fantasy that turns out to actually be sci-fi.
Yay math! I, too, enjoy statistics. It's basically the only math that comes up in my program (disasters). Welcome!
The official program is 'disaster science and management.' The classes are, like, sociology and some earth science and some urban affairs, with GIS thrown in for flavor. The statistics was actually geared at urban affairs and public policy stuff, and mostly focused on data literacy and how to 1) use SPSS to analyze massive slews of data and 2) tell when people are bullshitting you about their numbers.
Oh nice! That sounds really cool. Minus the spss but that's a personal opinion. Do you have any particular areas that you're interested in?
Lol, what do you have against SPSS? Aside from the GUI that's like 2010 Microsoft Excel with extra buttons for features that are half deprecated. The project I'm on - which has consumed my entire life and which I just described in a chat as 'reaching for the holy grail while crying' - is doing an agent-based model of evacuation from a fire, using sociological inputs and validating it with the reams of interview data we have, trying to make a predictive tool. Also trying to look at when group dynamics break down. I initially got into it because it was a job, but now it's probably going to be my thesis and then also the basis for my dissertation. I also like looking at the role of public libraries in disaster recovery, but I already published that paper and so am kind of done with it.
Mostly the fact that it's an infinitely more expensive and less useful and less intuitive version of jasp as well as the fact that r exceeds it in utility by miles when you learn how to use it. I love that description, and that sounds really interesting, what are you trying to predict exactly?
Ah, yeah - the expense doesn't come into it, thankfully, as I need it for my job and the grant is covering it. Thanks! Like, the overarching project (which is mostly engineers) is trying to predict exactly what will happen to buildings and cities in disasters, including compound disasters like hurricanes + accompanying flooding. My component of it specifically is predicting how people will act - what they'll do, who they'll prioritize, where they'll end up. I'm starting with fire, because we have this massive, extensive dataset that's been heavily studied, and then I have a second large dataset to test against for predictiveness (plenty of people have validated models, but only for that one fire, doing it with two is what I'm going to be proposing for my thesis). And then the PI wants me to move on to tsunamis, but honestly I'm pretty sure we don't have good quantitative datasets for tsunami evacuation, and trying to get one will be an exercise in frustration and awfulness and arguing about cultural variation. But first I need to get the bugs out of this program and actually get it running. . . . haha, sorry, this is your intro thread, but I tend to ramble about my project almost literally forever at the hint of a drop of a hat. It's fun stuff!
Oh no please continue to ramble. I asked because I wanted to know. And this is absolutely interesting.
