Saturday, June 15, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
The War on ... Everything
A nation is logically only able to declare war on another nation, not on an idea.
Nation versus nation: that's fair. Nation versus idea: that's absurd. It's like asking: "how heavy is a second"?
In war there is a victor and the defeated, the war ends, and to the victor go the spoils. When a nation wars with an idea, the war never ends. The War on Poverty is forty-eight years old! How's that workin' out fer ya? The War on Drugs - under many names - has been going on for a hundred years in one form or another, and by that name in particular for four decades. At what point does an idea win or concede defeat?
The War on Poverty, the War on Illiteracy, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the War on Gender Inequality, the War on Racism, the War on War. Who benefits?
Nation versus nation: that's fair. Nation versus idea: that's absurd. It's like asking: "how heavy is a second"?
In war there is a victor and the defeated, the war ends, and to the victor go the spoils. When a nation wars with an idea, the war never ends. The War on Poverty is forty-eight years old! How's that workin' out fer ya? The War on Drugs - under many names - has been going on for a hundred years in one form or another, and by that name in particular for four decades. At what point does an idea win or concede defeat?
The War on Poverty, the War on Illiteracy, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the War on Gender Inequality, the War on Racism, the War on War. Who benefits?
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Cyprus
The European Union is imploding, falling under the weight of debt. Portugal, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Spain: all need to be bailed out, because they've borrowed too much money and can't afford to make interest payments. Now Cyprus needs to be bailed out, to the tune of 17 billion Euros, equivalent to the entire yearly Cypriot economy. They are frantically trying to prevent a run on their banks, and just passed three laws that basically hand over banking to Greece (!). This is all in the hopes of getting a bailout on better terms than were offered by the European Central Bank, which would have stolen money from anyone with savings in the banks. A lot of those with savings in Cypriot banks aren't Cypriots; there's lots of Russian Mafia money squirreled away there.
You do not steal from the Russian Mafia. Henry Hill can explain what happens next:
You do not steal from the Russian Mafia. Henry Hill can explain what happens next:
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
a contour map for open office calc
I switched from using Excel to Open Office a few years ago. I like the OO package - it works very well and it's free. There is only one problem with it, which has been bugging me for years. There is no way to make a 3D contour map in Calc. There are lots of 2D chart visualizations, and 3D versions of those 2D charts, but no way to display a 3D surface from a table of data. This is something easily implemented in Excel, and a glaring deficiency in Open Office Calc.
However, I still need that functionality. It occurred to me that a 2D map can use color as a representation of a third dimension. The greater the number of colors available, the finer the resolution on that third dimension. A table of data could be searched for the minimum and maximum values, and the difference divided by the number of colors gives a range of values for each color. A second table is then made from the first table, with a color number in place of the original data. Finally, a third table is made from the second table, with a colored square in place of the color number.
This is made possible using the STYLE() and CHOOSE() functions. First, set aside a section of worksheet (or start a new sheet) and change the background colors on a number of cells. I chose to use 32 colors, and arrayed them in a spectrum:
The names of each color is listed; on your worksheet you may want to change the text color to match the background color in each of these 32 cells. The spectrum above isn't perfect, and you might want to switch the colors around a bit or use different colors - just make something that is pleasing to your eye.
Once you have this spectrum, click on a colored cell and then press the F11 key. This will bring up the Styles popup. Create a new Style for each of the cells, and give it a short name (the left column shows the names I chose, C00 through C31). Repeat this for each of the colored cells so you have 32 Styles.
When you have a table you want to display as a color contour map, you need to convert your original data to color numbers. I have 32 colors in my spectrum, so the minimum value on my table gets the color number 0, the maximum value gets color number 31, and the others are in between. I used a linear formula to convert my table values to color numbers, but there is no reason that couldn't be logarithmic or some other conversion formula. It's up to you.
Once the intermediate table of color numbers is generated, the third table of the actual colors is easy. Let's suppose that the top left corner of my color number table is cell BA3, and that I'm putting the top left corner of my contour map at B3. If I just wanted to put color number 0 in that cell, the formula for B3 would be:
Next, copy and paste this cell across the remainder of the row of the table, then copy and paste that row all the way down the table. Presto! You now have a color contour map of your data in ooCalc.
However, I still need that functionality. It occurred to me that a 2D map can use color as a representation of a third dimension. The greater the number of colors available, the finer the resolution on that third dimension. A table of data could be searched for the minimum and maximum values, and the difference divided by the number of colors gives a range of values for each color. A second table is then made from the first table, with a color number in place of the original data. Finally, a third table is made from the second table, with a colored square in place of the color number.
This is made possible using the STYLE() and CHOOSE() functions. First, set aside a section of worksheet (or start a new sheet) and change the background colors on a number of cells. I chose to use 32 colors, and arrayed them in a spectrum:
The names of each color is listed; on your worksheet you may want to change the text color to match the background color in each of these 32 cells. The spectrum above isn't perfect, and you might want to switch the colors around a bit or use different colors - just make something that is pleasing to your eye.
Once you have this spectrum, click on a colored cell and then press the F11 key. This will bring up the Styles popup. Create a new Style for each of the cells, and give it a short name (the left column shows the names I chose, C00 through C31). Repeat this for each of the colored cells so you have 32 Styles.
When you have a table you want to display as a color contour map, you need to convert your original data to color numbers. I have 32 colors in my spectrum, so the minimum value on my table gets the color number 0, the maximum value gets color number 31, and the others are in between. I used a linear formula to convert my table values to color numbers, but there is no reason that couldn't be logarithmic or some other conversion formula. It's up to you.
Once the intermediate table of color numbers is generated, the third table of the actual colors is easy. Let's suppose that the top left corner of my color number table is cell BA3, and that I'm putting the top left corner of my contour map at B3. If I just wanted to put color number 0 in that cell, the formula for B3 would be:
= STYLE("C00")However, I want to choose from one of 32 possible colors. The CHOOSE() function can only choose from up to 30 possibilities, so I needed to trick Calc a little bit. Here's the revised formula for cell B3:
= IF(BA3<16; STYLE(CHOOSE(BA3+1;"C00";"C01";"C02";"C03";"C04";"C05";"C06";"C07";"C08";"C09";"C10";"C11";"C12";"C13";"C14";"C15")); STYLE(CHOOSE(BA3-15;"C16";"C17";"C18";"C19";"C20";"C21";"C22";"C23";"C24";"C25";"C26";"C27";"C28";"C29";"C30";"C31")))
Next, copy and paste this cell across the remainder of the row of the table, then copy and paste that row all the way down the table. Presto! You now have a color contour map of your data in ooCalc.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
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