Nels Lindahl — Functional Journal

A weblog created by Dr. Nels Lindahl featuring writings and thoughts…

Category: Research

  • Progressing to more survey research

    This post is really just about my current thoughts on research.

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  • A multitude of paths forward exist

    A multitude of paths forward exist. We elect to use the time we have in different ways. 

    • Keep producing weekly research notes
    • Build independent study literature reviews
    • Consider what a return to teaching some online classes would require
    • Conduct quantitative research aimed at journal article publication
    • Refine my yearly manuscript creation process

    All of that consolidated effort could flow together. Nothing within that packaging would conflict. Right now I’m sitting within content staged until the end of June. Working ahead was a good strategy to allow me to review closely where I’m going and what I’m doing within the framework being used to push things forward. All of that output and effort has to be geared toward building something. It’s part of an overall research trajectory that paths toward something. Outside of that it would be no more than a sustained effort to muddle through the habit of writing. Output would be achieved, but collectively it would have no momentum toward anything. Objectives have to stand just outside the reach of the moment and some even beyond the next range of possible achievements.

  • Consider what research trajectories to really deep dive

    Yesterday I started to consider what research trajectories to really deep dive into this year. The next few weeks are going to be devoted to some literature reviews within the polling methodology space. That is an area where I want to dig in and see some contemporary research. I have some quality content written for the next couple of Substack posts, but that writing needs some time and attention to get it over the finish line. It’s the continued release of all these new models that keeps pulling my attention in other directions. Pacing these releases to any normal schedule would be impossible at this point. So many companies are trying to put forward chat enabled bots that it is nearly overwhelming. Right now I have been using the ChatGPT version from OpenAI and Google’s Bard. I’ll admit right now that the one that I interacted with over a longer duration was the OpenAI version. It has helped me write a couple of books that are passable. One on ethics in AI and the other about political debt. The one on AI ethics will show up in my Substack post today. 

    One of the things that I have considered a bit is how I’m picking titles for these weblog posts. Given that the only social media they are shared on is Twitter as a single tweet. Maybe I should be crafting the title of the posts as a stand alone tweet. Right now a title is simply selected from some interesting block of words (more than 3) that were written as a part of the post. Over the long history of this blog a lot of good titles have been used and now we are at a point where generating unique ones is a bit more challenging. To that end it has become easier to just select from text a passable title and move along with the writing project. Recently, I have been highlighting where the title came from in bold text to help make that title selection reality a little bit more obvious to the reader. 

    Tomorrow morning is going to be key in terms of recording and editing down a couple of Substack posts to get back on track in terms of a backlog. I had successfully worked ahead and now I’m back into a position where all the content that is complete will be published. Later today the last of the recorded and ready Substack editions will go out for publication. I have been working on the next ones of course and that content has had review and effort put into it, but none of it has been recorded. I have not had my microphone setup for the last two weekends making it harder to record high quality audio. I had considered trying to use my Pixel 7 Pro smartphone to do the recording, but it does not sound as good as the Yeti X microphone. A huge difference exists in the audio quality on those two microphone systems. One is markedly bigger than the other. The Yeti X is bigger than my phone to begin with and the microphone on a smartphone is exceedingly small as a component.

  • A few research trajectory notes

    Today I finished working on the main content for week 88 of The Lindahl Letter. That one is a bridge piece between two sets of more academic side efforts. I went from working on introductory syllabus to starting to prepare a bit for the more advanced set of content. Initially, I had considered making the advanced versions a collection of research notes that were built around very specific and focused topics. That is entirely a path that might be taken after the 104th week. The packaging on the content instead will be put into another companion syllabus to allow an introductory look and a more advanced topic follow up for people looking for a bit more machine learning content. Functionally those two documents put together will be the summation of 104 weeks of my efforts in the machine learning space. It is the book end to my journey into really diving deep into machine learning and studying it every weekend and a lot of weekdays.

    After two years of digging into the machine learning space I’m going to pivot over and focus on writing and studying artificial intelligence in general for year 3 of The Lindahl Letter. It should be a fun departure and hopefully it will mix things up a little bit with a broader collection of literature. A lot of people talk about deploying AI in the business world and almost all of that conjecture is entirely based on deploying a machine learning model into a production environment. When those same people deploy an actual AI product they will hopefully see the difference.

  • Reworking some research trajectory notes

    Maybe now is the time to have a whiteboard session and rework my planned academic article list. This could be as simple as making a list on a blank page of paper or it could get a lot more complex. I’m thinking taking the complex road might be the way to go with this one. To that end, right now I’m wondering about the top 5 articles I would like to sit down and write. I can begin to see a few of them in terms of structure and breakdown, but none of that inspired me to stop working on this post and begin the process of writing. I’m going to need to focus on two directional elements. First, what is my academic writing trajectory and what are the results in terms of article output that would arise from that path. Second, what are the articles that I would really like to read that would be groundbreaking in some way. Plotting out both batches of content should help me find somewhere where either some overlap occurs or maybe somewhere where a little bit of intellectual stretching could get me closer to the edge of what is possible and avoid derivative muddling. 

    In order to start that effort I’m going to map out my general areas of research interest. The last time I did that in a serious way was back on September 5, 2021. I’ll take that base and begin to expand it to the next level. You could build your own base by quickly making a list of the top 5 research interests you have. From those general interests you will find that you want to add more words to the topic to shape it into a more specific and targeted point within that larger topic. 

    • Public administration
      • Local government administration
      • The intersection of public administration and technology
      • How technology influences government
      • How government uses technology
    • Changes and uses in encryption technology
      • Encryption and society
      • Quantum encryption
    • Sentiment analysis and modern polling methodologies
      • Automated sentiment analysis
      • Sentiment analysis and machine learning
      • Modern polling methods
      • The breakdown of polling
    • General uses cases for machine learning
      • Common API use cases within the ML space
      • General ML use cases compared
      • My general look at MLOps open source code
      • A review of MLOps Github repos
    • The ethical use of large language or foundational models
      • Language models and society
      • The intersection of technology and modernity
      • Oversupply of information (flooding) 

    Those areas of research interest have a trajectory. Each of those general themes is going somewhere or evolving somehow. To capture that I started to draw out the 5 topics above and consider what’s next. What would be the bubble next to these 5 bubbles. How do those bubbles interact and in what general trajectory are they starting to move? Building out that series of relationships helps me think about what areas need the most consideration and where the most movement is about to happen. I’m going to spend more time today on that mapping and whiteboard effort. It is not something I can do with a pen and paper as a lot of give and take needs to occur within the live editing consideration brought to that type of landscape.

    Ultimately, understanding that general research trajectory is key to being able to complete the action described above that inherently stretches things toward the possible and away from the derivative. 

    Reworking all of that made me wonder if I should just pull up my 5 year writing plan and see if it still makes sense. At some point, I’m going to need to rewrite my 5 year writing plan and figure out what things on that list really deserve my time and attention. 

  • Researching about research

    Apparently, I had forgotten about making a new static page on the weblog devoted to upcoming research. It already contained over 10 items on the list of work I’m supposed to be completing. Right now I’m looking at several different things that are lined up about what I’m supposed to be working on and they are all somewhat interesting. 

    1. A research trajectory summary
    2. A writing schedule plan
    3. A list of upcoming research (without any prioritization)

    Right now all 3 of those things have been made into static pages on the weblog. The most straightforward part of my planning trifecta (research trajectory statement, writing schedule, and upcoming research plan) of thinking about what I’m going to do next is really the writing schedule. It really just details my plan each week to sit down and be productive at the keyboard. For better or worse that means tracking in advance what my weekend mornings are dedicated to working on and how that time will be best spent. My writing schedule can be summed up as a simple look at weekends vs. weekdays and what needs attention. 

    The upcoming list of research ideas is really just a pile of problems for future consideration. It represents for better or worse a parking place for ideas in need of more attention. That means at some point on some weekend they are going to get the attention they deserve or maybe they will just be abandoned in favor of something else. I only have so much time and attention to spend on things and some items are going to get more of it than others. 

    What I am going to spend some time on today after reviewing the Substack post that was written yesterday for grammar and clarity will be to revise my research trajectory statement and try to get it posted online. I think that is really where I need to spend my focus for the day. It might very well involve a little bit of time with the whiteboard and a little bit of time writing up my efforts after that exercise is complete.

  • A bit of a rambling mess

    Sometimes the best part of working within the weblog format is thinking out loud and reviewing things from the previous day. It gives you a moment to be reflective about the nature of things and the happenings that might otherwise have been overlooked. During the course of writing my post yesterday that was oddly enough shared today and back dated as for some reason I never posted it at the end of the writing session was very focused on when to write about what. That last sentence was awfully long. I probably should go back and break it up into a few minor sentences. It was a bit of a rambling mess. Maybe it will be best to leave that rambling for posterity to enjoy.

    Yesterday, I decided to post about my Substack newsletter on LinkedIn. That posting sequence was held off for thirty weeks of writing and newsletter building. To grow the newsletter more it would probably be prudent to post a snippet and link each week. Generally that is something that I have been hesitant about. The other thing that I was able to complete yesterday was sorting through all the networking requests that were sitting in my LinkedIn pending invitations screen. 

    I received an invitation to speak at a conference in October. My research paper related to my conference talks should be done by the date of the talk and that content could round out a solid 30 minute speaking engagement. However, at the moment I’m undecided on committing to anything for the rest of the year. 

    It took a quick search of Google Photos for the search term, “whiteboard,” but the, “Upcoming Research,” section of the weblog is not filled out. My first cut at putting something up as a list which is fundamentally different for my research trajectory sketch went up today. 

    This is just a list of upcoming research paper topics that I have started to sketch out as of 8/24:

    1. Open source MLOps paper (from talks)
    2. eGov 50 revisited paper
    3. Local government technology budget study
    4. The fall of public space paper (could be a book)
    5. A paper on the quadrants of doing
    6. A brief look at my perspective on interns
    7. Some time of perspective on the audience size of ML and why…
    8. ML model stacking
    9. Something on reverse federation
    10. A hyperbolic look at the conjoined triangles of ML
    11. A literature review of modern polling methodology
    12. A literature study of mail vs. non-mail polling methodology in practice and study
    13. ML mesh
    14. A paper on political debt as a concept vs. technical debt

  • Upcoming Research

    Yesterday I completed an order for a couple of St. Vincent vinyl records. I’m going to give them a listen and see what I think about the records after a couple of spins. 

    Today I added a static page to the weblog called, “Upcoming Research.” As a space for online content it is going to be devoted to the 5 research projects I’m working on and as part of my daily focus on having a trajectory statement it makes sense to codify current work.

    My modus operandi for creating prose is to open a new word processing document every day and begin with a blank page. To this end my tabula rasa approach requires me to bring forward something from nothing. However, given my renewed focus on producing papers and other manuscripts that means a sustained focus will be required. Maintaining a sustained focus on one thing is a different type of modus operandi compared to trying to really clear your mind and work from a state of a pure stream of consciousness that approaches a true state of tabula rasa. While it is totally possible that both methods can be utilized. They are mutually exclusive by definition. One is a seeded method to preload content and the other is a method to avoid preseeding ideas or intentions. 

    I’m back on my intermittent fasting diet of only eating two meals between 1100 hours and 1800 hours. For the most part the meal plan works out well enough, but it is challenging to sustain for several weeks.

  • Still thinking about research

    Over the last couple of days I have spent some time researching and thinking about finding a solid IRB partner to do some survey research in the technology space. It seems like the best solution may be to find a research partner at a university that has better access to that type of support. That is probably something that is possible to figure out, but it was part of a realization that some things are easier with an institutional partner. Outside of sending out physical surveys which would require approval I could write and deploy an automated analysis tool that compiles survey-like scores to support research papers. Alternatively, it would be possible to grab some publicly available data sets and do work within that space. My strong preference is to do work by creating my own method of data collection. That lets me really target the research project to the question being tested.

  • Ugh office chair mats

    And now… at the start of this day I’m going to spend the next few words writing about office chair mats. It was an entirely tactical exercise in producing words… 

    About once a year I destroy the chair mat that my office chair sits on and it is always a frustrating process. This time around the previous mat started to suffer cracks and at that point it was time to get a new one. Making a trip to our local Staples was easy enough and the Sprouts store next door had vegan gummy bears which was interesting. After looking around at the floor mat options which they had a bunch of in stock I went ahead and found one recommended for every day use and bought the bigger one this time around. I think what happens over time is that I put all of my weight toward one of the wheels on the chair in a way that is enough to depress the mat downward and crater it into the carpet. Most of the time I am sitting in my Scandinavian Designs Wau desk chair (blue and white model). It has been a perfectly workable chair and the casters seem to be pretty decent. This has been a problem for as long as I can remember and maybe it has something to do with the way I end up leaning forward during the day and focusing my weight on a front wheel from time to time. 

    I really need to spend the rest of this writing session focused on something other than office chair mats. I’m not entirely sure how that topic sprang to the front of my consciousness with such resonance that it deserved a 200 word paragraph. During the course of reviewing some of my research ideas for papers it seemed like a good idea to send out a survey, but it looks like I’m going to have to learn how to get Institutional Review Board approval to engage in that effort. Getting that done is going to require some learning and a bit of poking around to figure out the right way to do something like that. It is something that is definitely much easier to do as a member of a University faculty. After figuring out where to get approval to conduct the research I have two survey designs that might work out well to produce original research papers from and work to get them published in academic journals.