Steps to Building a World for Open Data Science

I've come to believe that one of the key areas where open science can contribute to political issues is in the area of sensor technologies and open hardware. It's also a relatively accessible area to begin to gain practical knowledge in democratized scientific practice. That is, a great way to get introduced to the Open Science Network and what a group like this is about.

This free workshop evening will be dedicated to learning a basic approach to creating your own sensors and the ideas that surround that. We'll use the arduino technology to learn about the translation of real world analog information into computable digital formats. We'll learn some code, a bit about hardware, and about the concepts that make this access possible.

This workshop will also serve as a beginner's intro to arduino technology and how to use the system. Absolute beginners totally welcome.

Bring:

1. A Laptop

2. An Arduino

3. Your Party Face

*Anyone is welcome, but to fully participate you should bring a laptop and arduino. If you are new to arduinos, check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino / https://www.arduino.cc/. One local place to get them is here http://leeselectronic.com/product/10997.html.

[pics to come]

http://www.meetup.com/open-science-network/events/226310305/

Pascal and Laplace: Probabilities of the Divine and Divine Probabilities

Pascal's Wager is the opportunity for a mathematician turned theologian to justify their view of cosmic order in the mathematical ways they've come to know. What's the pay off if you're right and what's the pay off if you're wrong. If the pay off for being right far outweighs that for being wrong, should we out of principle take the wager? Ask Laplace and we have a different framing. Now probability has replaced the divine role so the aspect of choice has been eliminated. Probability no longer informs a bet on divine order, divine order is a subsidiary part of probability. Laplace's famous demon is not an impossible gambit on an all-controlling deity as popularly assumed, but a thesis that cosmic order can be predicated by sheer mathematical analysis. Pascal's world still contains Christian state law, but Laplace's does not. How do we culturally bind people without such moral institutions? It turns out fairly easily. We don't need to ge

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