R in Concert

Speaker: Ethan Brown, he of http://statisfactions.wordpress.com/ fame.

Title: R in Concert

Location: CU 656 on Auraria Campus

Summary:

None of R's 2781 packages did what I wanted--sophisticated sound
synthesis. But that's no object--R has a lot of tools for connecting R
to other applications, and for other applications to R. You can pass R
data to the OS or to another program, run loops in R to do repetitive
system tasks that are based on R objects, or whatever else you may
dream of.

I'll explore these tools--including system(), write(), tempfile(), and
the API--from a beginner's perspective as I present my work in helping
R to overcome its stage fright and helping it to really sing. Because
there's no reason our data-rich world needs to be so silent. Using
sonification--the sound equivalent to visualization--to explore data
gives us a novel approach and perspective that can spark new insights
and can give us access to more simultaneous variables when exploring
multidimensional datasets. So far it's a garbled and goofy song--but
it's R's song.

Other Details:

We'll gather at 7 and the talk will start at approx 7.30. Afterwards, we're going for a beer at a bar not named Old Chicago's.