Jekyll2019-11-10T21:06:57+00:00https://wbushey.com//feed.xmlBill BusheyHalite III Goals2018-10-28T00:00:00+00:002018-10-28T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/halite/2018/10/28/halite-iii-goals<p>This week I joined a few co-workers in entering the <a href="https://www.technology.org/2018/10/17/two-sigma-launches-halite-iii-the-open-source-competition-for-artificial-intelligence-experimentation/">Halite III </a> AI competition. While I have not
participated in previous Halite competitions, I'm very excited to take part this year in what
appears to be a fun opportunity to experiment with artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>What I find most exciting about the Halite competition is the opportunity to reconnect
with an interest that I largely abandoned ten years ago. I focused a lot of my undergrad
studies on AI. I was fascinated by the magic that leads some probability and graph searches to
produce 'intelligence'. A part of me wondered what, if anything, this reveals about human
intelligence. But for the most part, I was amazed that software could adapt and handle unforeseen
situations. This fascination lead me to a lot of projects and course work covering math, data
structures, algorithms, and AI; culminating in a senior research project to create a generalized
planning agent.</p>
<p>After college I went to policy school, dove into civic tech, and spent much of my software
development time on web applications. I drifted away form AI, but I never stopped being amazed
and fascinated by it. And by how it has evolved in the last ten years.</p>
<p>So, I intend to use the Halite competition as a way to reacquaint myself with this exciting field.
In particular, my goals for this competition are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Use Kotlin. This is a new-to-me language that I have started to use at work. I've enjoyed my
time with it so far and have been impressed with how it carefully builds upon the strengths of
Java while adding functional elements that feel right at home. This is a powerful language that
I want to gain some more experience with.</li>
<li>Recall what I learned in college. Ten years is a long time, and I'm sure I'll need some
refreshers. Working on a game like this is a great reason for me to go back to revive some of
what I learned about writing AI agents.</li>
<li>Experience machine learning. I learned some of the foundations of how automated learning works,
but the machine learning boom really started after I graduated. A lot of knowledge and tools
have been created in the last ten years, and I'd like to play with some of that.</li>
</ol>
<p>With these goals in mind, I'm also outlining a few milestones that I hope to achieve during this
competition:</p>
<ol>
<li>Setup a Kotlin development environment for Halite. <a href="https://halite.io/learn-programming-challenge/downloads">A Kotlin starter pack</a> already exists, which
is tremendously helpful. To this I'd like to add tooling that I often use when developing,
including library management, testing, and work flow tooling.</li>
<li>Create a rule-based agent. Agents in the Halite game have a limited set of actions to choose
from each turn. Agents are also provided with quiet a bit of information about the current state
of the game. I hope to create an agent that selects actions based on a mix of this available
current state, some measure of expected value, and some adjustable policy.</li>
<li>Make use of a machine learning library. The Java ecosystem includes a few ML libraries, and
I would really like to experiment with at least one of them. While I do not yet know how I
will make use of ML, one possibility is to use ML to adjust a policy for the rule based agent.</li>
</ol>BillThis week I joined a few co-workers in entering the Halite III AI competition. While I have not participated in previous Halite competitions, I'm very excited to take part this year in what appears to be a fun opportunity to experiment with artificial intelligence.Geo:Code 2.0 Projects2016-03-11T00:00:00+00:002016-03-11T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/opentwincities/2016/03/11/geocode-2-projects<blockquote>
<p>Here is a summary of the fourteen projects that were worked on and presented
at the 2016 Geo:Code Twin Cities Code-a-thon.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read this entire post at <a href="http://www.opentwincities.org/2016/03/11/geocode-2-projects/">Open Twin Cities</a>.</p>BillHere is a summary of the fourteen projects that were worked on and presented at the 2016 Geo:Code Twin Cities Code-a-thon.What is Civic Tech?2016-01-07T00:00:00+00:002016-01-07T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/opentwincities/2016/01/07/what-is-civic-tech<blockquote>
<p>Civic tech is a set of processes involving deep engagement with diverse
stakeholders for creating effective tools in support of the public good.</p>
<p>There is a lot packed into this one sentence. Let's take some time to dig
into these words.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read this entire post at <a href="http://www.opentwincities.org/2016/01/07/what-is-civic-tech/">Open Twin Cities</a>.</p>BillCivic tech is a set of processes involving deep engagement with diverse stakeholders for creating effective tools in support of the public good. There is a lot packed into this one sentence. Let's take some time to dig into these words.Government Metadata Amicus Brief2015-10-23T00:00:00+00:002015-10-23T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/opentwincities/2015/10/23/metadata-amicus-brief<blockquote>
<p>Earlier this week, Subbaraman PLLC submitted an amicus brief (<a href="https://cdna.tonywebster.com/files/20151020-Webster-v-City-of-Bloomington-025-Brief-of-Amici-Curiae.pdf">available here</a>)
on behalf of <a href="http://www.publicrecordmedia.org/">Public Record Media</a>
in the case of Webster v. City of Bloomington. Co-signing onto this brief are
the <a href="http://mncogi.org">Minnesota Coalition on Government Information</a> (of
which I am a board member), and myself as Lead Organizer of Open Twin Cities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read this entire post at <a href="http://opentwincities.org/2015/10/23/metadata-amicus-brief/">Open Twin Cities</a>.</p>BillEarlier this week, Subbaraman PLLC submitted an amicus brief (available here) on behalf of Public Record Media in the case of Webster v. City of Bloomington. Co-signing onto this brief are the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information (of which I am a board member), and myself as Lead Organizer of Open Twin Cities.Geo:Code 2015 Projects2015-02-22T00:00:00+00:002015-02-22T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/opentwincities/2015/02/22/geocode-projects<blockquote>
<p>Here is a summary of the eight projects that were worked on and presented at
Hennepin County's 2015 Geo:Code Code-a-thon.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read more about all of the great projects worked on at <a href="http://opentwincities.org/2015/02/22/geocode-projects/">Open Twin Cities</a>.</p>BillHere is a summary of the eight projects that were worked on and presented at Hennepin County's 2015 Geo:Code Code-a-thon.Lessons from Chicago: What Can Be Built2014-08-30T00:00:00+00:002014-08-30T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/opentwincities/2014/08/30/lessons-from-chicago-what-can-be-built<blockquote>
<p>Chicago has one of the biggest, oldest, most productive, and most robust civic
technology communities in the country. What makes it tick? What does the Windy
City have to teach the Twin Cities? Earlier this month, Steve Clift, Laura
Andersen, and myself took a two day civic tech field trip to Chicago, with the
goal of sharing and learning as much civic tech as we could. The following is
the first in a series of posts on what we learned during this trip, and what it
made us think about.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read the rest of this post (which, unfortunately, never became a series) at
<a href="http://opentwincities.org/2014/08/30/lessons-from-chicago-what-can-be-built/">Open Twin Cities</a>.</p>BillChicago has one of the biggest, oldest, most productive, and most robust civic technology communities in the country. What makes it tick? What does the Windy City have to teach the Twin Cities? Earlier this month, Steve Clift, Laura Andersen, and myself took a two day civic tech field trip to Chicago, with the goal of sharing and learning as much civic tech as we could. The following is the first in a series of posts on what we learned during this trip, and what it made us think about.Minneapolis Passes Open Data Policy2014-07-31T00:00:00+00:002014-07-31T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/opentwincities/2014/07/31/minnepolis-passes-open-data-policy<blockquote>
<p>At about noon yesterday, Minneapolis became the 16th city in the United
States to enact an Open Data Policy. This policy is both a significant step
forward in the accessibility of Minneapolis city government, and a necessary
evolution of the <a href="http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/citygoals/index.htm">city's work via innovation, engagement, trust, and collaboration</a>
in the 21st century. It is both the result of a lot of hard work, and the
foundation of more work to come from city leaders, city staff, private
organizations, and the citizens of Minneapolis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read an analysis of Minneapolis' Open Data Policy, and a description of it's
passing, at <a href="http://opentwincities.org/2014/07/31/minneapolis-passes-open-data-policy/">Open Twin Cities</a>.</p>BillAt about noon yesterday, Minneapolis became the 16th city in the United States to enact an Open Data Policy. This policy is both a significant step forward in the accessibility of Minneapolis city government, and a necessary evolution of the city's work via innovation, engagement, trust, and collaboration in the 21st century. It is both the result of a lot of hard work, and the foundation of more work to come from city leaders, city staff, private organizations, and the citizens of Minneapolis.Hack for MN 20142014-07-14T00:00:00+00:002014-07-14T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/opentwincities/2014/07/14/hack-for-mn-2014<p>Three posts are up at Open Twin Cities about the recent Hack for MN:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://opentwincities.org/2014/07/16/hack-for-mn-2014-open-hack-projects/">Open Hack Projects</a></li>
<li><a href="http://opentwincities.org/2014/07/16/hack-for-mn-2014-heading-home-projects/">Heading Home Service Design Track Projects</a></li>
<li><a href="http://opentwincities.org/2014/07/07/hack-form-mn-2014-chatter/">Hack for MN 2014 Chatter</a></li>
</ul>BillThree posts are up at Open Twin Cities about the recent Hack for MN:Installing Adopt-A on Debian/Ubuntu with rbenv2014-05-21T00:00:00+00:002014-05-21T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/adopt-a-tree/2014/05/21/installing-adopta-on-debian<blockquote>
<p>Inspired and helped by the <a href="http://localwiki.net/raleigh/Adopta_App/Development?&docuredirected_from=raleigh%20adopta%20app/development">documentation work of Chad Foley in Raleigh</a>,
I wanted to share some notes I took as I went through the process of
installing Adopt-a-Hydrant on Debian (Jessie in my case), while being a total
n00b to Ruby.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can read the full instructions at <a href="http://opentwincities.org/2014/05/21/installing-adopta-on-debian/">Open Twin Cities</a>.</p>BillInspired and helped by the documentation work of Chad Foley in Raleigh, I wanted to share some notes I took as I went through the process of installing Adopt-a-Hydrant on Debian (Jessie in my case), while being a total n00b to Ruby.Hennepin County Launches GIS Open Data Portal2014-05-01T00:00:00+00:002014-05-01T00:00:00+00:00https://wbushey.com//projects/opentwincities/2014/05/01/hennepin-county-launches-gis-open-data-portal<blockquote>
<p>On April 28th, <a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/twin-cities-brigade/kAip-krnO8g/bfJC1MAoCucJ">Hennepin County unvailed it's new GIS Open Data Portal</a>!
This comes just 10 weeks after the <a href="/2014/02/12/ramsey-and-hennepin-pass-opengis/">Hennepin County Board of Commissioners voted to pass an Open GIS resolution</a>,
a vote put into motion thanks in large part the <a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/twin-cities-brigade/lV0wUHgqyLI/4Fcso32sdy8J">work and formal recommenation of MetroGIS</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read the rest at <a href="http://opentwincities.org/2014/05/01/hennepin-county-launches-gis-open-data-portal/">Open Twin Cities</a>.</p>BillOn April 28th, Hennepin County unvailed it's new GIS Open Data Portal! This comes just 10 weeks after the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners voted to pass an Open GIS resolution, a vote put into motion thanks in large part the work and formal recommenation of MetroGIS.