Blog: 2013

Presenting at hackNY Masters: 3 statistical tricks

published by adam on Sat, 09/28/2013 - 17:17

If you're in NYC today around NYU, I'm presenting at the HackNY Masters conference.  I'll be presenting at 8:30---the topic being "3 Statistical Tricks Every Hacker should know." 

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Alright, maybe NYC is a little Warmer than Chicago

published by adam on Fri, 08/09/2013 - 17:14

Since moving to New York from Chicago, every time I mention to New Yorkers that Chicago is a much better city, without fail they almost always reply, "But Chicago is so cold!"  I have brushed this off as a parochial New York-ism for some time ("But isn't everywhere west of the Hudson cold and miserable?"), feeling that in my experience in the two cities, they're both about the same amount of cold.  New York is at 40.7N, Chicago is at 41.8N---this is all of 60 miles, or about an hour's drive difference.  I'd hardly believe that amounts to a significant change in temperature.

But today, I decided to actually check data and play with a new charting tool.  Here's what data source World Climate has to say about it:


 

Ah well. Next time.

There's no such thing as Unstructured Data and MongoNYC 2013 wrap-up

published by adam on Sun, 06/23/2013 - 16:39

I made this point with Venkatesh Rao in our Future of Data Project for the CSC, but found myself at a table at the MongoDB NYC conference talking through it again---I think it's a useful enough idea, and maybe even an original enough one, to devote a post to.  (Thank you to my Data Science employer Noodle Education for sending me there.)

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Google has "alot" of trouble spell-checking

published by adam on Thu, 03/14/2013 - 20:51

I encountered a strange bug while using Google Drive today--it suggested auto-correcting "a lot" to "alot."  No google, I did not mean "alot."  I never mean alot, and neither should you.

Can someone fix this immediately?!  I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes---google wants you to type like a texting teenager, #kthanksomglol.

Here's the close-up:

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Site out of Sight

published by adam on Sun, 01/20/2013 - 20:07

Just some quick news: I've recently taken a job as a Data Scientist at a future-of-education startup in New York.  This means Design & Analytics is no longer taking new paid clients, but I will keep posting to the site blog on techy things related to design, data visualization, R, networks, and amateur cartography.  Also, still feel welcome to shoot me an email if you have any questions about anything I've posted.

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Geography is Destiny (or totally made up)

published by adam on Sat, 01/12/2013 - 18:55

...and maps are great.  As I learn mapping software, I've shown the following map to three smart people, who didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, except the sharp cut-off of Antarctica:

Buster Map

Did you catch it?  I look at this, and it's deeply dissonant to my brain.

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