Taking the Plunge
After much thought, I’ve decided it was time to get a more formal education in analytics. I applied and was accepted to Georgia Tech’s online Master of Science in Analytics program this Fall. Classes start on January 8, 2018 — less than four weeks away!
Donald Trump and the Truth Bubble
“Wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789 Thomas Jefferson’s support of a free press and education for the common people — including entry to the highest levels of instruction (i.e. a college or university) — was based …
Discovering New Opportunities for Urban Design in American Cities
“What a city has to say must find expression in its architecture.” Walter Wallmann, Lord Mayor of Frankfurt/Main Here in the U.S., we tend to think of our built environment –- our cities and towns — as mostly finished. Sure, we might tear down a few old buildings or add …
Anatomy of an Analysis (Part 2) – The Enrichening
In the first part of this analysis, I turned a short list of movies into a database that could be used to answer basic questions about the list’s contents. Now I’d like to broaden this analysis by combining the original list with additional outside information — a process called data …
Anatomy of an Analysis (Part 1)
A few weeks ago, the BBC News produced a list of the top 100 greatest American films based on input from critics from around the world. Here are the top ten films presented in rank order: Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, …
Jon Stewart on Misinformation
I just finished watching Jon Stewart’s final episode of The Daily Show and I was glad see that his parting speech addressed the topic of misinformation (aka: bullshit) and how to recognize it. The following is a rough transcript: TRANSCRIPT: Jon Stewart delivers speech on “Bulls–t” during his final episode …
What Does the Average Biker Dude Look Like?
CNN published the mugshots of all of the biker gang members who were arrested after the recent shootout in a Waco, TX restaurant. There were a total of 171 pictures, all in the same standard pose and most in the same standard orange jumpsuit: Seeing all of these pictures got …
CNN published the mugshots of all of the biker gang members who were arrested after the recent shootout in a Waco, TX restaurant. There were a total of 171 pictures, all in the same standard pose and most in the same standard orange jumpsuit: Seeing all of these pictures got …
There’s nothing too complicated about this post. I’ve been interested in creating an illustration of the U.S. Interstate system for awhile but my initial concept of a “subway-style” diagram of the network had already been done. After some recent experimentation with the D3 Javascript library, I decided that it might …
My family visited Washington D.C. last year for Spring Break and, during our 12-hour drive, I remember noticing a subtle change in the names of the cities and towns we were passing through. In the beginning, the place names had a familiar mid-western flavor; one that mixed Native American origins …
I have been reading a book on the development of the English language recently and I’ve become fascinated with the idea of word etymology — the study of words and their origins. It’s no secret that English is a great borrower of foreign words but I’m not enough of an …