Positive outcomes are correlated with physical activity

tldr A structured fitness plan can greatly improve your career and your quality of life as a knowledge worker. Ignoring health may work short term but catches up to you slowly and subtly. I say this being someone who neglected …

Migrating from TravisCI to Azure Pipelines

I'm in the process of testing out Azure Pipelines with ArviZ, and in the process have learned more about the platform. I'll share my motivation as well as some tips.

Note that this is a live blog post that I'll …

Now Available: Reference Sheets

When learning new material I find it challenging immediately recall all the nuances of a particular term. As a learning strategy I frequently create flashcards and reference sheets to reinforce my understanding, and server as external memory. And for the …

Better Data Science CI with Docker

Know the feeling when you use a tool that "just works" and instead of frustration and lost time, you end up being more productive?

ArviZ should be for Bayesian practitioners. Bayesian practitioners should be able to use their inference library …

Bayesian Decision Making

When Thomas Wiecki asked if I'd like coauthor a blog post with him, the obvious answer was yes! For those who don't know Thomas is a PyMC core contributor and the VP of Data Science at Quantopian. This is a …

Faster blogging with Tmux

Writing blog articles is great, but an aspect of it that is not is getting running all the scripts to get everything setup. To start a blogging session in no particular order I need to

• Traverse to my repository
• Start …

Coding Confusion

Recently I've been teaching coding more than ever, both to coworkers and to students in my bootcamp. While they're all catching on and getting results, its made me step back and realize, modern day programming is not straightforward and with …

A review of Udacity's Machine Learning Nanodegree

I recently finished the Udacity Machine Learning Nanodegree and wanted to share the following thoughts on my experience.

If you haven't read my Review of Data Science Programs I would do so first, to get a general explanation of the …

Maintainable Machine Learning Code

Creating a machine learning pipeline requires almost no thought these days but maintaining a reusable and understandable codebase the whole way through is much more challenging. However there are some steps and ideas that can be borrowed from traditional programming …

A recommendation on Berkeley's Deep Reinforcement Learning Bootcamp

I just spent the weekend at the Berkeley Reinforcement Learning Bootcamp. Overall I found it to be an intense but rewarding experience but also expensive if you're paying out of pocket. Read on for more of my thoughts and my …

A review of the Los Angeles Metro

I recently started taking the Los Angeles Metro to work and wanted to share my experience especially since it has overall been better than I originally anticipated.

The misconception

People tend to think that Los Angeles does not have public …

Programming as a Non Programmer - Part 3

This is Part 3 in a series about how learning how to program could affect your career and some of the experiences I've had with programming in mine

• Intent of series and introduction
• What Programming as a Non Programmer means …

Programming as a Non Programmer - Part 2

This is Part 2 in a series about how learning how to program could affect your career and some of the experiences I've had with programming in mine

• Intent of series and introduction
• What Programming as a Non Programmer means …

Programming as a Non Programmer - Part 1

This is Part 1 in a series about how learning how to program could affect your career and some of the experiences I've had with programming in mine

• Intent of series and introduction
• What Programming as a Non Programmer means …

My Guide on Data Science Programs

I recently got accepted to the Udacity Artificial Intelligence Nanodegree program. While I am planning to write about that when it starts, now is a good time to talk about the experience I've had with previous Data Science programs.

Why …

SQL for Data Analysts

SQL is a very extensive language but as a Data Analyst you don't have to know all the ins and outs to start doing useful work. Here's a list of SQL concepts and commands in a rough order of importance …

Using Linux

Recently I decided to start using Linux again as a primary OS on my laptop. I'm doing this because I believe Linux is the best OS to solve my problems and I'm committed on sticking with it this time. If …

Double Data Joins

Perhaps the most fundamental concept of D3 is the data join which shortly summarized compares a dataset in memory with the data in a selection. New elements are entered where no matched data exists in the selection, current elements are …

You should learn SQL

I'm not the first to say this and I really doubt I'll be the last. Being able to use and understand data is becoming, if not already, a very powerful skill. Let me go through the two perspectives I've encountered …

SVG Rotation and Reusability

SVGs aren't always the most straightforward to work it and also are deceptively simple but as you'll get more familiar with the API you'll be able to combine SVG "methods" to more easily get what you need.
In this post …

Clip Paths and Transforms

When creating visualizations sometimes we want an element to be visible in one portion of the SVG but perhaps in another. An example would be a chart with axes that also implements zoom and pan. As we move the chart …

Writing good software requires you to have an opinion

If you want to write good software I would argue that you have to develop a a style based on experience partially based on experience but also with a large dose of personal opinion. In fact I would argue go …

A Pivot

Originally when I started this blog I was frustrated with the Data Science Interview process, having been in it for a number of months. However shortly after starting this blog I was hired on full time by SpaceX, and as …

D3 4.0 Zoom demystified

In the last post we covered how to implement basic zoom and pan in a D3 svg with one line but also left ourselves with an example of an unexpected behavior.

In this post will dig deeper to see what's …

Implementing Zoom in D3 4.0

D3 is a fantastic library for sharing and engaging users in visualizations. One of the best ways it does this is by leveraging user interactions, by means of clicks, drags, and scrolls to highlight data. We'll be exploring how to …

Modifying a Pelican Template

After deciding to use a Statically Generated Site I needed to pick a template. Trouble was that I had already found a template for WordPress that I had liked.

The Wordpress theme

Luckily there was a GitHubRepo that had many …

Why a Statically Generated Site

Initially when I decided to start this blog I started with what I already had a WordPress blog. Wordpress had served me well in the past, especially when I had a more limited programming background. Given the needs of this …

Q: Minimum Strongly Connected Network

A group of software engineers want to develop an algorithm for finding strongly connected groups among members of a social networking site. A group of people are considered to be strongly connected if each person knows each other person within …

Q: Finding a match

Two people join a dating site independently. Upon signing up they pick 5 words to describe themselves out of 25 given words. If 4 out of 5 of the words are the same the dating site declares they're a match …

Q: Friend Circles

There are N students in a class. Some of them are friends, while some are not. Their friendship is transitive in nature, i.e., if A is friend of B and B is friend of C, then A is also …

What to expect

In this blog I will post every single data science question I've been asked during an interview, along with the context, and an in depth solution.

If you are practicing for a Data Science Interview I would advise that you …

Why Data Science

Say you're the type of person that curious about how the world works.

In most cases you would need to spend years studying the subject, learning every nuance and detail. If you wanted to learn about Chess you might turn …