5 Basics of Consulting Success: Part 1
Being a data science freelancer, and a long-time AnnMaria’s fan, I HAVE to repost here latest post on consulting success
Three most common mistakes in data visualization
People ask me for good intro video to data visualization. I tend to ask them to look for one of my lectures. To save the search, here’s one of the most relevant talks that I gave This lecture was a part of 2018 EuroScipy conference, where I also ran a workshop.
Career advice. A clinical pharmacist, epidemiologist, and a Ph.D. student wants to become a data scientist.
From time to time, I get emails from people who seek advice in their career paths. This time, I got an email from a clinical pharmacist and a Ph.D student
Not a wasted time
Being a freelancer data scientist, I get to talk to people about proposals that don’t materialize into projects.
This how scientific satisfaction looks like
I can’t elaborate yet, but in case you wondered how scientific satisfaction looks like, here’s a perfect illustration. Stay tuned
Which coffee is this?
Gilad Almosnino is an internationalization expert. I’m reading his post “Eight emojis that will create a more inclusive experience for Middle Eastern markets,” in which he mentions “Turkish or Arabic Coffee,” which reminded me of my last visit to Athens. When, in one restaurant, I asked for a Turkish coffee, the waiter looked at me harshly and … Continue reading Which coffee is this?
Further Research is Needed
Do you believe in telepathy? Yesterday, I submitted final proofs of a paper in which I actively participated. During the proofreading, I noticed that our abstract ends with “further research is needed” and scratched my head. I submitted the proofs and then then, I saw this pearl in my blog feed
Book review: Great mental models by Shane Parrish
TL;DR shallow and disappointing The Great Mental Models by Shane Parrish was highly praised by Automattic’s CEO Matt Mullenweg. Since I appreciate Matt’s opinion a lot, I decided to buy the book. I read it and was disappointed. This book is very ambitious but yet shallow and non-engaging. If you consider reading a book on … Continue reading Book review: Great mental models by Shane Parrish
Which data scientists can refuse more computing power?
Which data scientists can refuse more computing power? None. My collection of computing devices has a new addition a Soviet arithmometer Felix M.
TicToc — a flexible and straightforward stopwatch library for Python.
TicToc — a flexible and straightforward stopwatch library for Python.
Dispute for the sake of Heaven, or why it’s OK to have a loud argument with your co-worker
Why it is OK to have a loud argument with your co-workers.
The difference between python decorators and inheritance that cost me three hours of hair-pulling
The difference between python decorators and inheritance that cost me three hours of hair-pulling
In playing cards, the Queen is worth less than the King? Is it time for a change?
In playing cards, the Queen is worth less than the King? Is it time for a change? #gender-equality
Does Zipf’s Law Apply to Alzheimer’s Patients?
Originally posted on Akshay Budhkar:
? Introduction I was fascinated by Zipf’s Law when I came across it on a VSauce video. It is an empirical law that states that the frequency of occurrence of a word in a large text corpus is inversely proportional to its rank in its frequency table. The frequency distribution…
The first things a statistical consultant needs to know — AnnMaria’s Blog
A great piece of advice from an experienced freelance consultant
Book review. Replay by Ken Grimwood
“Replay” by Ken Grimwood is an excellent fiction reading. Here’s my review
ASCII histograms are quick, easy to use and to implement
From time to time, we need to look at the distribution of a group of values. Histograms are, I think, the most popular way to visualize distributions. “Back in the old days,” when we did most of our work in the console, and when creating a plot from Python required too many boilerplate code lines, … Continue reading ASCII histograms are quick, easy to use and to implement
The tombs of the righteous
Some people, in face of important changes visit tombs of the righteous for a blessing. I went to see WEIZAC — Israel’s first computer (and one of the first ones in the world) that was built in 1955.
How I got a dream job in a distributed company and why I am leaving it
I got a dream job at one of the biggest distributed companies in the world, almost by chance. It was an excellent experience, but it’s time for a change.
Software commodities are eating interesting data science work — Yanir Seroussi
If you read my shortish post about staying employable as a data scientist, you might like a longer post by a colleague, Yanir Seroussi. In his post, Yanir lists four possible paths for a data scientist. To his list, I add two other options.
Career advice. A research pharmacist wants to become a data scientist.
I received an email from a pharmacist who considers becoming a data scientist. Since this is not a first (or last) similar email that I receive, I think others will find this message exchange interesting.
New year, new notebook
On November 7, 2016, I started an experiment in personal productivity. I decided to use a notebook for thirty days to manage all of my tasks. The thirty days ended more than three years ago, and I still use notebooks to manage myself.
Staying employable and relevant as a data scientist
Is data science immune to becoming obsolete? I claim it is not. As time passes by, tools become stronger, smarter, and faster. To stay relevant, we need to be in a constant movement.
Is security through obscurity back?
Yes, ML transparency opens opportunities for hacking and abuse. However, this is EXACTLY the reason why such openness is needed. Hacking attempts will not disappear with transparency removal; they will be harder to defend.
I will speak at the NDR conference in Bucharest
Last year I talked at NDR Iasi. I enjoyed that so much and when Vlad Iliescu, one of the NDR organizers, asked me to present at NDR Bucharest in June, I didn’t think twice.
Book review. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
TL;DR: a nice popular science book that covers many aspects of the modern science A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a popular science book. I didn’t learn anything fundamental out of this book, but it was worth reading. I was particularly impressed by the intrigues, lies, and manipulations behind so many … Continue reading Book review. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Cow shit, virtual patient, big data, and the future of the human species
Yesterday, a new episode was published in the Popcorn podcast, where the host, Lior Frenkel, interviewed me. Everyone who knows me knows how much I love talking about myself and what I do. I definitely used this opportunity to talk about the world of data. Some people who listened to this episode told me that … Continue reading Cow shit, virtual patient, big data, and the future of the human species
Data visualization as an engineering task – a methodological approach towards creating effective data visualization
Data visualization as an engineering task – a methodological approach towards creating effective data visualization
A tangible productivity tool (and a book review)
Combining getting things done with a tangible Kanban method
Data science tools with a graphical user interface
What are some Data science tools with a graphical user interface?
Working in a distributed company. Communication styles
On differences in communication styles when working in a distributed company.
What do we see when we look at slices of a pie chart?
What do we see when we look at slices of a pie chart? Angles? Areas? Arc length? The answer to this question isn’t clear and thus “experts” recommend avoiding pie charts at all.
The problem with citation count as an impact metric
Inspired by A citation is not a citation is not a citation by Lior Patcher, this rant is about metrics. Lior Patcher is a researcher in Caltech. As many other researchers in the academy, Dr. Patcher is measured by, among other things, publications and their impact as measured by citations. In his post, Lior Patcher criticised both the … Continue reading The problem with citation count as an impact metric
Book review. The War of Art by S. Pressfield
Book review. The War of Art by . Pressfield. TL;DR This is a long motivational book that is “too spiritual” for the cynic materialist that I am.
Data visualization with statistical reasoning: seeing uncertainty with the bootstrap — Dataviz – Stats – Bayes
On Sunday, I wrote about bootstrapping. On Monday, I wrote about visualization uncertainty. Let’s now talk about bootstrapping and uncertainty visualization. Robert Grant is a data visualization expert who wrote a book about interactive data visualization (which I should read, BTW). Robert runs an interesting blog from which I learned another approach to uncertainty visualization, … Continue reading Data visualization with statistical reasoning: seeing uncertainty with the bootstrap — Dataviz – Stats – Bayes
On MOOCs
When Massive Online Open Courses (a.k.a MOOCs) emerged some X years ago, I was ecstatic. I was sure that MOOCs were the Big Boom of higher education. Unfortunately, the MOOC impact turned out to be very modest. This modest impact, combined with the high production cost was one of the reasons I quit making my … Continue reading On MOOCs
Error bars in bar charts. You probably shouldn’t
The fact that you can put error bars on a bar chart, you shouldn’t. Here’s why.
You don’t need a fast way to increase your reading speed by 25%. Or, don’t suppress subvocalization
Not long ago, I wrote a post about a fast hack that increased my reading speed by tracking the reading with a finger. I think that the logic behind using a tracking finger is to suppress subvocalization. I noticed that, at least in my case, suppressing subvocalization reduces the fun of reading. I actually enjoy … Continue reading You don’t need a fast way to increase your reading speed by 25%. Or, don’t suppress subvocalization
Bootstrapping the right way?
Originally posted on Yanir Seroussi:
Bootstrapping the right way is a talk I gave earlier this year at the YOW! Data conference in Sydney. You can now watch the video of the talk and have a look through the slides. The content of the talk is similar to a post I published on bootstrapping pitfalls,…
How do I look like?
From time to time, people (mostly conference organizers) ask for a picture of mine. Feel free using any of these images
Visualizations with perceptual free-rides
Originally posted on richardbrath:
We create visualizations to aid viewers in making visual inferences. Different visualizations are suited to different inferences. Some visualizations offer more additional perceptual inferences over comparable visualizations. That is, the specific configuration enables additional inferences to be observed directly, without additional cognitive load. (e.g. see Gem Stapleton et al, Effective Representation…
Book review. Indistractable by Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal is known for his book “Hooked” in which he teaches how to create addictive products. In his new book “Indistractable“, Nir teaches how to live in the world full of addictive products. The book itself isn’t bad. It provides interesting information and, more importantly, practical tips and action items. Nir covers topics such … Continue reading Book review. Indistractable by Nir Eyal
14-days-work-month — The joys of the Hebrew calendar
Next time you wonder why your Israeli colleague, customer or partner barely works during October, recall this post
A fast way to increase your reading speed by 25%
I was sceptic but I tried, measured, and arrived to the conclusion. First, I set a timer to 60 seconds and read some text. I managed to read seventeen lines. Then, I used my finger to guide my eyes the same way kids do when they learn reading. It turned out that I was able … Continue reading A fast way to increase your reading speed by 25%
Book review: The Formula by A. L Barabasi
If you find yourself thinking about your professional future, or if you are looking for a good career advice, I recommend reading The Formula
My blog in Hebrew
As much as I love thinking that I live in a global world, most people whom I know speak Hebrew. From time to time, someone would tell me “nice post, but why not in Hebrew?”. So, from now on, I will try to translate all my new posts to Hebrew. I will try. Not promising … Continue reading My blog in Hebrew
Pseudochart. It’s like a pseudocode but for charts
Pseudocode is an informal high-level description of the operating principle of a computer program or other algorithm. People write pseudocode to isolate the “bigger picture” of an algorithm. Pseudocode doesn’t care about the particular implementation details that are secondary to the problem, such as memory management, dealing with different encoding, etc. Writing out the pseudocode … Continue reading Pseudochart. It’s like a pseudocode but for charts
Please leave a comment to this post
Please leave a comment to this post. It doesn’t matter what, it can be a simple Hi or an interesting link. It doesn’t matter when or where you see it. I want to see how many real people are actually reading this blog.
Word Sequentialization
Originally posted on Memos:
In some ways, “data visualization” is a terrible term. It seems to reduce the construction of good charts to a mechanical procedure. It evokes the tools and methodology required to create rather than the creation itself. It’s like calling Moby-Dick a “word sequentialization” or The Starry Night a “pigment distribution.” It also reflects an ongoing…
My slide deck from the NDR conference in Iași
I have published the slide deck from my talk at the NDR conference in Iași, Romania. Enjoy.
Why you should speak at conferences?
If you work in a knowledge-based industry, your professional career can gain a lot if you force yourself to speak. This is why?
Iași, Romania
Originally posted on Office Today:
The NDR conference in Iași is over. It’s a good time to sit, relax and work. Office Today View original post
Curated list of established remote tech companies
Curated list of established remote/distributed/virtual tech companies
כוון הציר האפקי במסמכים הנכתבים מימין לשמאל
אני מחפש דוגמאות נוספות יש לכם דוגמה של גרף עברי ״הפוך״? גרפים בערבית או פארסי? שלחו לי. This post is a Hebrew translation of the post “X-axis direction in Right-To-Left languages (part two)“
Talking about productivity methods
“The best way to procrastinate is to research productivity”. If you know of a productivity-oriented meetups that might be interested in hearing me, let me know.
An interesting way to beat procrastination when working from home
Working from home (or a coffee shop, or a library) is great. However, there is one tiny problem: the temptation not to work is sometimes much bigger than the temptation in a traditional office. In the traditional office you are expected to look busy which is the first step to do an actual work. When … Continue reading An interesting way to beat procrastination when working from home
The third wave data scientist – a useful point of view
In 2019, it’s hard to find a data-related blogger who doesn’t write about the essence and the future of data science as a profession. Most of these posts (like this one for example) are mostly useless both for existing data scientists who think about their professional plans and for people who consider data science as … Continue reading The third wave data scientist – a useful point of view
To specialize, or not to specialize, that is the data scientists’ question
In my last post on data science career, I heavily promoted the idea that a data scientist needs to find his or her specialization. I back my opinion with my experience and by citing other people opinions. However, keep in mind that I am not a career advisor, I never surveyed the job market, and … Continue reading To specialize, or not to specialize, that is the data scientists’ question
The data science umbrella or should you study data science as a career move (the 2019 edition)?
Studying data science is OK as long as you know that it’s only a starting point. This is why
Please leave a comment to this post
Please leave a comment to this post. It doesn’t matter what, it can be a simple Hi or an interesting link. It doesn’t matter when or where you see it. I want to see how many real people are actually reading this blog.
Chișinău Jewish cemetery
Two years ago I visited Chișinău (Kishinev), the city in Moldova where I was born and where I grew up until the age of fifteen. Today I saw a post with photos from the ancient Chișinău Jewish cemetery and recalled that I too, took many pictures from that sad place. Less than half of the … Continue reading Chișinău Jewish cemetery
בניית אתרים עם תמיכה בארץ
מדי פעם אנשים ששומעים שאני עובד בחברה שמפעילה את וורדפרקס.קום מבקשים ממני עזרה אם בניית האתר שלהם. אני חוקר נתונים, לא בונה אתרים. ברור שהחברה בה אני עובד עושה המון מאמצים כדי לאפשר לאנשים לבנות אתרים בעצמם, אבל לפעםמים אנשים צריכים להאציל את הסמכות הזאת למומחים, רוצים גמישות ושליטה וגם תמיכה. אני מכיר אישית את … Continue reading בניית אתרים עם תמיכה בארץ
How to Increase Retention and Revenue in 1,000 Nontrivial Steps
Originally posted on Data for Breakfast:
Recently, Automattic created a Marketing Data team to support marketing efforts with dedicated data capabilities. As we got started, one important question loomed for me and my teammate Demet Dagdelen: What should we data scientists do as part of this team? Even though the term data science has been…
On procrastination, or why too good can be bad
On procrastination, or why too good can be bad. My experience with @rescuetime
“Why it burns when you P” and other statistics rants
“Why it burns when you P” and other statistics rants
Hackers beware: Bootstrap sampling may be harmful
Originally posted on Yanir Seroussi:
Bootstrap sampling techniques are very appealing, as they don’t require knowing much about statistics and opaque formulas. Instead, all one needs to do is resample the given data many times, and calculate the desired statistics. Therefore, bootstrapping has been promoted as an easy way of modelling uncertainty to hackers who…
I have 101 followers!
Yesterday, the follower list of my blog exceeded one hundred followers! Even though I know that some of these followers are bots, this number makes me happy! Thank you all (humans and bots) for clicking the “follow” button.
A Brand Image Analysis of WordPress and Automattic on Twitter
Originally posted on Data for Breakfast:
As a data scientist, I spend a lot of time analyzing how our users interact with WordPress.com. However, WordPress.com isn’t the only place to gain insight into how people use and talk about our services. Many WordPress.org and WordPress.com discussions take place on social media. Analyzing these discussions can help…
Against A/B tests
Traditional A/B testsing rests on a fundamentally flawed premise. Most of the time, version A will be better for some subgroups, and version B will be better for others. Choosing either A or B is inherentlyinferior to choosing a targeted mix of A and B. Michael Kaminsky locallyoptimistic.com The quote above is from a post by Michael Kaminsky … Continue reading Against A/B tests
Links Worth Sharing: What Makes People Successful
Originally posted on Data for Breakfast:
Boris Gorelik The renown network scientist, Albert-László Barabási, has been applying scientific methods to study the factors that make people successful. Science has published an intriguing paper called Quantifying reputation and success in art written by Prof. Barabási and his collaborators. Prof. Barabási talks about the findings of his…
Useful redundancy — when using colors is not completely useless
The maximum data-ink ratio principle implies that one should not use colors in their graphs if the graph is understandable without the colors. The fact that you can do something, such as adding colors, doesn’t mean you should do it. I know it. I even have a dedicated tag on this blog for that. Sometimes, however, consistent use of colors serves as a useful navigation tool in a long discussion. Keep reading to learn about the justified use of colors.
Microtext Line Charts
Originally posted on richardbrath:
Tangled Lines Line charts are a staple of data visualization. They’ve existed at least since William Playfair and possibly earlier. Like many charts, they can be very powerful and also have their limitations. One limitation is the number of lines that can be displayed. One line works well: you can see trend,…
On the importance of perspective
Stalin was a relatively short man, his height was 1.65 m. Khrushchev was even shorter, his height was 1.60. It seems that the difference wasn’t enough for the official Soviet propaganda of that time. Take a look at this photo. We can clearly see that Stalin is taller than Khrushchev. Do you notice something strange? … Continue reading On the importance of perspective
איך אומרים דאטה ויזואליזיישן בעברית?
This post is written in Hebrew about a Hebrew issue. I won’t translate it to English. אני מלמד data visualization בשתי מכללות בישראל — במכללת עזריאלי להנדסה בירושלים ובמכון הטכנולוגי בחולון. כשכתבתי את הסילבוס הראשון שלי הייתי צריך למצוא מונח ל־data visualization וכתבתי “הדמיית נתונים״ אומנם זה הזכיר לי קצת תהליך של סימולציה, אבל האופציה … Continue reading איך אומרים דאטה ויזואליזיישן בעברית?
Innumeracy
Originally posted on Data, Analytics and beyond:
Tom Breur 21 October 2018 It has long been known that the general public is sometimes remarkably out of tune with math and numbers. In 1988 mathematician John Allan Paulos wrote a classic “Innumeracy” that is chockful of striking examples of misinterpretation of numeric evidence. Paulos refers to…
Working Remotely and the Virtue of Aggressive Transparency
Originally posted on Simon Ouderkirk:
One of the things that it has taken me quite a long time to figure out, when it comes to this remote work gig, is this idea I’ve taken to calling aggressive transparency. I’ve been chewing on this idea quite a lot, and in chatting with my team and other…
Data visualization in right-to-left languages
If you speak Arabic or Farsi, I need your help. If you don’t speak, share this post with someone who does. Right-to-left (RTL) languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, and Farsi are used by roughly 1.8 billion people around the world. Many of them consume data in their native languages. Nevertheless, I have never seen any … Continue reading Data visualization in right-to-left languages
A World Without the Number 6 — Math with Bad Drawings
What will happen if number 6 disappears one day? Ben Orlin, the author of “Math with bad drawings” elaborates on this interesting thought experiment in this 2017 post.
Can error correction cause more error? (The answer is yes)
This is an interesting thought experiment. Suppose that you have some appliance that acts in a normally distributed way. For example, a nerf gun. Let’s say now that you aim and fire the gun. What happens if you miss by some amount of X? Should you correct your aim in the opposite direction? My intuition … Continue reading Can error correction cause more error? (The answer is yes)
“Any questions?” How to fight the awkward silence at the end of a presentation?
If you ever gave or attended a presentation, you are familiar with this situation: the presenter asks whether there are any questions and … nobody asks anything. This is an awkward situation. Why aren’t there any questions? Is it because everything is clear? Not likely. Everything is never clear. Is it because nobody cares? Well, … Continue reading “Any questions?” How to fight the awkward silence at the end of a presentation?
Conference Recap: EuroSciPy 2018 — Data for Breakfast
See my recap of the recent EuroSciPy, published on https://data.blog In which Boris Gorelik shares his favorite talks and workshops from EuroSciPy 2018. via Conference Recap: EuroSciPy 2018 — Data for Breakfast
Graphing Highly Skewed Data – Tom Hopper
My colleague, Chares Earl, pointed me to this interesting 2010 post that explores different ways to visualize categories of drastically different sizes. The post author, Tom Hopper, experiments with different ways to deal with “Data Giraffes”. Some of his experiments are really interesting (such as splitting the graph area). In one experiment, Tom Hopper draws … Continue reading Graphing Highly Skewed Data – Tom Hopper
On privacy, security, and irony
About a week ago, I met Justin Mayer and had a really interesting chat with him about internet privacy. Today, his 30-minutes talk on that subject appeared in my youtube suggestion list How ironic. The talk, by the way, is very interesting.
Back to Mississippi: Black migration in the 21st century. By Charles Earl
I wonder how this analysis of remained unnoticed by the social media The recent election of Doug Jones […] got me thinking: What if the Black populations of Southern cities were to experience a dramatic increase? How many other elections would be impacted? via Back to Mississippi: Black migration in the 21st century — Charlescearl’s … Continue reading Back to Mississippi: Black migration in the 21st century. By Charles Earl
Please leave a comment to this post
Please leave a comment to this post. It doesn’t matter what. It doesn’t matter when or where you see it. I want to see how many real people are actually reading this blog.
16-days-work-month — The joys of the Hebrew calendar
Tishrei is the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar that starts with Rosh-HaShana — the Hebrew New Year*. It is a 30 days month that usually occurs in September-October. One interesting feature of Tishrei is the fact that it is full of holidays: Rosh-HaShana (New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), first and last days … Continue reading 16-days-work-month — The joys of the Hebrew calendar
Sometimes, less is better than more
Today, during the EuroSciPy conference, I gave a presentation titled “Three most common mistakes in data visualization and how to avoid them”. The title of this presentation is identical to the title of the presentation that I gave in Barcelona earlier this year. The original presentation was approximately one and a half hours long. I … Continue reading Sometimes, less is better than more
An even better data visualization workshop
Workshop: Data visualization from default and suboptimal to efficient and awesome (with code and video) #EuroSciPy
Meet me at EuroSciPy 2018
I am excited to run a data visualization tutorial, and to give a data visualization talk during the 2018 EuroSciPy meeting in Trento, Italy. My tutorial “Data visualization — from default and suboptimal to efficient and awesome”will take place on Sep 29 at 14:00. This is a two-hours tutorial during which I will cover between … Continue reading Meet me at EuroSciPy 2018
Value-Suppressing Uncertainty Palettes – UW Interactive Data Lab – Medium
Uncertainty is one of the most neglected aspects of number-based communication and one of the most important concepts in general numeracy. Comprehending uncertainty is hard. Visualizing it is, apparently, even harder. Last week I read a paper called Value-Suppressing Uncertainty Palettes, by M.Correll, D. Moritz, and J. Heer from the Data visualization and interactive analysis research at the … Continue reading Value-Suppressing Uncertainty Palettes – UW Interactive Data Lab – Medium
Investigating Seasonality in a Time Series: A Mystery in Three Parts
Originally posted on Data for Breakfast:
Recently, I was asked to determine the extent to which seasonality influenced a particular time series. No problem, right? The statsmodels Python package has a seasonal_decompose function that seemed pretty handy; and there’s always Google! As it turns out, this was a bit trickier than I expected. In this…
Evolution of a complex graph. Part 1. What do you want to say?
From time to time, people ask me for help with non-trivial data visualization tasks. A couple of weeks ago, a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend showed me a set of graphs with the following note: Each row is a different use case. Each use case was tested on three separate occasions – columns 1,2,3. We hope to show that … Continue reading Evolution of a complex graph. Part 1. What do you want to say?
