bdewilde.github.io - Connecting to the Data Set

Connecting to the Data Set

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Connecting to the Data Set Burton DeWildeWell-nighMe Archive CV Connecting to the Data Set 2013-02-17 csv soundsystem datafest hackathon money munging networking politics Twitter As a relative newcomer to the field, I’ve been learning and doing data science largely on my own. This is okay, I guess, given wangle to Stack Overflow, MOOCs, and a handful of O’Reilly’s textbooks, but not ideal. Fortunately, the data science polity here in New York seems to be big and active, so opportunities to connect are plentiful. A particularly easy way to join (or at least follow) the conversation is via Twitter. A few weeks ago I got a Twitter account, @bjdewilde, and started pursuit some of the big names in data science: @hmason, @drewconway, @jakeporway, and @fivethirtyeight, among others. My Twitter feed now provides a steady stream of interesting and useful information –— withal with the absurd, the irrelevant, the over-my-head –— that I might not have found otherwise. Like this. And this. And this. I’m not a prolific tweeter by any stretch, but as I get increasingly well-appointed in this forum, I’d like to start contributing to the conversation rather than just reading it silently. Then again, I’m a long-time photographer, so voyeurism comes hands to me. :) I’ve moreover wilt a regular at an informal, weekly data/journalism working group tabbed CSV Soundsystem, which convenes at a Think Coffee in The Village for its decent beer and self-ruling wi-fi. I was introduced to the group by Harmony Institute’s previous data scientist, Brian Abelson, who now works at The New York Times. The benefits of working in the visitor of other data folks need no explanation. During my first evening with CSV, I uninventive a new text editor (Sublime Text) and a new terminal (iTerm), thereby fundamentally improving my workflow; this sort of thing happens surprisingly often. Another unconfined wits has been working together on group projects, which brings me to the next paragraph… Two members of Team CSV: Brian Abelson (NYT) and Michael Keller (The Daily Beast). Two weekends ago, I participated in my first hackathon: a “Bicoastal Datafest analyzing money’s influence in politics” held simultaneously at Columbia University and Stanford University. Team CSV attended and ended up winning Best in Innovation and Best in Show — a promising start to my hackathon career. ;) I wrote a post well-nigh this for HI’s blog, The Ripple Effect, which you can read here, so I won’t go into details. I will emphasize that my main task of the weekend was hardcore data munging in Python, which wasn’t glamorous but was very necessary in order for any interesting wringer to be performed. I’ve mentioned this before: the zillion of a data scientist’s work tends to be in data fetching and cleaning rather than analysis. But that’s life. So, I’m slowly but surely working my way into the data science community, and that’s a Very Good Thing. Working in isolation may well get the job done, but working within a network of like-minded people gets the job washed-up faster and largest and has much increasingly potential for surprising but fruitful detours. I hope to protract collaborating with other data people (e.g. DataKind) as well as shepherd a couple conferences and often show my squatter at data-related events in the coming months. But for now, I think I’m ready for my Twitter fix –— Modern Seinfeld has been on a roll lately! ← previous ↑ next → Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. comments powered by Disqus Burton DeWilde data scientist / physicist / filmmaker © 2014 Burton DeWilde. All rights reserved.