Linear Digressions

Latest Episodes:

The State of Data Science Nov 10, 2015

Show notes

How many data scientists are there, where do they live, where do they work, what kind of tools do they use, and how do they describe themselves? RJMetrics wanted to know the answers to these questions, so they decided to find out and share their analysis with the world. In this very special interview episode, we welcome Tristan Handy, VP of Marketing at RJMetrics, who will talk about "The State of Data Science Report."

Data Science for Making the World a Better Place Nov 06, 2015

Show notes

There's a good chance that great data science is going on close to you, and that it's going toward making your city, state, country, and planet a better place. Not all the data science questions being tackled out there are about finding the sleekest new algorithm or billion-dollar company idea--there's a whole world of social data science that just wants to make the world a better place to live in.

Kalman Runners Oct 29, 2015

Show notes

The Kalman Filter is an algorithm for taking noisy measurements of dynamic systems and using them to get a better idea of the underlying dynamics than you could get from a simple extrapolation. If you've ever run a marathon, or been a nuclear missile, you probably know all about these challenges already. By the way, we neglected to mention in the episode: Katie's marathon time was 3:54:27!

Neural Net Inception Oct 23, 2015

Show notes

When you sleep, the neural pathways in your brain take the "white noise" of your resting brain, mix in your experiences and imagination, and the result is dreams (that is a highly unscientific explanation, but you get the idea). What happens when neural nets are put through the same process? Train a neural net to recognize pictures, and then send through an image of white noise, and it will start to see some weird (but cool!) stuff.

Benford's Law Oct 16, 2015

Show notes

Sometimes numbers are... weird. Benford's Law is a favorite example of this for us--it's a law that governs the distribution of the first digit in certain types of numbers. As it turns out, if you're looking up the length of a river, the population of a country, the price of a stock... not all first digits are created equal.

Guinness Oct 07, 2015

Show notes

Not to oversell it, but the student's t-test has got to have the most interesting history of any statistical test. Which is saying a lot, right? Add some boozy statistical trivia to your arsenal in this epsiode.

PFun with P Values Sep 02, 2015

Show notes

Doing some science, and want to know if you might have found something? Or maybe you've just accomplished the scientific equivalent of going fishing and reeling in an old boot? Frequentist p-values can help you distinguish between "eh" and "oooh interesting". Also, there's a lot of physics in this episode, nerds.

Watson Aug 25, 2015

Show notes

This machine learning algorithm beat the human champions at Jeopardy. What is... Watson?

Bayesian Psychics Aug 18, 2015

Show notes

Come get a little "out there" with us this week, as we use a meta-study of extrasensory perception (or ESP, often used in the same sentence as "psychics") to chat about Bayesian vs. frequentist statistics.

Troll Detection Aug 07, 2015

Show notes

Ever found yourself wasting time reading online comments from trolls? Of course you have; we've all been there (it's 4 AM but I can't turn off the computer and go to sleep--someone on the internet is WRONG!). Now there's a way to use machine learning to automatically detect trolls, and minimize the impact when they try to derail online conversations.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected