Thoughts on data science, statistics and machine learning.
Book Review: Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
I learnt long ago that throwing data at people doesn’t change their opinions. After reading this book, I’m inclined to think that I might have been wrong. I wish I could carry around several hardbound editions of this book and throw them at anyone who says or does anything sexist. A well-aimed hardback to the bridge of the nose could work magic.
And it would count as throwing data, too. Of the 400 pages of this book, 70 are just the endnotes. Every other chapter has almost a hundred references. It’s an insanely well researched book about the pervasive gender data gap (not the gender gap).
Bayesian Storytelling
I launched a newsletter yesterday. So far, the feedback has been good. A few readers said that they felt drawn in by the writing. In any case, the purpose of the first few posts is simply to get myself warmed up. Any extra flutter the posts generate is a bonus. Amit Varma recommends not looking at the stats for a couple of years.
It taught me quite a few things. Particularly that I need to be smart about the data analysis. It’s important to remember that this isn’t a work project. It’s meant for a general audience, so there is such a thing as too much detail. For example, detailed handwritten notes on every single table in the HCES isn’t important. You could have dealt with each table independently. Only focusing on the tables needed for the problem in question should have sufficed. On the other hand, cleaning and denormalizing the data and releasing it on GitHub was a good idea; and the tweet announcing this has 10 reposts, 69 likes, 52 bookmarks, and has gained me 12 new followers. This is what Austin Kleon calls “showing your work” (Mahima Vashist says “your journal is your art”). Perhaps one needs to think carefully about what shareable and useful assets can be created in the service of a larger, transcending work.
More Pixels
Someone must have thought, likely with good reason, that more pixels on larger screens is a good idea. Then, someone else must have thought that if it’s a good idea somewhere, it must be a good idea everywhere.
It’s probably for the same reason that I can’t find a new car with tactile switches anymore. Everything’s got touch buttons. In my car, nothing other than the steering wheel has any physical feedback. To check if I’ve successfully changed the A/C mode, I either have to wait until I feel the temperature change or I have to take my eyes off the road. And don’t even get me started on the massive ‘infotainment systems’. I don’t understand how we came to a place where more expensive cars meant fewer physical buttons and huge touchscreens.
Beer on the Mekong - Growth, Discovery and Creativity in 2025
It’s easy to dismiss New Year’s Day as just another revolution around the sun - an arbitrary checkpoint which carries no inherent meaning. But then all checkpoints and milestones are arbitrary. Who’s to say that 17 year and 11 months old teenager is significantly less mature than an 18 year-old adult? We have milestones because they’re convenient. So in the spirit of benchmarking convenience, perhaps it is not such a bad idea to stick to resolutions, goals and plans.