written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-09-07 | tags: data science pandas tricks tips productivity
If df.iterrows() is slow, what then is the alternative? Read on to figure out how to make looping over dataframes 1000X faster :).
written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-08-30 | tags: data science statistics data validation data engineering pandera software tools tips and tricks
I test-drove the Python package pandera this month, and I like its usage paradigm.
Come read on to learn how you can incorporate pandera into your workflow!
written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-08-21 | tags: data science software engineering software skills
Why do software skills matter for data scientists? We might have heard that it matters for our workflow, but what about for organizing knowledge? In this essay, I argue that practicing good software skills has those benefits and more.
Read on... (2184 words, approximately 11 minutes reading time)written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-07-26 | tags: data science hiring data challenge
In this post, I detail some of my thoughts about the use of "data challenges" for hiring data scientists. Though I have only used it in hiring data science interns, I think some of the lessons I've learned from test-driving the process can apply more generally.
Read on... (1972 words, approximately 10 minutes reading time)written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-07-11 | tags: jupyter jupyter notebook notebook data science
I like writing in notebooks, for the ability to quickly prototype. But can we treat Jupyter notebooks as scripts that we can execute? The answer is yes, and in this blog post, I'll show you a few of the simplest ways to do so.
Read on... (618 words, approximately 4 minutes reading time)written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-06-29 | tags: reviews email general stuff
I test-drove Hey, a new email product launched by Basecamp recently, and I'm ready to pay. Read on to find out why!
Read on... (883 words, approximately 5 minutes reading time)written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-06-28 | tags: data science bayesian statistics hypothesis testing
I came to the epiphany today that "statistical testing" protocols are nothing more than canned model comparisons (that sometimes have convoluted interpretations). Come read why!
Read on... (468 words, approximately 3 minutes reading time)written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-06-15 | tags: bayesian statistics bayesian data science statistics inference
I've been reflecting on the way I learned statistics, and I think I learned it in a flawed fashion. In response to this reflection, I've began reworking an introduction to Bayesian statistical inference that focuses on statistical story telling. Read on to find out more!
Read on... (448 words, approximately 3 minutes reading time)written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-06-14 | tags: bayesian data science statistical inference
What gives us the logical leap from a joint distribution $P(A, B)$ in abstract, to the more tangible $P(H, D)$ (for hypothesis and data? Here's an excerpt from a tutorial in the making about Bayesian statistics.
Read on... (425 words, approximately 3 minutes reading time)written by Eric J. Ma on 2020-06-09 | tags: deep learning machine learning statistics rants
How in the world did "inference" come to mean "prediction" amongst deep learners? I have no idea, but I do have a rant.
Read on... (911 words, approximately 5 minutes reading time)