In Search of Models that Yield Insight

Posted on Sat 10 October 2020 in tech • Tagged with data science, control systems

"The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers." (Richard Hamming)

"The reason we model and analyze systems is to gain insight." (C. Nelson Dorny)

At the beginning of April, with the COVID-19 outbreak upending much of life as we previously knew it, I was casually following the case count numbers …


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Utah Code Camp 2015

Posted on Sat 14 March 2015 in tech • Tagged with python, data science

I presented at Utah Code Camp 2015 on machine learning with the Google Prediction API. IPython notebooks are available on GitHub, or they can be viewed directly with the IPython Notebook Viewer here:


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Big Data Utah at StartSLC 2015

Posted on Fri 30 January 2015 in tech • Tagged with python, data science

I presented on machine learning and prediction to the Big Data Utah meetings as part of StartSLC 2015. Check out the the slides!


Utah Data Competition 2014

Posted on Tue 28 October 2014 in tech • Tagged with python, data science

I competed in this year's edition of the Utah Data Competition, a local data science competition. The semiconductor yield prediction problem seemed simple enough on the surface, but it ultimately proved to be quite challenging. I attempted several modeling approaches but eventually converged on two that received most of my …


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Who Was Harold Black?

Posted on Wed 03 September 2014 in tech • Tagged with embedded

A little over a hundred years ago, some bright people thought it might be really useful for someone in New York to talk to someone in San Fransisco by telephone. They eventually succeeded in completing the first voice test of the system in 1914, and the first "official" transcontinental long …


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Getting IPython rmagic to Work on Windows

Posted on Tue 29 April 2014 in tech • Tagged with python, r

After updating to IPython 2.0, I decided to get rmagic working on a Windows 8.1 install. These instructions should probably work with IPyhon 1.X, too, although I have not tried.

R on Windows

Behind the scenes, rmagic assumes that a working version of R is available on …


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Irrigation System Performance Measurement on the Cheap

Posted on Sat 26 April 2014 in misc • Tagged with data science

What began as a simple exercise in turning on the irrigation water to the yard culminated in an hour of yak shaving in which I actually measured the performance of my sprinklers. The well-meaning people at my City Hall had sent out an informative flyer earlier in the week with …


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My 15 Seconds of Car Talk Fame

Posted on Sun 03 March 2013 in misc • Tagged with car talk

It was a dark day around our house several months ago when it was announced that no new Car Talk episodes would be recorded. The show has been part of my week for nearly 20 years. Like all great shows that are eventually put out to pasture, we can still …


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A Quick FFT Example in Python

Posted on Mon 19 November 2012 in tech • Tagged with python

Here's a quick IPython notebook gist about FFTs in Python. Ironically, most tutorials don't describe how to scale and format the FFT output so that sinusoidal amplitudes are correctly displayed. Sometimes that's important. If you don't have IPython installed, the notebook can be viewed using the awesome IPython Notebook Viewer …


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A Find Rarer Than Diamonds

Posted on Sun 08 April 2012 in faith

So maybe diamonds aren't the rarest gemstone, but I couldn't very well title the post "A Find Rarer Than Tanzanite" and expect anyone to understand the idiom.

I found a professional athlete who could actually serve as a role model for youth! Check out this great article about A.C …


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