The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Marathon
Using data from the Vancouver Open Data Portal , some vibes, and lots of checking We have the Vancouver Cherry Blossom (Ultra?) Marathon!
Daniel Chen
Latest posts
Using OBS for Online Teaching
Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is a featured and popular used to lay out your screen for recording and streaming. V26 of OBS Studio was released mid October 2020, and it ships with a virtual camera feature (windows). This allows you to use the OBS Studio output as the camera input for other programs (e.g., video conferencing software).
Upgrading Marlin 2.0+ with Mesh Bed Levling CR-10s
Video guide from “The First Layer”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rOZpOiWYxM
Python Environments with Conda
Anaconda (and these days miniconda ) has been my go-to for getting Python and the scientific/data science software stack installed on my computer (even on my Arch linux machine!).
R Hex Bowtie
If you were at rstudio::conf you may have seen me walking around with my conference badge and wondered what everything is.
My time as an RStudio Intern
I’ve had a lot of time to think about my time as an RStudio intern. When I do, I usually end up with a few words in my head before I’m flooded with (good) emotions and struggle with finding the words to convey my thoughts. The last time I tried to write something like this went a little like this . What I can say is this: whatever you thought it was like working at RStudio, is (probably) true.
Table of Model Results using kable and kableExtra
I’m at the R/Medicine conference (no it’s not a Reddit thing) and got to help Alison Hill with her R Markdown for Medicine workshop. One of the questions I got to tinker with was making tables used to report model results.
R or Python, which One to Learn (First)?
I’ve been asked a few times lately about whether one should learn R or Python.
Git Squash and Merge Workflow
I have a love-hate relationship with Git. It took me years of following cookbooks and following strict set of commands to get a sense of how it works. I still have to spend time wrangling Git at times, but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m just annoyed, instead of scared. Here is the branching-squash-and-merge workflow I’ve been using at RStudio.
Inconsistencies with the == operator in R
One of the cool things about working on gradethis ( grader need to be renamed ) is that we end up doing things that aren’t common in R (i.e., grading and comparing code).
Mounting Oclus Rift Sensors on the Wall
I was initially going to get some small bookshelves to put my Oculus sensors on, but you can take your Oculus sensors off the stand! This way you wont have an awkward way to mount the sensors against the wall.
New Website a la Blogdown!
I finally got everything moved over to blogdown with the Hugo Academic theme. Thanks so much to Allison Hill , who ran the summer-of-blogdown tutorial for us RStudio interns .
RStudio internship week 2
The main topics and events of last week were:
And we’re off! RStudio internship week 1, complete.
I’m still pinching myself about being one of the RStudio interns this year . It’s an unbelievable opportunity and I’ve been half panicked and fighting imposter syndrome since the announcement was made in March . My meeting with Greg Wilson on Friday (2019-06-07) went something like this:
rstatsnyc as told by @brookLYNevery1, @dataandme, and autographs
EDIT: I’ve added the notes from @dataandme and linked to people’s twitter and slides (if I found them). This is probably going to be an ongoing process…
Analysis-Based Project Templates
One of the most annoying things you hear people say when they are working with some common code base is “It works on my machine…”. Conversely, one of the more satisfying things is running a script that you are not actively working on and have it run without problems.
From VMs to LXC Containers to Docker Containers
Since I’ve joined SDAL , the lab has undergone a few infrastructure related changes, mainly how applications are run on the servers. From what I remember, we started using Virtual Box virtual machines, then moved to LXC Linux containers, and we are now rebuilding our entire infrastructure using Docker containers.
Project Templates
Project templates provide some standardized way to organize files. Our lab uses a template that is based off the Noble 2009 Paper, “A Quick Guide to Organizing Computational Biology Projects” . I’ve created a simple shell script that automatically generates this folder structure here , and there’s an rr-init project by the Reproducible Science Curriculum folks.
Changes in Higher Education
As a PhD student who already has a Master’s degree, it’s safe to say that I’ve been in school for a long time. One of the things in higher education that I started to dislike over the years are the ways professors assess students in the classroom.
NYC R Conference
Just got back from the 3rd annual NYC R Conference this past weekend. I have been honored to be one of the few speakers for the 3rd year in a row. This year’s talk, “So You Want to be a Data Scientist” gave a whirlwind tour of the tools and skills needed to be a Data Scientist. I conveyed all this information in 56 slides and did it in 20 minutes.