https://tomroth.dev/categories/essay/Recent content in essay on Tom RothHugo -- gohugo.ioenWed, 10 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/databiz/Wed, 10 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/databiz/I recently read an excellent piece by Auren Hoffman, titled the ‘Data-As-A-Service Bible”. Here’s a link to the article. This piece is mainly a summary of Auren’s ideas. But not entirely. I tend to summarise a lot of articles, normally by filtering for important points, and then expanding on them. But every point in this article felt important. Probably why it was a 32 minute read. The article calls itself a bible.https://tomroth.dev/system-decomp/Mon, 13 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/system-decomp/I wrote an article over at vergelabs.ai. Here’s a quick summary. Systems are valuable things to us. We rely on systems to do many things, like cut our grass (lawnmower), surf the internet (google chrome), or provide us with employment (a multinational bank). We don’t usually understand these systems. This could be because the system is complicated. Perhaps there are prerequisites we don’t have. These prerequisites might also have prerequisites. There can be many reasons.https://tomroth.dev/learning/Sat, 14 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/learning/There’s a world of difference between effective and ineffective learning methods. Effective learning methods ensure your knowledge is robust, intuitive and long-lasting. It’s knowledge you can use to build on. Ineffective learning methods will achieve the opposite. What separates the two? The successful methods place an emphasis on acquiring transferrable knowledge useable out of the context it’s learned in being able to explain topics as clearly and as simply as possible developing an intuitive feel for a topic through creating metaphors and analogies knowing exactly what you understand and don’t understand understanding how ideas interplay and connect together building chunks of knowledge and organising them into mental constructs generating correct answers from scratch without looking at the original material making repeated, sustained attacks on a problem before looking at the solution effortful practice that requires your focused attention By contrast, ineffective methods emphasisehttps://tomroth.dev/ds-poverty/Sat, 24 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/ds-poverty/I was fascinated by this recent interview by 80000 hours on using data science to end poverty, given by Ofir Reich. Ofir is an experienced data scientist working at the Centre for Effective Global Action. I found the interview inspiring, yet practical. I’ve had aspirations to work in global health as a data scientist for some time now, and I’d strongly encourage anyone else interested in the topic to listen to the entire interview.https://tomroth.dev/crs/Thu, 01 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/crs/One day you wake up and you find that you’ve turned into a technician. That was unexpected. You own a van and you drive around places. This fine day you’re out looking for broken telephone poles in a suburb. You drive around and find twenty telephone poles. Out of these twenty, you reckon three of them are dodgy, but it’s 3pm and you don’t have time to fix them today.https://tomroth.dev/epsg/Tue, 30 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/epsg/The European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) is a noble scientific organisation with heavy ties to the European petroleum industry. Or at least, it used to be. It was absorbed by IOGP (International Association of Oil & Gas Producers) in 2005 and ceased operation as an independent body. We don’t remember EPSG for its history as an entity, but rather for the database that it compiled. EPSG created the EPSG Geodetic Parameter Set – a comprehensive database of coordinate reference systems, datums, ellipsoids, and other such geodetic parameters.https://tomroth.dev/projections/Sun, 28 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/projections/The Earth is three dimensional, and maps are flat. How do you take a three dimensional Earth and put it on a flat surface? It’s difficult! Ideally we wouldn’t have to use maps because we’d use globes for everything. But globes aren’t convenient. Flat maps can be viewed on computer screens, printed out, displayed on a wall, rolled up into a scroll, and are simply much more useful and convenient than globes are.https://tomroth.dev/spatial-data/Fri, 19 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000https://tomroth.dev/spatial-data/You probably hear a lot of talk about “spatial data”. Not as much as about BIG DATA or as about DEEP LEARNING, but enough so that if you clicked here, you’re just a little bit curious. So what is spatial data? Spatial data is data that has a spatial component – the data took place somewhere , and that somewhere is important. The data is linked intricately to a place on Earth, and that place is relevant and important and you should care about its welfare.