I always tell my students not to use Excel for data analysis, which I think means never to use it. Confused eyes stare back at me, understandably since Microsoft is like oxygen: imagining life without it sounds deadly. So this post is going to document examples of where using Excel for data analysis has led […]
My research uses Twitter to understand the dynamics of protest and state violence, which also means I think a lot about media coverage. I have a few thoughts on recent events. TL;DR: There is very little looting going on across the United States. There are lots and lots of peaceful protests and protesters. You would […]
My primary source of data is tweets I get from Twitter’s POST statuses/filter endpoint, what I believe was called the “Streaming Endpoint” when I started working with Twitter data eons ago. While it has always been straightforward to use a bounding box to get tweets with geographic information, exactly what Twitter reports and how it […]
Starting with the 19th book review (Mao biography), I have decided to add a grade and, to counterbalance what can often seem like negative reviews, one interesting fact learned from each book. I aim for a B- average. The Sellout by Paul Beatty – Wow, what a novel. My wife bought it for me for […]
In responding to recent comments on a paper, I went looking for information on how prevalent Twitter is across the world. Based on my work using geolocated images from Twitter, I had a sense that it tracks population and per capita GDP closely. But I have not had the time to investigate the relationship more […]
[Most recent update: 11.21.2019.] The purpose of this post is to catalogue advice from the internet about how to achieve tenure at a research university. When I was a PhD student, one method of calming my anxiety was to read advice from professors to PhD students; The Professor is In, Fabio Rojas, and Chris Blattman are particularly helpful. Now […]
That headline misleads slightly: the 30L backpack is a good everyday bag if photography is part of your everyday. If your everyday involves traditional office work and commuting, I suggest looking elsewhere for a bag. That is what I did, and I own happily the Nomatic Backpack. The internet world is in love with all […]
TL;DR: Just use generic style files for new projects. Overleaf is the best tool I have found for collaborating on Latex documents. It is cloud-based, has a ton of templates, nice text editing features that go beyond TexShop and other desktop editors I know, and the rich text editor (using a GUI, like a word processor) […]
I am grateful for many things; one of those things is living in LA. Another thing is that I am reasonably close to my job, by LA standards: 9 miles as the crow flows. I learned quickly what any Angelino will tell you: wow, traffic. While I have been fortunate not to have a Michael […]
The chart below replicates the data presented in my earlier post about Twitter but ranked by accounts per million inhabitants. Antarctica, of course, does not really have the greatest number of accounts per capita. In this sample, however, Twitter identified 4 tweets from there, and Antarctica has a population of 0, as do the 2nd […]
zacharyst.com 