A blog for IS2000

Dec 6, 2017

Give me a song

I listen to music constantly. It is a necessity by now to have music in order for me to do any work. I feel slow and distracted with out it. But I have one problem: with all the music I listen to, my regular tunes can get old pretty quickly. While I love looking for and finding new music, it takes a…

Sam Serio

Dec 6, 2017

Visualize

I am a major sucker for 2 things: good data visualizations and simple but elegant games. I’m not sure why, maybe since they both have so much power in such a subtle way. The only thing I like more than those two things are when data visualizations are made like games, allowing the user to interact with the…

Sam Serio

Dec 5, 2017

Scorigami

Data visualization can get repetitive. Charts and graphs can start to look the same and eventually begin to loose power. Creativity and ingenuity are essential to effective story telling with data, and technology is increasing the what is capable. But even more remarkable is when someone takes a visualization…

Sam Serio

Nov 19, 2017

Innovators

Entrepreneurship is a hot word right now. They are becoming the rock stars of the 21st century, making millions of dollars and living insane lifestyles. Some start-ups are based on disruptive, brilliant and simple ideas. Others… not so much. But personally, my favorite start up ideas are the ones that make…

Sam Serio

Nov 12, 2017

Predictions

As long as humans have been around, we have always been trying to understand out environment around us. As we are starting to get a grasp on a few aspects around us, we realized that certain patters tend to be followed by a certain result, which can lead to a prediction. These patterns can be simple enough…

Sam Serio

Nov 9, 2017

Baseball

Over the past few decades or so, there has been a war brewing in baseball between the “nerds” and the “jocks”. This isn’t necessarily news to anyone who has even a slight interest in baseball, and the broader sports world has started to see it infiltrate their own sport, whether it be basketball or football…

Sam Serio

Nov 9, 2017

In the wake of the Equifax data breach, security affects the everyday life of the average American now more than ever. The breach exposed the personal information of over 140 million Americans https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/business/equifax-cyberattack.html and has been headline news for weeks. A breach of this size at a company trusted by…

Sam Serio

Oct 8, 2017

Data

We encounter data hundreds of times everyday. Much of that data is simple and non-assuming, but a large chunk of it is digital data employed by companies to increase efficiency, profit or your lifestyle. As data becomes more and more valuable, the tools and skills used to store and analyze data increase in value as…

Sam Serio

Sep 24, 2017

Biases

Collecting information as Information Scientists requires a great deal of STEM skills, like statistics, coding and math, but it also requires a deep understanding how humans act and why they act that way. When collecting information, information scientists have to account for different cognitive biases that can…

Sam Serio

Sep 17, 2017

Stock Prices and Poker Bets

As a kid who is new to Data Science and Information Science as a whole, I have never really thought about information for the sake of information. Despite being surrounded by information constantly, I have always consumed it without considering how its presented, how it effects…