Ranked Choice Voting

Before I heard Radiolab podcast "Tweak the Vote", I hadn't heard of ranked choice voting.

Then, I instantly became a fan.

To see how it works, watch this video:

It is particularly good at weeding out extreme candidates in crowded fields, and in making sure protest votes are not too destructive.

It might also be the magic potion that helps our polarized nation heal, by improving the electability of centrist candidates.

Data Science: Proceed with Caution

Vicki Boykis has a wonderful contrarian take on pursuing data science as a career.

Given that there are 50, sometimes 100, sometimes 200 people for each junior role, don’t compete with those people. Don’t do a degree in data science, don’t do a bootcamp []. 

Don’t do what everyone else is doing, because it won’t differentiate you. You’re competing against a stacked, oversaturated industry and just making things harder for yourself. 

It’s much easier to come into a data science and tech career through the “back door”, i.e. starting out as a junior developer, or in DevOps, project management, and, perhaps most relevant, as a data analyst, information manager, or similar, than it is to apply point-blank for the same 5 positions that everyone else is applying to.

What I like about her essay is that despite her "pessimism", she has valuable practical advice for someone still willing to jump into the waters.

QuickTip: Compare Altered Files in Two Directories

Use case: I copy a directory from my desktop to a USB, change several files while working on it on my laptop or home computer. Now I want to merge it back to the "master" directory on my desktop. I miss a "git diff" like command

On Linux:

diff --brief -r dir1 dir2

Open Textbooks

Here are links to some decent open textbook resources relevant for math and science.

• OpenStax [calc, trig, stats, physics, chemistry]
• Open Textbook Library [college level science, math, and engineering]
• OER Commons [meta-search]