This fall is my third time teaching CS533 (Introduction to Data Science). I co-developed the class with Casey Kennington and taught the first offering in 2017.

This intro is a class I had long wanted to create — when I was on the job market the first time around, it was my answer to ‘what class would you like to create?’ — but I haven’t yet really been able to achieve what I wanted with it. This fall I am taking a step back and rebuilding it. I hope it’s successful.

The syllabus, class materials, etc. are all publicly available.¹

This post discusses my design goals and parameters for the class, and its overall structure. I hope to expand on some specific aspects of it in future posts.

Star Trek, when it’s doing its job, has something to say.

TL;DR: Picard has something to say.

Sometimes, that thing begins with an ‘f’, at least when said by one of his co-adventurers.

About a year ago, I switched from technical liners to fountain pens for the bulk of my writing. It started with picking up a Platinum Preppy, and Jennifer giving me a Speedball set for my birthday. I now have quite a few, with different inks and purposes.

Many of them I use largely to write in my notebook; analog productivity rituals are important to me. Most of the ink reports here are on the paper in a Leuchtturm1917 notebook, my primary notebook for both work logging and personal journaling.

When I first saw the Jedi: Fallen Order banners showing up in Origin, I was intrigued. Something struck me that this could be a really good game. Possibly good like Knights of the Old Republic, one of my favorite games.

That’s a high bar. Fallen Order is not KOTOR; is it as good? I don’t know, and I don’t know if the question even makes sense.

But I had a great deal of fun playing it, and also appreciate what it did with video games as a creative media. It’s a good game, in my opinion, and shows what can be done with Star Wars as a video game environment.

Each year, I write a description of my current set of tools. It’s time for the 2019 edition.