Great Social Networks in History
The Medici were one of the great ruling families of Europe during the Renaissance. How did they come to rule? Not power, or money, or armies, but through the strength of their social network. And s...
1 Feb 201612min
How Much to Pay a Spy (and a lil' more auctions)
A few small encores on auction theory, and then--how can you value a piece of information before you know what it is? Decision theory has some pointers. Some highly relevant information if you are t...
29 Jan 201616min
Sold! Auctions (Part 2)
The Google ads auction is a special kind of auction, one you might not know as well as the famous English auction (which we talked about in the last episode). But if it's what Google uses to sell bil...
25 Jan 201617min
Going Once, Going Twice: Auctions (Part 1)
The Google AdWords algorithm is (famously) an auction system for allocating a massive amount of online ad space in real time--with that fascinating use case in mind, this episode is part one in a two-...
22 Jan 201612min
Chernoff Faces and Minard Maps
A data visualization extravaganza in this episode, as we discuss Chernoff faces (you: "faces? huh?" us: "oh just you wait") and the greatest data visualization of all time, or at least the Napoleonic ...
18 Jan 201615min
t-SNE: Reduce Your Dimensions, Keep Your Clusters
Ever tried to visualize a cluster of data points in 40 dimensions? Or even 4, for that matter? We prefer to stick to 2, or maybe 3 if we're feeling well-caffeinated. The t-SNE algorithm is one of t...
15 Jan 201616min
The [Expletive Deleted] Problem
The town of [expletive deleted], England, is responsible for the clbuttic [expletive deleted] problem. This week on Linear Digressions: we try really hard not to swear too much. Related links: https...
11 Jan 20169min
Unlabeled Supervised Learning--whaaa?
In order to do supervised learning, you need a labeled training dataset. Or do you...? Relevant links: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~dplewis/candidacy/goldman00enhancing.pdf
8 Jan 201612min
