The advice given to many who are interested in exploring or mastering data science is to find some data that intrigues you and see what you can learn. When COVID-19 hit Massachusetts pretty hard and the state began posting data for download, it seemed a good place to start. …

Standardized data from COVID ACT NOW APIs allows for state by state comparison of daily positivity rates — In the first episode of our adventure in COVID data, we began to explore using Python basics (functions similar to Excel) to look at COVID-19 data and trends specifically for the state of Massachusetts. …

Like many of you in Towards Data Science, I am self-taught in machine learning and can remember the day I first left my laptop in model training, fan whirring away, to return hours later and find it still buzzing along. “Hmm”, I thought, “maybe I need a GPU”. Fellow DIY…

There are numerous articles and published papers around why AI/Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing projects never make it to “production” or fail to deliver on the value proposed (Gartner predicts that through 2022, 85 percent of AI projects will deliver erroneous outcomes due to bias in data, algorithms or the teams…

If you wander about your local supermarket in the U.S., you will find food products labelled “organic” and/or “natural”. To be labelled “organic” the product must follow strict standards and be certified to contain only organic ingredients. (noting that this certification has some exclusions: e.g. non-organic cornstarch can be included…

Kale or not to Kale…. Before I dig into high-fiber diet myths and mysteries, when it comes to intestinal health, let it be said that if you are eating a high fiber diet because it contains a whole lot of whole fruits and vegetables, it probably makes sense to continue…

Enough with the “green guilt”, please Recycling: We have mostly figured out that while recycling plastics and other materials may help, not all of what we put in that recycle bin is recycled. We can feel confident that plastic bottles with a “1” (water bottles) or “2” triangle (laundry detergent)…

Should we halt the race to pass the Turing Test? Has Data Quality caught up with LLMs? Are we designed to be deceived? — For those of you not familiar with the “Turing test,” it is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human, by a human. …

While Americans agree that childcare is a necessity, they diverge when it comes to the associated cultural values The COVID pandemic exposed that U.S. public schools function as essential government-funded daycare centers. As Omicron peaked in each state in the winter of 2022, student-minding services were often provided by school…