Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
Today is World Statistics Day as declared by the United Nations. There are events all over the world including a mourning for the Canadian census. The official US event (pdf) is in Washington, DC but a bunch of New Yorkers are celebrating at the bit.ly hack.a.bit.
Drew Conway has some ideas how to celebrate.
Ban Ki-Moon’s (UN Secretary General) message(pdf) on World Statistics Day:
On this first World Statistics Day I encourage the international community to work with the United Nations to enable all countries to meet their statistical needs.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
Last Wednesday I made a trip to Di Fara in Midwood, Brooklyn. Since that place is well covered and lauded I won’t talk about the pizza, as amazing as it is.
I gave Dom a copy of my thesis (pdf) on NYC pizza and he loved that his place was one of the few pizzerias mentioned by name (along with Lombardi’s and Otto Enoteca, two of my favorites) in the paper. My friend captured these great photos and I’m extremely thankful to Dom for letting me in his kitchen.
And to make the trip all the more surreal, Avenue J was lined with lulav and etrog vendors trying to clear out stock before Sukkot started. The juxtaposition of Di Fara and the surrounding Orthodox neighborhood was striking and really shows the beauty of New York City.
Gallery of photos below.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
After years of waiting a new Artichoke Basilles our dreams have been answered. The new spot, which hasn’t even been updated on the website yet, is at 17th and 10th opened this weekend. Unlike the original location this one has seats and wait service and only sells pies, albeit smaller than the originals. There is a side shop where they sell slices, but I didn’t venture in there.
The pie, seen below in the blurry iPhone shot, is just a smaller version of the pies at the original shop and were just as tasty. One pie was too much food for a friend and me, so figure one pie ($17) for 2.5 to 3 people.
Additionally, they have a larger selection of pies and non-pizza food, such as salad and the sorts. They don’t have beer or liquor yet, but should soon.
Updated (September 29th, 6:27 PM): Slice Review.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
I’m a few days behind on my posts, so please excuse my tardiness and the slew of posts that should be forthcoming.
A-Rod finally reached 600 homeruns a couple weeks ago. While that may have relieved pressure on him, now people are looking toward Jeter’s 3,000th hit. The Wall Street Journal ran a piece predictingthat Jeter should hit the 3,000 mark around June 6th next year.
They looked at his historical numbers and took into account the 27 other players to hit that number and determined that Jeter should get a hit every 3.66 at-bats next season. I’m not sure what method they used to calculate 3.66, but I would guess some sort of simple average. Then, based on how many hits he needs (128 at the time of the article), his average number of at-bats per game, the average number of games he plays a season and the Yankees typical schedule, they determined the June 6th date.
I don’t really have much to add other than that this seems like a solid method. What do the sabermetricians think? By the way, that looks like an awesome cast.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
Eye Heart New York has a post with a graph showing the distribution of health code violations and the letter grades they received. Kaiser at Junk Charts takes the original data and makes a few graphs of his own. Based on those visualizations it seems that there is not much difference by borough or by cuisine.
This is similar to a system in LA and Singapore, though something tells me an ‘A’ in NY is still only a ‘B’ in Singapore. The picture below is from an ‘A’ restaurant in Singapore which was so clean that I had no problem eating off a banana leaf.
New Yorkers, known for being tough, might not be deterred even by ‘C’ grades. Commenters on Serious Eats seemed to relish eating in a ‘C’ joint as it lends greasy, authentic goodness to a place.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
Both the Journal and the Times reported on a studyabout New York City traffic which someone has called the “most statistically ambitious ever undertaken by a U.S. city.” That just sounds awesome to me, both as a statistican and a pedestrian. According to the report, New York is one of the safest cities in America to travel in but trails a number of major European and Asian cities.
One takeaway from the report is, that contrary to common belief, taxis are responsible for very few accidents. This was always my feeling since cabbies are the experts of New York City streets and are under heavy scrutiny from the police and T&LC. They have more incentive to be alert and cautious than private drivers.
It also found that Manhattan is more dangerous than the other boroughs. I hope that doesn’t encourage congestion pricing though. That’s an idea I still can’t get behind.
The Bloomberg administration is likely to use the report to further its (popular) street reforms. As a biker, I like the dedicated bike lanes that use a column of parked cars–and sometimes a concrete median–to separate cyclists from moving traffic. As a pedestrian it’s the countdown cross signals that are already in place near Union Square and Greenwich Avenue. Hopefully Union Square will also be getting its own pedestrian plaza.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
The New York Times has a couple pieces today about ice cream. The one that really caught my attention (thanks to Pat Kiernan) is on the skyrocketing cost for a scoop of ice cream. I had somehow gotten used to paying three, four or more dollars at places like Cones, L’Arte del Gelato or the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (I still need to get a t-shirt from there). Even trucks, which you think would be bargain prices, are charging north of $4 for a scoop.
The article points out Grom, in particular. I recently visited the location on Bleecker and Carmine and paid $5.25 for a small. While the gelato was good, I’d rather walk down the street to Cones or L’Arte del Gelato where the prices are (slightly) lower and the gelato tastes better, at least to me.
What really gets me going is that on my trip to Italy last year I paid much lower prices. Gelato in Venice only cost one Euro. Even with the conversion rate at the time it was less than $1.50. Florence was a little more at two Euros and Rome hit the top costing between three and four Euros. You would think those tourist heavy cities in one of the more expensive countries to visit would have more expensive gelato, but I guess not.
The other article is about egg free ice cream and how it helps pull out the flavor. I love ice cream of all kinds so I can go either way, but the article should be an interesting read.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
Last night I attended Amanda the Foodie’s ice cream crawl which is part of a series of food crawls she organizes. I’m not good at estimating crowd size by sight (give me a few equations then sure) but I’d say 60 to 80 people showed up. She had a break up into groups of 5 or 6 and go on different routes so the shops wouldn’t be overwhelmed with customers. She also went so far as to negotiate discounts for us ahead of time.
I was there alone so I made new friends on the spot. Our list of ice cream stations included Blackwell’s Oragnic Ice Cream Truck (the driver was very rude and did not honor the discount), Three Tarts (we had Rosemary and lavendar ice cream sandwiches), Miss Softee (we skipped because we all had her before), Roneybrook Farm (Cinnamon, Pumpkin) and L’Arte del Gelato (also skipped because a few of us were there yesterday).
My group decided to add The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck (Doug is awesome and has GREAT toppings) to the list so we hustled over to Union Square just in time to sample his wares. We had the Salty Pimp, Monday Sundae and Vanilla with Sea Salt and Olive Oil. I also gave the location to Amanda so she could tweet it to everyone sending a rush to Doug as he was trying to close.
Metromix covered the event and which is where I found that picture of me with the spoon.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
The other day I found myself walking down 7th Avenue South, as is usual, and I decided to pop into Blecker Street Pizza. I haven’t been there in years because of all the other great pizza in the neighborhood like John’s, Keste, Number 28 (which is claimed best by Citysearch), Risotteria (so I’ve heard) and Joe’s.
I remember not being a blown away by the place and I reaffirmed that this time. It’s not awful but it certainly isn’t the Best Pizza in New York as the Food Network seems to think. With all the good options around the area I think it will be a while before I pop back inside.
This makes me doubt everything the Food Network says. I’ll be sticking to Travel Channel’s Man v Food starring Adam Richman who regularly shows his affinity for Lombardi’s with his t-shirts (as seen below) and loves L&B Spumoni Gardens.
Jared Lander is the Chief Data Scientist of Lander Analytics a New York data science firm, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, Organizer of the New York Open Statistical Programming meetup and the New York and Washington DC R Conferences and author of R for Everyone.
