Ryan C Gibbons

A data driven service I use regularly is Nintendo’s online network. Nintendo tracks what games you play online every day and how much time you spend playing. Each row could represent each individual user, and the columns could represent games played, time spent playing, location, and game genre.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/villanova-will-die-or-live-by-the-three/
This article talks about Villanova’s basketball team and how they can succeed in the Final Four of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I thought this was interesting because I am a big college basketball and Villanova fan. This article uses 3-point shooting percentage as a…[Read more]

Because I don’t have much experience using Excel, I can’t recall an instance in which I made one of these mistakes. In my opinion, the most important mistake to avoid is number 3, “Start working on the database without doing a full backup first.” I think this is the most important because by not saving your data beforehand, you are taking the risk…[Read more]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-golden-state-warriors-odds-of-going-73-9/
This article is interesting to me because I am a huge basketball and a fan of Golden State Warriors’ star Steph Curry. I think the article does a great job of pointing to several different sets of data that add to the original topic of the team’s odds to break the…[Read more]

I think the most important principle in the article is “Ask why.” I think this is the most important because being able to determine why a certain trend is occurring throughout a data set is crucial in deciding how to act on that data. Without knowing the reason behind a trend, one cannot come up with a way to improve whatever they’re trying to…[Read more]

In my opinion, the most important takeaway was that it is extremely important to make sure you know where your data is coming from, so you can identify any potential biases that could be associated with it. I recently made a decision to avoid purchasing a video game that I had been looking forward to playing. I used a review from a site called IGN…[Read more]

One example of conventional wisdom is the idea that students who listen to classical music while studying will do better on tests. This is centered around the thought that this kind of music helps you focus and remember information more accurately. This could be tested by comparing the test scores of students who listened to classical music while…[Read more]