The Gradient Ascent Podcast

Gradient Ascent #2 - Devayani Pawar

Devayani's fearlessness to jump headfirst into new topics is admirable. Indeed, it's this willingness to take a "leap of faith" that brought her half-way across the world, from her home in India to George Mason University, where she recently graduated with a Master's in Data Analytics Engineering & Data Mining. I enjoyed our conversation as we covered a whole range of subjects, including (but not limited to) data science, learning strategies, her internship at Micron, and a little philosophy!

Gradient Ascent #1 - Ed Terry

Ed's background is fascinating. His journey - from his beginnings at Boeing, to his time at Carnegie Mellon, and most recently at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory - has covered quite a bit of ground. He's also a fellow SharpestMinds mentee, and we talk about this journey, his project, and a variety of other interesting subjects. Oh, and you'll learn who the Pachanga Boys are!

Friday, May 8, 2020

Today has been a little different than usual. I had a good conversation this morning with somebody I reached out to via a cold email. It makes me wonder why I spent so much time looking through job boards. Don't be afraid, just send it. You never know what might happen. It did throw me a little out of my rhythm, though, and I dove headfirst into work related to the data ingestion part of my project. I did get something accomplished; however, it highlighted how vulnerable you could become when you go into something with no plan. I've found that having a general outline for the day so that I know what tasks I need to do provides a significantly higher level of clarity throughout the day. Plus, at the end of the day, I can look back and assess what I did, which provides some satisfaction.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Today's daily stand-up started rather innocently by looking at what yesterday's work. However, it quickly went down the rabbit hole. When we look at disinformation online, and for example, how conspiracy theories have become more prevalent in recent years, we can see that this is a multi-faceted issue. It not only involves technology, but throws into question our ideas on what free speech should look like, and how the complexity of our world can be cognitively overwhelming. There are still a lot of questions, and from what I can see, no answers...yet.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Today, we're going to optimize my project's ETL. We can gather the data, but now we need to clean it and store it in the right spot. We'll also continue to build out the spreadsheet of misinformation narratives that are currently swirling around the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, I consider the reversibility of a decision and how that affects its cost.