Awwww, my little blog is growing up! It came into the world exactly two years ago, after I was extremely bored. I guess that reason can apply to many humans as well.
Does this mean this is the start of my blog’s Terrible Twos? I apologize ahead of time if I start making crankier posts than usual, waking readers up in the middle of the night, and leaving my stuff scattered across the living room floor. …Wait, I do that last one already.
I’m celebrating my finishing my research presentation and studying for/taking my Statistical and Computational Genomics final exam. Oh yeah, I know you’re jealous. But if you want to have a celebration on your own, feel free to party in the comments. And if you want to give my blog a present… I heard she really likes it when people share posts they liked with their friends.
Oh, and do you know what the most exciting part is? It’s time for another Blag Hag Census! I’ll get a survey up when this quarter is done so I can crunch the numbers over spring break. And now I know enough Python that I can actually write code to analyze the data instead of slaving away in Excel! I’m almost as excited for that as I am for playing Pokemon.
…What, doesn’t everyone like data like I do?
32 comments
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Thomas Everett Haynes
March 10, 2011 at 8:28 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Congratulations! My roommate and I love reading you, he is in microbio and I love the field! Aaaand everything else you do ^_^Look forward to many more great years of blaghagery!
LS
March 10, 2011 at 8:31 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I don’t know about everybody, but we nerds certainly like Data one hell of a lot. Especially that time he lost large parts of his memory while he was down on the primitive planet, and they all thought he was an “Ice Man.”
PDX_Greg
March 10, 2011 at 8:31 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I remember the good old days when knowing enough Python only meant that you could laugh at obscure references from Life of Brian … my heart leapt when I saw the word but sank a bit when I realized its intended meaning. That aside. happy birthday, BHB! You have taken your followers on quite a ride! I have reveled in your gloats and grumbled with your gripes, and I have probably learned more about feminism than I realized I had to learn. (Having considered myself a feminist long before I arrived, I admit that I have definitely grown to understand that there are some offenses that I still don’t completely understand, but I read these posts with interest and I am trying, I really am!)Congratulate your author on her impressive accomplishments and her willingness to share her ups and downs as she learns the grind of research grad-student life! And Jen, I’m glad you are in the Pacific Northwest and I hope you grow to like it more. I, for one, feel it’s sorta cool having you here; I hope one day to attend one of your talks even though they are aimed at a generation once removed from my time. Keep up the good fight!
Azkyroth
March 10, 2011 at 8:46 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I hope your blog doesn’t lose interest in boobs for the next 10 years or so :PAlso, congratulations.
Ani Sharmin
March 10, 2011 at 2:26 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy blog anniversary! Here’s to many more.@LS: I love Data.
Keeva
March 10, 2011 at 4:42 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy blog birthday!
Three Ninjas
March 10, 2011 at 5:42 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Remember the episode Measure of A Man from season 2 where they had a trial to determine if he was alive?That one helped me leave religion.
Bio_dork
March 10, 2011 at 5:51 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy second blogiversary (<—not a word)! I’ll be excited to see the results of this year’s census, especially comparisons to last year’s pre-boobquake readership.
KTSA
March 10, 2011 at 6:45 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Congrats. You have quite a following for just two years. I guess that shows how awesome UR. Congrats again and good luck.Kriss
the_Siliconopolitan
March 10, 2011 at 7:23 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Mind doing some Pyhton tutorials, then?I fear I’ll have to stick to Excel. (And GeoGebra – I love GeoGebra.)
Blaz
March 10, 2011 at 7:41 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy birthday!BTW, today are also the birthdays of my mother and Chuck Norris.
SpitefulFox
March 10, 2011 at 8:03 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy Birthday, blog!
Ted Powell
March 10, 2011 at 8:05 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
“…What, doesn’t everyone like data like I do?”Do you know about http://www.data.gov/ ?If not, go have a look!
Azkyroth
March 10, 2011 at 8:39 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
“Sure, other people look at data. But they’re not thinking the same thing you are…”
LS
March 10, 2011 at 9:01 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I thought Dr. Pulaski was underutelized in that episode, given how much of a bitch she was to Data throughout her season. Otherwise, however, it is a powerful episode. Powerful enough that I still get mad watching it, even after all these years.
Professor von Explaino
March 10, 2011 at 10:38 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Splendid, happy birthday. Python’s good for analysis – but how are you planning on visualising the results?
K.W. Ramesy
March 11, 2011 at 12:54 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I warn you now, I take no responsibility for what happens it your blog wakes me up in the middle of the night. My mother took a wooden spoon to my butt while I was growing up, and your blog will get the same treatment from me.
Megan Webb
March 11, 2011 at 1:07 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy birthday, blog!And happy birthday to meeeee! I’m a little older than two… but that didn’t stop me from getting free ice cream from Applebees AND a double balloon!
Ted Powell
March 11, 2011 at 2:04 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
How about Data Analysis with Open Source Tools, by Philipp K. Janert, O’Reilly 2011 ISBN 978-0-596-80235-6 ?
ckitching
March 11, 2011 at 2:08 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I guess it means you can start posting videos/pictures/links and have only one word in the body of the post — “Why?” It could work.
Charon
March 11, 2011 at 3:20 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Congrats on no longer needing Excel. I have the recollection that back when you asked what language to learn, I was dismissive of R… I have since realized the error of my ways, and am trying to learn it. There is so much stat stuff built in. Anything that has an accelerated, bias-corrected bootstrap built in is awesome (I didn’t mind writing a bootstrap program, or the m-out-of-n extension, but… the ABC bootstrap algorithm appeared daunting). Oh, and Feldman-Cousins (likelihood ratio ordered) confidence intervals! Built in! (And yes, I realize I’m excited about things most nerds don’t even get excited about. Spend 3 month at the end of your PhD desperately trying to solve some stat problem that literally scares off the stat grad students you try to rope into helping you… then judge.)But yeah, I guess Python’s okay too :)
Egoistpaul
March 11, 2011 at 4:38 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Why Python? For statistical analysis, it is better to use R.
Pyro3d
March 11, 2011 at 6:32 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’m sure there’s a good graph-generating library she can use. A quick search on the python site brings up this list, but there might be others elsewhere on the web. I like Python. Don’t know much of it myself (I’m used to C/C++), but I played around with it a few years back. I’d be curious to see the code when its done, though. I’m wondering, is it going to be done in Python 2 or 3? If I remember correctly, there’s significant differences between the two.
Jen
March 11, 2011 at 6:34 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
To be honest, I don’t really remember the Python graphics module. I’ll probably be lame and just use Python to parse the code and crunch the numbers, then make some pretty graphs in Excel. I know, I know…still a n00b
Pyro3d
March 11, 2011 at 6:57 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’m not sure if that feeling ever goes away. I’ve been working with C++ for about five years now, and still feel like that (I know, five years isn’t all that long…).
Fiona
March 11, 2011 at 9:29 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy Blogiversary!!!!! :):):)
Elise
March 11, 2011 at 12:54 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy Day! And I think the earthquake was your fault. It’s the fallout from boobquake.
Ian Andreas Miller
March 11, 2011 at 12:54 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Congratulations!
PDX_Greg
March 11, 2011 at 5:45 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
8.9? What the hell were you wearing last night?
Jacob V
March 11, 2011 at 6:47 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Happy blogging birthday!!
SuperHappyJen
March 11, 2011 at 7:40 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I have a two-year-old, so let me give you some tips on how to act like one. First, when adults are around impress them with your cuteness and your ability to use full sentences. When no one is looking do one or all of the following:1. Tear up library books.2. Empty an entire bottle of shampoo onto the bathroom floor.3. Eat half a tube of toothpaste.4. Eat sand.5. Put sand in your hair.6. Eat dog food.7. Mix the dog’s food with his water.8. Climb on something.9. Pull DVDs of the shelves and rub the disks on the floor.10. Pour milk on your head.11. Break an ice cream bowl at a restaurant. When the waitress brings you a new one, break that one too.You will have to do all these things and more to catch up to my daughter. And she has time to do all that AND watch Toy Story 3 twice a day!
Professor von Explaino
March 14, 2011 at 8:41 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Boo :)You could always give the Google API a try: http://code.google.com/apis/gd…I’ve heard a lot of people say good things about it.