In the News
Marvin Minsky, Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88
Great biography in the New York Times about Marvin Minsky, who, among other things, was an AI visionary. Also making it's way around the Internet this week is a long, 1981 profile from the New Yorker, simply called "A.I."
AlphaGo: Mastering the ancient game of Go with Machine Learning
Google Research announced last week that they are "thrilled to have mastered Go." It's definitely an interesting development and it's worth reading the announcement. But, as the discussion in this Hacker News thread makes clear, the AI Go story is far from over.
How the media uses (and misuses) data and statistics.
There's a lot of interesting discussion and worthwhile links in this Reddit AMA with Todd Hartman, Aneta Piekut and Mark Taylor from the Sheffield Methods Institute.

Projects
17 ideas win Knight News Challenge on Data
The latest Knight News Challenge offered a pool of $3 million for innovative ideas that addressed the question: How might we make data work for individuals and communities? Selected from nearly 1100 entries, here are the winning projects.

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Tools and Techniques
Machine Learning Meets Economics
Very well-written article that describes how to take business factors into account when using machine learning and most importantly, why you should care.
Learning How To Code Neural Networks
Interested in learning about neural networks but not sure where to start? Here's a gentle introduction with worthwhile links and sample code.

Resources
The Elements of Python Style
The Elements of Python Style goes beyond PEP8 to discuss what makes Python code feel great. Along with syntax and module layout, this guide explores areas of paradigm, organization, and architecture.
Teach Yourself Deep Learning with TensorFlow and Udacity
In collaboration with Udacity, Google Research has launched a short, intensive course to help make deep learning even more accessible. The course is free, self-paced, and includes interactive TensorFlow notebooks.

Data Viz

Project Ukko - Seasonal Wind predictions for the Energy Sector
Project Ukko presents a novel way to spot patterns in seasonal wind prediction data. Whether you're interested in wind prediction data or not, the write-up that describes the thinking behind this project is fantastic!

Minute by Minute Point Differentials of 2015 NBA Games
The challenge here is to find a way to see an entire season of basketball at once. This approach by Adam Pearce is interesting, fun to explore, and his post includes links to several related and worthwhile articles.
A List of ggplot2 Extensions
ggplot2 now has an official extension mechanism. This means that users can now easily create their own stats, geoms and positions, and provide them in other packages. This site showcases those extensions. Submissions are welcome.
Jobs & Careers
Recent Listings:
- Data Analyst at Litmus.
- Full-stack Engineer at Relevant.
- Regional Sales Director - Financial Services at Datameer.
- Strategic Alliance Director at Datameer.
- Data Scientist at Retail Solutions Inc.
- Intrepid Wild Data Scientist at Keystone Accountability.
- Data Science & AI Lead at HealthUnlocked.
- Data Scientist at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
- Data Science Intern at Vantage Sports.
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