Author
Affiliation

Matias Andina

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Below is a list of all posts in this site.

Open the Vault

rawdata
science
tools
open-source
writing

Why the work is not done until it has a path out.

Aug 3, 2026
6 min

Good Economics

learning
policy
books

My thoughts about reading Good Economics For Hard Times

Mar 31, 2024
5 min

Not The End

books

My review of Not The End of the World by Hannah Ritchie

Jan 28, 2024
6 min

Recoding America

learning
policy
books

A great dive into the inner workings of digital technology in the US government

Jan 12, 2024
7 min

Original Text

R

Checking how the use of verbatim quotes in books

Nov 7, 2023
9 min

The Power to Normalize

R
dataviz

A tidytuesday inspired foray into the YeoJohnson transformation

Aug 19, 2023
7 min

goodreads

R
books

My 2023 challenge to read more women authors

Aug 6, 2023
13 min

Inequality

I love Future Crunch. The idea of receiving positive news that I wouldn’t otherwise get is fantastic and I appreciate the work they do. However, during one of the latest…
Oct 10, 2022
8 min

Icebreaker

There are many managers I admire, some of whom I was lucky personally meet, others I “know” through reading their books/blogs.
Apr 25, 2021
3 min

Queen’s Gambit

chess
fun
design
I love games. I enjoy the fun in many formats: cards, boards, consoles. Yet, over the years, chess has consolidated as the game I play most often, and it is likely the only…
Feb 7, 2021
26 min

Lifeviz

art
R
I have not made new year resolutions, I made art. I also finally got some time to explore one of the little Shiny projects that were dormant in my /Project folder during…
Jan 16, 2021
2 min

Rotating perspectives

generative-art
R
I have been asked to unveil a bit of what’s under the hood on this post. I decided to make a new post to share how my creative process took place and maybe inspire others to…
Jan 3, 2021
4 min

Art in a New Year

generative-art
R
I have not made resolutions for this year1. I have instead spent that time playing with patterns on a canvas. It’s been a while since I wanted to have some time to do…
Jan 2, 2021
2 min

Russian roulette

random
investing
There are many traders and most of them blow up at some point in their careers1. Maybe that’s why we worship those who don’t. We find rational explanations for their…
Nov 2, 2020
4 min

A calorie is a calorie

dataviz
The world was a different place around 1960. But humans were humans, roughly similar to those that were alive thousands of years ago and likely, as most humans do, they…
Sep 6, 2020
10 min

Unique

fun
python
R
I have experienced a few explosions here and there. Yes, it’s me not reading the docs. But it’s also me, assuming that verbs mean one thing and not another. Let’s do some uni…
Jul 5, 2020
1 min

Birthday Problem

fun
python
R
We have all been there, classic math riddle:
Jun 13, 2020
1 min

Python Keylogger

fun
python
I have been struggling a lot with pain in my fingers and wrists1.
Jun 13, 2020
3 min

Complex Fun

art
fun
R
People say that if you have to explain a joke, it loses value. Probably true. I guess I just wanted to partially comment on how different disciplines analyze different…
Apr 30, 2020
4 min

The power of compounding

Paying attention to the small details sounds like a waste of time. Where’s that 80/20 rule when I need it? Well, yes, talking about a small increment sounds boring and…
Jan 20, 2020
4 min

Escribiendo en pocas palabras

Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno.
Jan 2, 2020
3 min

Writing Checklist

writing
learning
DocumentingLearning
R
I spent a good portion of the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 reading Paul Graham’s essays. Many caught my attention (and my fingers to take notes). I want to comment…
Jan 2, 2020
4 min

Fitbit Analysis

tracking
learning
R
It’s been a bit more than a year since I got a fitbit and I have been pretty excited about tracking my activity and heart rate. I should say I’m quite surprised about the…
Nov 22, 2019
17 min

On pipelines

R
data
reproducibility
I have been thinking about different problems I have when writing code and the things that I normally try to do to keep my projects clean and functional. I wrote this post…
Nov 14, 2019
7 min

Skype a Scientist part 2

research
outreach
I have been lucky to participate in the project lead by Sarah McAnulty called Skype a scientist. I recently did two more calls with 11th grade students who attend Dowal…
Sep 13, 2019
15 min

Los mismos de siempre

Hace rato que vengo viendo ciertas tendencias de gente que hace algo de análisis de datos con la actualidad Argentina. Por ejemplo, Daniel Schteingart comúnmente publica…
Sep 10, 2019
35 min

Birthday Meritocracy

ideas
Randomness
We believe in meritocracy as one of the cornerstones of Western civilization. This idea is so embedded in our culture that we seldom question it. We praise those driven…
May 9, 2019
19 min

Data Visualization Challenge 2

R
learning
This post is made as a backup for the data visualization challenge number 2. Data comes from the daily posts of the members of the Data Visualization Society (DVS) on the…
Apr 14, 2019
7 min

Email analysis

R
learning
I am keen on tracking things. Some people call this personal analytics, I call it fun. In this post, I will explore how to extract your email information using python and R.…
Apr 6, 2019
27 min

R pipeline – It’s a trap!

R
learning
Here’s how the story usually goes: It starts with you, sitting in front of the computer screen, thinking: What a lovely day for some data analysis!.
Jan 2, 2019
10 min

Query Pubmed in R

R
PhD
I have seen a couple of presentations that use plots of PubMed query results. I have even seen some of them in papers. I just think it’s really cool, so I wanted to play…
Nov 23, 2018
5 min

Skype a Scientist part 1

research
outreach
I have been lucky to participate in the project lead by Sarah McAnulty called Skype a scientist. So far, I have done calls with two grades:
Oct 2, 2018
11 min

Writing challenge day 28

research
writing
learning
DocumentingLearning
This month has been fast. The writing has been really interesting, I was able to get some old stories written and had a lot of fun doing it. I would like to continue with…
Sep 27, 2018
5 min

Writing challenge Day 21

research
writing
learning
DocumentingLearning
Third week has had ups and downs. I finished another short story. But I keep losing the word count battle. Yes, again, work.
Sep 20, 2018
3 min

Writing challenge Day 14

research
writing
learning
DocumentingLearning
During the second week of the challenge, I had a lot of late working days. It has been certainly tiresome. As a consequence, I was less able to write.
Sep 13, 2018
4 min

Writing challenge Day 7

writing
DocumentingLearning
This week, I did a couple of new things:
Sep 5, 2018
5 min

Writing challenge Day 1

It’s been a while since I have several things to write in the back of my mind. I finally got the strength to commit myself to one of those goal oriented challenges: Writing…
Aug 30, 2018
2 min

XY-density-maps

R
I have been playing around with tracking software and the ways to visualize the position of an animal in an arena over time. Even with normal cameras (30 Hz) and relatively…
Jul 13, 2018
4 min

Github style calendar heatmaps

research
design
R
I like how the commit heatmap looks in Github. I wanted to play with something that could be plotted that way. I’ve seen some beautiful things done in d3 and javascript.…
May 27, 2018
8 min

Making atlas images

research
design
This post contains a quick description/recipe for making vector files of brain atlas images suitable for publication and presentations. This post is as much for…
May 19, 2018
2 min

Matlab list_files

My preferred programing language is R. But, for many purposes, I find myself in need of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Thus, I experienced a forceful transition to…
Apr 24, 2018
5 min

t-tests for correlation

teaching
I have been having a recurrent nightmare in the Statistics class I’m teaching. The nightmare goes like:
Apr 20, 2018
4 min

Instead of Research

PhD
ideas
Here’s to the list things you are doing instead of research. I wasted some time by organizing the categories into logical clusters of endless misery. I wasted some more time…
Jan 7, 2018
2 min

Teaching for Mastery

teaching
learning
ideas
Grades are typically set in absolute terms: you either get the points or you don’t. It doesn’t matter where you started, it doesn’t matter how fast you learn. You either get…
Jan 5, 2018
12 min

Rules of Composition

teaching
learning
DocumentingLearning
writing
There is a table in the hallway of the Psychology builiding at UMass Amherst. It’s the “Free Stuff” Table. As I was passing by, I came across The Writing Teacher’s Sourcebook…
Dec 28, 2017
3 min

About student motivation

teaching
learning
DocumentingLearning
I’m writing this post to document my own learning on reading from Teaching Tips and Teaching at its Best.
Dec 26, 2017
3 min

List of Common Errors

teaching
learning
DocumentingLearning
I’m writing this post to document my own learning on reading from Teaching Tips and Teaching at its Best.
Dec 19, 2017
1 min

About grades

teaching
learning
DocumentingLearning
I’m writing this post to document my own learning on reading from Teaching Tips and Teaching at its Best.
Dec 19, 2017
15 min

Any Questions?

teaching
learning
DocumentingLearning
I’m writing this post to document my own learning on reading from Teaching Tips and Teaching at its Best. This particular post has to do with engaging students to contribute…
Dec 17, 2017
2 min

Segregation of Beliefs

I am writing because I believe there is a powerful message in the ideas of Simon Sinek. Simon is the author of interesting material such as Start with why and Leaders eat Last…
Dec 1, 2017
8 min

About Good Discussions

teaching
learning
ideas
Arguing may likely be an intrinsic feature of our species, maybe our competitive edge, or even a paramount example of our Human Nature1. Part of my decision to work in…
Nov 30, 2017
4 min

About Teaching Nonsense

teaching
learning
Living without a purpose is something I am unable to do. I am into the rules of the game, the idea that there’s a goal, and we are trying to achieve something, do something…
Nov 16, 2017
5 min

How do you make a cake?

teaching
learning
This post is inspired by my brief experience with the education system in the United States (US) and the way some students approach learning. I do not know what it is. Maybe…
Nov 14, 2017
4 min
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BibTeX citation:
@online{andina,
  author = {Andina, Matias},
  url = {https://matiasandina.com/posts/},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Andina, Matias. n.d. https://matiasandina.com/posts/.

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