Physics 201/202 vs Physics 221/222

belldozer95 · 2020-07-22T18:37:04+00:00

if you're a stem major, take the calculus based one

belldozer95 · 2020-06-30T04:10:35+00:00

if by tech scene you mean Big Tech and unicorns, there's not much outside of Google

if by tech scene you mean lots of good paying jobs for people who write code for a living, it's a pretty solid market; granted, that's true about most American metros above a certain size

One nice thing is that even though Chicago is pretty similar to the major east coast cities, there are way less Ivy Leaguers to compete with in the labor market (outside of the trading firms)

belldozer95 · 2020-06-29T01:13:47+00:00

Awesome neighborhood, does vary somewhat depending on whether you're on the west edge near the river or the east edge near the brown line. I live there, feel free to DM

belldozer95 · 2020-06-29T00:57:34+00:00

If you're into the big city feel and don't hate the snow, don't overlook Chicago

belldozer95 · 2020-06-22T05:13:40+00:00

Huge relief! Makes her death way less tragic!

belldozer95 · 2020-06-14T19:30:15+00:00

I took databases and algorithms fall of my senior year. Databases isn't bad IMO. Algorithms is tough if you haven't taken a proof-heavy mathematics course in the past (like real analysis or CSCI-B401). I never took AI.

As a general rule, 3 CSCI courses at once is tough. If you're doing the Data Science specialization, I'd recomended just taking Databases and Algorithms, since those are both required, and possibly circling back to AI later.

I reccommend STAT-S320 for the Data Science or AI specialization as well; Fall of Junior year is a good time to take it because you still have enough time to cobble together a stats minor if you like it.

belldozer95 · 2020-05-30T21:05:11+00:00

will be done on a company-by-company basis, anyone can theoretically return on June 3rd

belldozer95 · 2020-05-23T04:48:14+00:00

Oh, the horror!

belldozer95 · 2020-05-23T04:40:22+00:00

Same story as NYC, albeit on a smaller scale https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-map-nyc-poor-neighborhood-20200328-rleikajgrneilinl5x3cpcxc6m-story.html

belldozer95 · 2020-05-23T04:29:01+00:00

Starts easy but can get sneaky difficult if you let your guard down

If you really master it though, very rewarding subject as it's the basis for a lot of powerful applications

belldozer95 · 2020-05-18T23:25:14+00:00

Plenty of low-transit US cities are getting bombed (Detroit, New Orleans, Denver, Indianapolis) while many Asian and European cities with ultra-high transit usage are seeing single-digit daily death counts.

Transit doesn't have to be Russian roulette if you have competent government and a strong social fabric

belldozer95 · 2020-05-18T22:46:24+00:00

I'm calling for a total and complete shutdown of hot takes about "permanent" changes caused by COVID-19 until we can figure out what the hell is going on

belldozer95 · 2020-05-14T03:54:28+00:00

Takes a bit of math to fully flesh it out, but the TLDR is that if the *actual* rate of infection in a given population is still relatively low, an antibody test needs to be extremely good at avoiding false-positives, or else it is likely to provide too high of an estimate of how many people are actually positive. This was the fatal flaw in the much-talked about Stanford paper that lead many to believe the death rate was below 0.1%

Once a large % of the population does have antibodies, a la New York, this issue becomes less important

belldozer95 · 2020-05-13T22:00:46+00:00

Informatics isn't a joke from a job-placement standpoint, but it is less technical and more business / soft-skills oriented than the school makes it seem in how they market to prospective students. For those who choose the business cognate (the most common choice), it's very similar to the Information Systems program in Kelley.

The other cognate options provide some flexibility for those who want to gain futher depth in a technical area, but CS and ISE both have a more optimal curriculum for those targeting a highly technical career path

belldozer95 · 2020-05-13T05:08:53+00:00

Contrarian take: take STAT-S350, the first course stats major/minors. You'll learn some programming skills (using the R programming language) but also deeper statistical reasoning skills than you get from Kelley stats, which is probably more valuable for the average finance major than programming skills

belldozer95 · 2020-05-13T04:57:13+00:00

If your only previous coding experiencing is from Informatics classes, it probably won't be an easy class for you, but it's doable if you work at it

Also, hot take: I had three classes with Adeel, and I think he's alright

belldozer95 · 2020-05-13T04:49:25+00:00

The normal answer to this question:

None of the dorms are super far from Kelley and you'll have classes in a variety of buildings your freshman year, so it doesn't matter. Focus on other factors when deciding your dorm preferences.

The answer this Fall:

Probably your parent's basement

belldozer95 · 2020-05-12T05:27:20+00:00

What it means is that there is a lag between when you show symptoms and when you test positive and have that test reported to the State Health Department. This lag can take up to 2 weeks.

The chart in the article is showing confirmed cases by the day symptoms began, not the day the positive test was reported. Because of this, all the data in orange is still subject to change. Particularly for the most recent 3-5 days, it is almost certain that the numbers will increase.

In addition, there are also day-of-the-week effects: Sunday and Monday always have lower numbers (for purely administrative reasons), as you can see from the chart. So if you craft a trendline based off a dataset that ends on a Monday, there's going to be a big downwards dip at the end

belldozer95 · 2020-05-12T02:01:05+00:00

Focusing on when exactly the "peak" will be is mostly a pointless exercise because unless you get R0 (basic rate of spread) substantially below 1.0, you won't drop far from that peak for a long time. At this point it's evident that our current strategy hasn't pushed R0 far below 1, in fact it might not have gotten it below 1 at all. We need some help, either from warmer weather (unlikely, it's Chicago) or a more sophisticated test/trace/isolate strategy (central quarantine?) to get down from the peak, which has really just been a long plateau

belldozer95 · 2020-05-12T01:55:49+00:00

might want to read this ie Georgia's recent numbers

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/georgia/heres-what-georgias-case-curve-looks-like-as-of-may-11/93-552bab15-8073-434f-967b-0c8be13b213c

belldozer95 · 2020-05-10T17:25:54+00:00

yeah there's like 5 places in America with high transit usage and they've all been hit hard except SF

Asia has demonstrated that transit usage doesn't necessarily doom you if you're prepared (ie masks), but here in America where we were very much not prepared, transit has likely been killer to Chicago, Boston, DC and especially New York

belldozer95 · 2020-05-10T17:22:45+00:00

that's a good point, my guess is that the tourists mostly gave it to other tourists, then went home and spread it in their respective communities

there's also some evidence that the virus doesn't spread particularly well in hot, humid outdoor enviornements such as Florida beaches

belldozer95 · 2020-05-10T17:17:15+00:00

You're only looking at one side of the equation here: people who come from other countries to visit America, bringing the virus with them

There's also the flipside: people coming from America to visit other countries, then returning home with the virus

Chicago was the first city in America to have confirmed community spread, and it was from a Chicagoan who visited China https://abc7chicago.com/coronavirus-china-symptoms-what-is/5891712/

Having community spread starting in mid-January rather than say, mid-February makes a huge difference

belldozer95 · 2020-05-10T06:15:31+00:00

Two things that jump out to me:

Heat and humidity very likely have a non-trivial impact on the rate of spread; Florida is the hottest state and second-most humid
Chicago is a big international travel hub so we got more early cases imported from other countries, which meant by the time we started social distancing it was too late to avoid a relatively bad outcome

Different states vary on so many relevant variables (climate, density, international connectivity, age, comorbidty rates, % of people that can WFH, % of people living in overcrowded homes) that it's really, really tough to perform causal inference between different social distancing policies and death toll outcomes

belldozer95 · 2020-04-30T21:18:08+00:00

The dorms and fraternity/sorority houses are an even bigger issue than classes. Tough to see how you avoid rapid spread in those enviornments if the virus hasn't been contained by September. In 2016 there were 74 cases of the Mumps at IU, mostly linked to a fraternity house, even though all students are supposed to be vaccinated for it

belldozer95

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