The conundrum of learning in the open

Hello there!

Welcome to this week's edition of my newsletter. Every other week I share with you a few thoughts and ideas about data visualization, statistics and web app development. Here's an overview of what I will share with you today:

1. The conundrum of learning in the open

2. Where the hell is that street?

3. Creating flowcharts with {ggplot2}

The conundrum of learning in the open

As a PhD student, I am chronically aware of the depths of how much I don't understand. And with this knowledge comes the premonition that a more experienced person may come around at any time and drag me into intellectual depths I am not prepared for. This is why I find learning in the open quite hard.

For example, I recently wrote a surprisingly popular Twitter thread about generalized linear models (GLMs). Of course, it didn't take long until the first professor came around with comments like "This is all fine and dandy but what about the mathematical properties XYZ?" (I'm paraphrasing here). Thankfully, another professor stepped in and wanted to engage in that conversation.

That's great because I certainly didn't want to. In fact, I barely had a clue what that person meant. Don't get me wrong. I understand the mathematical rigor needed in science and I am not shaming the professors of the world for their knowledge. But when you're getting side-jabbed like that in public, understanding the necessity of mathematical rigor doesn't help with feeling like an imposter.

So what to do with that feeling? It makes me think twice about talking about stats in the open when it comes at the risk of getting dragged into discussions I don't want to have. Yet, I understand that having uncomfortable discussions is how growth happens. And, in fact, I learned a lot from the GLM thread because I had to drill down on what is important in chunks of 280 characters.

I even learned a professorial dad joke (I'm coining this term now, if it doesn't exist yet). At first, I had to fact-check it because I wasn't too sure about it. But then I ended up using that line in a student seminar one week later. In case you're reading this, Tim: Thanks for the great line.

So, this is a conundrum. If you do not share what you've learned, you'll miss out on a HUGE learning opportunity. But share your newest learnings and you can set yourself up for embarrassing pitfalls (possibly caused by more experienced people getting way over your head).

I am sure that everyone experiences this at some point (especially if you are in academia). Thus, I am curious: How do you deal with this kind of conundrum? Do you "simply" push through and put yourself out there? Or have you come up with elaborate strategies to focus on the positive sides of learning in the open?

If you want to share your thoughts, feel free to simply reply to this mail. You can think about this as sharing your own pearl of wisdom with me.

Where the hell is that street?

Have you ever wondered how the fire department finds your street when there is an emergency? Did you think that all fire trucks are equipped with GPS and a navigation system? Well, think again.

I have been a volunteer fire fighter for years now and I can tell you that in many cases, a fire truck's driver just needs to know his way around town. Even in a city like Ulm where I and 120k+ other people live, a fire truck's driver and his copilot must know how to get from point A to point B without GPS.

And as luck has it, the fire department Ulm decided to pay for my truck drivers license. Therefore, I will have to know most of Ulm's streets by name too. Otherwise, how would I navigate a fire truck around town when the only information I get is "accident in street XY"?

You may think: Good for you, Albert. But why is this relevant for anything in this newsletter? Well, as the gamification genius that I am, I decided to build a point-and-click game with Shiny to help me learn street names. And this is where things may get interesting for you.

Building the game was a great learning experience in dealing with reactivity and spatial data. Naturally, I want to share this learning experience with others which includes you, my precious reader. Thus, I've created not one but two video tutorials (read this in the voice of a gameshow host). You can find them on YouTube:

• Extracting spatial data from OpenStreetMap

• How to build an interactive point-and-click game with {Shiny} (I know: Catchy title)

I think building the Shiny game is also a good practice exercise even if you've only just gotten started with Shiny. And if you want to start to learn Shiny but didn't know how yet, maybe my lecture notes can help you.

Creating flowcharts with {ggplot2}

A couple of weeks ago, Nicola Rennie published a great blog post on how to create flowcharts with ggplot. It explains in detail how to combine the {igraph} package with {ggplot2} to create beautiful flowcharts.

It is really simple and I had a lot of fun using her code to build a flowchart of my own. You can find the code for it on Github gist and here's the flowchart that I built.

One more small thing: This newsletter is still in its infancy. So, if you liked what you've read, I'd be happy if you spread the word.

Of course, share this mail only if you're comfortable with that. I am the last person that wants to create spam. And if you've been forwarded this mail, think about signing up for my newsletter here.

See you next time!Albert