I'm sure he persuaded me that statistics is more than a subset of mathematics- John Hartigan ['A Conversation with John Hartigan', Daniel Barry, 2005]
This is a blog by me, Matt Piekenbrock. My background and research interest are listed on my homepage and my software projects are primarily listed on my github. The topics of this blog span many topics, typically in the area of programming, math, algorithms, data analysis, and graphics/visualization.
Everything on here is my own opinion and does not reflect the views of any other person, organization, or entity I'm associated with.
My research interests lie mostly at the intersection between Topological Data Analysis (TDA), data science, and scientific computing. I love learning about open-ended areas of learning theory and data analysis, things like unsupervised learning, clustering, dimensionality reduction, estimation theory, and so on. I'm also a modern C++ enthusiast, and believer in functional programming, and a fervent supporter of open source software.
Some people have inspired me to do various things. They are recorded here for posterity, in hopes that their work continues to inspire.
Yihui Xie for really his entire dedication to the R community as a whole. He's really been at the forefront of making entire R workflows streamlined. I believe he eats code.
Mike Bostock and his musing on design, as well the design of fantastic libraries.
Bartosz Milewski and his foresight to reach out to C++ developers on the benefits of learning Haskell and the benefits both have on functional programming.