Why you SHOULDN'T move to Miami from an ex-Floridian:

This post is pretty bizarre, but it manages to hit on so many false beliefs that I've seen hurt junior data scientists that it deserves some explicit

(1) The notion that R is well-suited to "building web applications" seems totally out of left field. I don't feel like most R loyalists think this is a good idea, but it's worth calling out that no normal company will be glad you wrote your entire web app in R.

(2) It is true that Python had some issues historically with the 2-to-3 transition, but it's not such a big deal these days. On the flip side, I have found interesting R code that doesn't run in modern R interpreters because of changes in core operations (e.g. assignment syntax).

(3) "Most of the time we only need a latest, working interpreter with the latest packages to run the code" -- this is where things get real and reveal some things that hurt data scientists. If this sentence is true, it's likely because you don't share code with coworkers.

(3) Really is a broader issue in data science: people only think of what they need to do their work if no one else existed and code was never maintained. Junior data scientists almost always operate on projects they start from scratch and don't have to maintain for long.

WHEN GH0RI TOOK TO HIS HEELS WHILST FIGHTING A HINDU QUEEN

THE BATTLE OF KASAHRADA (Kayadara)
1178 AD

Strategy! Bravado! Glory!

(Thread)

The narrative set by left historians about one of their favorite poster boys "Gh0ri" is that he went unchallenged upon entering the Indian subcontinent with one king falling after another.(1)

They conveniently deleted this event. Why? An agenda aimed at making us feel weak and inferior against the invaders in an attempt to glorify them. Simple strategy: To destroy a civilization tamper their history.(2)

Gh0ri defeated Prithviraj Chauhan at the 2nd Battle of Tarain in 1192 and laid the foundation of Delhi Sultanate. What is not well known is the fact that 14 years before he won this battle, he was defeated by the queen of Gujarat "Naiki Devi"!(3)

In 1173 Md Gh0ri had conquered the Ghaznavids in Afghanistan. A ruthless, persistent and deceptive Gh0ri was successful in conducting massive raids deep inside Indian territory.(4)

This is Kuinini ‘Nini’ Manumua, the woman who was ultimately displaced by inclusion of Laurel Hubbard.

She’s 21, and it would have been her first Olympics.

1. I was walking in the woods yesterday and I had an epiphany. It wasn’t one I wanted to have. I was thinking about today’s class, where we are reading Kimmerer’s ‘Gathering Moss’. I’ve taught Braiding Sweetgrass in multiple classes every year since 2016. It’s eminently teachable

2. Both books are beautifully written. Students uniformly enjoy them as assigned reading. They do a great job communicating to non-Indigenous folks the contours of basic Indigenous relationships to more-than-human beings. They’re wildly popular with white readers.

3. I’ve found Braiding Sweetgrass to be a great entry point for non-Indigenous folks to Indigenous scholarship. But this is where yesterday’s epiphany comes in. Neither Braiding Sweetgrass or Gathering Moss tends to the deep deep lineages of Indigenous scholarship in Canada or US

4. As the popularity of ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ has soared, I’ve seen more and more white folks wax on about ‘braiding knowledge’. But they often don’t know any of the lineages of these concepts beyond what is presented in this one book. They confidently run with this.

5. Kimmerer does a commendable job of weaving in her own experiences, her family stories+nods to some very important knowledge keepers who deserve to be celebrated for their work. But Braiding Sweetgrass does not tend to the citational politics Sara Ahmed & others teach us about