Cohee: “R, if you haven’t heard, is hot. It’s one of the most widely used programming languages in the growing field of data science. The ‘R Programming’ course from John Hopkins University is currently #5 on the top 10 list of courses on the Coursera MOOC platform. R is free. There is a great IDE for it called RStudio that is also free. The Coursera course itself is also free! The course is four weeks long and has three major programming assignments. It’s taught by Roger D. Peng PhD who also published four e-books on R that you can download from leanpub (a donation is encouraged but not required).”
“My first encounter with R was at BNP Paribas when I was running the MBS/CMO Whole Loan IT Program. It was a popular tool with the quants who used it for everything from importing large data sets such as loan level performance data, to analyzing prepayment speeds on pools of mortgages, estimating losses and loss severities, and plotting graphs. It’s also really handy for running simulations like creating a series of random samples for Powerball. Anyone interested in data science should definitely explore R. The script to simulate the drawings will be pretty straight-forward but if anyone is interested in obtaining a copy, I’d be happy to share it. I will at some point eventually post it to GitHub.”
“What about you Katina, will you be playing Powerball and what’s your strategy for picking the winning numbers?”
Stefanova: “Absolutely. I always participate in the office pool, just to not be the one who looses out in the remote chance that my friends win. While I admit my approach is not mathematically sound, it is psychologically preferable. What should someone do if they are the lucky winner?”
Cohee: “Good question. I am (irrationally) expecting to win so I’ve given this some careful consideration. Here are five things you must do:
- If you’ve fainted, get up off the floor and collect yourself. You’re a multi-millionaire now!
- Make sure you don’t throw away or lose the ticket! This is important.
- Definitely don’t come forward. Hide. Literally, go into hiding (especially from your in-laws). If you don’t have a lawyer get one – fast. Setup a trust for the money so you can remain anonymous.
- Don’t let your Uncle Leo manage the money. Let seasoned experts handle your new found wealth. Marto Capital might be a good place to start!
- Give your Mom a few million. She probably deserves it.”
Read this article by Katina on Forbes by clicking here.
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