Due to the combination of physical distancing and my work supporting the analytics arm of Alberta’s COVID-19 pandemic response, I have been unable to visit some of my favorite ramen shops. Naturally, I have been thinking about ramen, usually of my favorite locations in Tokyo. Another topic at the front of my mind has been mapping; one of my contributions to the COVID-19 response has been creating a seemingly endless supply of maps, most of which were cast into the fires of rejection…
A couple weeks ago I attended the rstudio::conf 2020 in San Francisco, participating in the training day workshops as well as the two day conference for the first time. To heap on all the praise at once… I really enjoyed the experience, there was a strong sense of community among attendees and I had great conversations with like-minded R users. It is nice to discuss nuanced data analysis details without fearing that person will yawn or furtively glance at a nearby timepiece in mid-conversation.