John Jardel

John Jardel

Former astrophysicist/current data scientist, looking for interesting problems.

Recent Posts

Fun with Congressional District Maps

3 minute read

With Congress’s approval rating hovering below 20%, it’s safe to say that all sides of the political spectrum are unhappy.  When you consider that the 113th Congress is on pace to pass only 72 bills in its two-year session (compare that to the mere 900 bills passed by the 80th Congress that got it the nickname “the Do Nothing Congress”) it’s easy to see why.  Add to that the sharp uptick in partisan vitriol, and I think both Democrats and Republicans would agree that our lawmakers are more polarized now than ever.

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Understanding Aircraft Bird Strikes–(Messing Around with Tableau)

1 minute read

Ok I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a nervous flyer.  I’m the guy on the plane who looks around at all the flight attendants after every little bump or noise to make sure nothing’s wrong.  So when a United Airlines 737 was taken down by a flock of geese, that was the last thing I needed to hear about.  I had no idea something as small as a bird could have such an impact on a 30 ton aircraft.

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Analyzing the Semantic Web

3 minute read

As part of an assignment for a class I’m taking on Coursera, I recently played around with a big data set representing the Semantic Web (an attempt to organize the world into a network of data that’s capable of  being understood and manipulated without human input).  One of the dreams of this project is to allow machines to interact with the entirety of the world wide web without any direct human input.

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My First Blog Post–A Look at Severe Weather in the United States

3 minute read

Following Monday’s devastating tornado in Moore, OK, I’ve been thinking about all the severe weather that’s been in the news. Whether it’s hurricanes in New Jersey or two EF-5 tornados hitting the same town in a 15-year span, it just seems like there’s always some natural disaster on TV.

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