This week, we looked at the price of gasoline in the United States – both because it has declined over the last year, and because it is often considered a major factor in presidential elections. The New York Times reported on the lower gas prices just yesterday (https://www.nytimes.com/
Americans pay close attention to gas prices, and complain bitterly about them – even when those prices are far below what people in less-wealthy countries are paying. Kai Ryssdal, the Marketplace (https://marketplace.org/) anchor, has sometimes said that people are sensitive to the price of gas not just because they
This week, we looked at broadband Internet availability in countries around the world. The topic was inspired by a three-part series, "Breaking Ground," that Marketplace broadcast last week (https://www.marketplace.org/collection/breaking-ground/) about the obstacles that the United States now faces in expanding broadband access. I
When we bought our apartment in 1999, Modi'in was called Israel's "city of the future." Never mind the silly tagline; even then, we had a number of features that did make it more modern (futuristic?) than many others: Underground power and phone lines, planned
This week, we celebrated (mourned?) the start of the school year in much of the northern hemisphere, looking at trends in education for various countries and regions in the world. There's no end to the questions that we can ask about education, ranging from the financial investment to
It's late August – which means, at least for many people in the northern hemisphere, that a new school year has already begun, or will be starting soon. It's still fairly quiet at the schools I pass on my morning walk, including the upper school at the
[Want to learn about Polars? On Sunday, I'll be teaching my first-ever course on Polars. You can buy the course on its own at https://store.lerner.co.il/polars, or get it as part of my Python+data membership at https://LernerPython.com. The membership includes my
Until a few years ago, inflation seemed like a thing of the past, at least in most developed countries. Low inflation meant that central banks, and especially the Federal Reserve, could keep interest rates extremely low – at or close to zero. (This was sometimes called ZIRP, for "zero interest-rate
Thanks to everyone who came to this month's office hours! I'm enclosing the video here, as well as the Jupyter notebook I used for coding. Remember that I'm still running a bunch of live courses over the coming week, including: * Working with text in
Do you have questions about Pandas? Join me for my monthly office hours! Come and chat about any questions or problems you have. Or just come to chat; I'm always happy to talk. This session is only for paid BW subscribers, including members of my Python+Data program.
[Administrative note: I'll be holding office hours for paid subscribers, including members of my Python+data membership program, on this coming Sunday, August 18th. Come with any and all Pandas questions; my goal is to answer anything I can. I'll send a reminder and Zoom link
Several years ago, I read David Sanger's book, "The Perfect Weapon," about cyber attacks – that is, attacks against the Internet and computer infrastructure. The book was equally enlightening and terrifying, and I highly recommend it. The main thesis was that causing destruction and mayhem no longer