Hi there!

I’m Alex Gude, a data scientist with a passion for plots and algorithms, but also cycling and photography. I got my start in the valley at Insight Data Science. In my previous life, I was a high energy particle physicist at CERN and a cosmologist at Lawrence Berkeley Labs.

I write about whatever catches my attention here on this site; mostly that means data science, machine learning, deep learning, and software development related topics. My old work blog (with mostly deep learning stuff) can be found at Gab41. If you’re interested in my thoughts in real time, follow me on Twitter: @alex_gude

The code that I write lives on my Github page. Check it out! Bug reports and pull requests welcome!

Recent Posts

Below you can find the most recent posts; older posts can be found on my blog:

A color image of the M101 Pinwheel Galaxy, a spiral galaxy, composed of multiple exposures taken by NASA and the European Space Agency. Making Animations Quickly with Matplotlib Blitting
Animating plots is great way to show how some quantity changes in time, but they can be slow to generate in matplotlib! Thankfully, blitting makes animating much faster! Learn how to here!
A black and white photo of male students sitting on the steps of Wheeler Hall on the University of California, Berkeley campus in 1940. The Typical Successful Career Starts with Rejection
When I applied for graduate school I was rejected, not by a few good grad schools, but by all of them! But thanks to a little kindness, I was able to continue onward.
A photo of four Swedish children, two boys and two girls, taken sometime in the 1920s. The boys are wearing matching clothes, and the girls are wearing matching dresses. Rise and Fall of Popular Names
The popularity of baby names rises and falls based on the tastes of each generation of parents. Are their preferences the same for boy's names as for girl's names? I plot the trends to find out!
A black and white photo from the 1913 Columbia University Commencement featuring a group of men in doctoral gowns wearing mortarboards. Nobel Prize winner Alexis Carrel is amongst them. Should I Get a PhD?
In 2009, having little or no money in my purse, I thought I would go to graduate school in physics. But was it the right idea? And should you follow in my footsteps?
A set of four blue Fate dice resting on top of a wooden table. Fate Dice: Statistics Testing Is Hard
A few months ago I tested my Fate dice for biases. Now, I retest the "biased" set and see if it really is unlucky! Unfortunately, things aren't so clear...