SQL, Code, Coffee, Etc. - Data Musings by Marlon Ribunal

01/04/2019
by Marlon Ribunal
Comments Off on Looking Forward

Looking Forward

2018 has come and gone. And we’re on a new year once again. This is another opportunity for a new beginning and new goals to aspire for. For most of us, the new year brings the promise of a restart or reboot. We can start with a clean slate. The new year also brings us a more positive perspective and that confident mindset that thrusts us into yet unfamiliar territory. And, so, the new year also brings us excitement.

I started the past year with big, bold goals. It was anchored to my personal theme of “Career Year”. It’s a personal tradition that I choose a “word” (or mantra) for the year. It was Kaizen (continuous improvement) for 2017 and Daitan’na (大胆な ) which means audacious, daring or bold for 2018.

For 2019, my chosen word is Zanshin ( 残心 ). It is a state of total awareness.

Wikipedia illustrates the concept clearer:

“In kyūdō, zanshin means the body posture after the loosing of an arrow; the posture is intended to reflect the higher meaning of zanshin, which is a mental aspect maintained before, during, and after an action.
In karate, zanshin is the state of total awareness. It means being aware of one’s surroundings and enemies while being prepared to react.”

I have no enemies to speak of. The “enemies” referenced in the Wiki does not apply to me. For me, the concept applies to everything that I do – career, professional, personal, family, work, relationships, etc.

And so, my theme for this year, in conjunction with the “word”, zanshin, is Awareness – just being aware of my actions and how they affect my surroundings so I know what are the best options on how to react. Making adjustments is the key.

Like I said, this applies to everything that I do. One of the biggest goals I had last year was technical learning. I’d like to say that I tried everything I could to learn given the situation. But I wasn’t able to go deeper than I thought I could. As they say, ” Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Kaizen has been beneficial to me on both professional and personal fronts. It has always been a part of my personal methods of improvement – that small but continuous improvement goes a long way. I have two particular systems that I integrate to my life this new year: Bullet Journal and Miracle Morning. If you’re into self-improvement stuff, I recommend these two.

Bullet Journal

It’s analog journal/planner/task manager/notebook/anything you want it to be. It’s a flexible system. Central to the system is the concept of Rapid Logging – dump everything in your brain into the page as quickly as you have them. Daily To-Do’s, Events, Notes, etc go to your Daily Log. Any future event such as appointments, birthdays, and any dated item that will happen in the future go to the Future log. The Monthly Log includes an overview of your month and tasks or events to accomplish for the month. You can have custom Collections that contain a list of books you want to read, grocery list, project to-do’s, etc.

Another nice idea built-in into the system is the concept of Migration – simply migrating undone tasks or any types of a list from one Daily Log to another or one month to another depending on the case. Threading holds the pages together although they might be on different part of your notebook.

The Index holds the system together. You don’t want to lose track of the stuff you put in the journal. You want to find that grandma’s recipe easily when you need it. I’ve always been a notebook guy – the analog type. I have multiple notebooks for different topics and lists. Bullet Journal integrates all these into one manageable system.

Miracle Morning

I am a nocturnal being. I’ve never been an early riser all my life. This changes with the Miracle Morning. Miracle Morning is a six-step routine or program that enables the practitioner to adopt healthy mental and productive states and well-being. It is based on the concept of habit stacking.

The Six-Step Routine is condensed into the acronym – SAVERS. Silence takes you to a moment of meditation or prayer. Mental priming comes easy with Affirmation. You can get in tune with your goals and wishes by Visualization. Exercise gets your blood pumped. You can use your Reading time for studying hard concepts or things that are beneficial to you. And, finally, Scribling which is a fancy term for journalling.

I will incorporate systems or methods into my self-improvement system as I see fit and adjust along the way. The Bullet Journal helps me track and measure my progress in achieving my goals. I’ve got plenty of personal and professional goals this year! The Miracle Morning turns me upside down. This is something I’ve never done before. Many of the successful figures I admire are morning people. Plus, I realize that learning technical stuff is hard after most of my willpower is exhausted throughout the day.

That said, I think much of the challenges I’ve encountered during my learning phases is that I have not learned to prioritize my learning. I would delay my reading time of technical books later in the day towards my bedtime – when I am already tired and just ready to go to bed. It didn’t work. Now, that will change.

Speaking of changes, I’ve avoided non-tech posts here in my blog since the beginning. That will change as well. I used to blog about Productivity and GTD hacks in a different blog. I want to incorporate that here. It will still be true to the original theme of this blog: SQL, Code, Coffee, etc. I will have more of that Coffee and etc. part.

This new year brings us new promises and hopes of a brighter days ahead. Few integral changes can only put us to a position where we can succeed.

12/21/2018
by Marlon Ribunal
Comments Off on Forecasting Kyle Kuzma’s Field Goal Percentage (FG%)

Forecasting Kyle Kuzma’s Field Goal Percentage (FG%)

More and more tools are becoming available for data analysts and data scientists. These tools provide convenience and lower the bar of entry for aspiring data professional.

I’ve been looking for an easy way to get to learning predictive analysis and forecasting. Prophet provides that path. Prophet is released by Facebook’s Core Data Science Team.

“Prophet is a procedure for forecasting time series data based on an additive model where non-linear trends are fit with yearly, weekly, and daily seasonality, plus holiday effects. It works best with time series that have strong seasonal effects and several seasons of historical data. Prophet is robust to missing data and shifts in the trend, and typically handles outliers well.”

Just to dip my toes into the waters, I tried Prophet’s Quick Start Guide in R.

Let’s forecast the Field Goal Percentage (FG%) of Kyle Kuzma of the Los Angeles Lakers for the next 6 Months.

I’m using the FG% data scraped from Kuzma’s Game Log from 10/18/2018 to 12/18/2018.

Prophet uses a “normal model fitting API with its prophet function that performs fitting and returns a model object.”

#data source https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/k/kuzmaky01/gamelog/2019/
#load prophet  
library(prophet)

#create data frame
df <- read.csv('C:/Users/Marlon.Ribunal/Desktop/JE Docs/Install/Kuzma_FG_Pct.csv')

#define model
m <- prophet(df=df, growth = "linear", yearly.seasonality = TRUE)

#set horizon (preiods to forecast)
future <- make_future_dataframe(m, periods = 180)

That pretty much read our csv into a data frame, performs fitting, and define the model.

To run a simple forecast on our data:

#plot forecast
plot(m,forecast)

We can also break down that forecast into the trend, weekly, and yearly:

#Plot forecast breakdown
prophet_plot_components(m, forecast, uncertainty = TRUE, yearly_start = 0, weekly_start = 0, plot_cap = TRUE)

If you’re looking into doing some forecasting, Prophet might be a good starting point. By the way, it’s an open source software so it gets a lot of support from the open source community, plus it’s from Facebook. Visit Prophet’s Github page here.

Marlon Ribunal - Data Professionals At Work

11/02/2018
by Marlon Ribunal
Comments Off on How I Work: Data Professionals at Work

How I Work: Data Professionals at Work

It has been a busy year so far. Last March, I did a review, as a Technical Reviewer, for a SQL 2017 Machine Learning book. In the summer, the whole family went to the Philippines for a 3-week vacation. Between the Machine Learning book and the vacation, I was working with a book publisher for a possible contract for a SQL book. Well, I was just too busy at that point that I decided not to do it. I still have that sitting in my Someday list, though.

In the first quarter of the year, I was busy trying to check off the goals that I set earlier this year, then suddenly I got uber busy at work and had to put those goals in the backburner. But, then again, that’s not enough reason to not get involved in another book. I wanted to write another book but I cannot just do that at this point. So, I was very excited when Mala asked if I wanted to be a part of her book. I said Yes right away.

Data Professionals at Work is a collection of interviews of, well, data professionals working in the various aspects of the data industry – Database Administrator, Data Development, Data Analysis, Business Intelligence, Data Science, among others. You’ll read about how these professionals got their start in the data world. You’ll read about their opinion on what’s on the leading edge in the industry. You’ll get to read about their a-day-in-the-life-of.

Well, you’ll get a glimpse of what I do for a living in Chapter 26. You’ll read about what I have to say about Agile Methodologies, Best Practices, cloud adoption, etc.

All the interviewees were asked the same set of questions, so you’ll get different takes on the same topics, which is great!

If you’re thinking about moving into the data industry, this is a good book to pick up. You’ll get an idea of how everybody started in their field. This is a good book if you’re just starting out. You’ll get tips on how we approach our day-to-day work, tools that we use, work-life-balance, etc.

A note: My company in the book is showing as JustEnough Software Corp. That since changed to Mi9 Retail Co.

Cast Of Characters

(The following list is copied over from I’m in a book! Data Professionals at Work, sorry Kenneth. I was too lazy to write my own list)

Editor and interviewer: Malathi Mahadevan (blog|twitter)

Foreword: Kevin Kline (blog|twitter)

The Data Professionals at Work book is now available at Amazon.