My basket of article ideas is filled to the brim so it’s time to have a crack at emptying it out.
I’ve been intending to keep a blog for a while. While I’ve had numerous personal sites over the years, I’ve never quite managed to keep them relevant or interesting for long. Part of that is down to being busy with life, but I also never felt qualified enough to contribute to the discourse online.
A few years of adulting and lowered inhibitions later…
My interests are quite varied so expect to read anything ranging from politics (my guilty pleasure) and environmental policy (my passion) to machine learning and data visualisation techniques (the tools of my trade). Ironically, what you won’t see is anything about astrophysics, a subject I obsessed about for the best part of 15 years. After attempting a PhD in it (specifically, on the evolution of massive stars), we decided to part ways.
This blog is inspired by the stellar work at Vox and FiveThirtyEight. If you haven’t heard of Vox yet, it’s a US-centric wonky news outfit which dives deep into complex policy topics and explains them in language for the rest of us. FiveThirtyEight, which is similar, uses hard data and statistics to dissect politics. I wanted a space where I could take a step back from day to day discussions, comb through the data and talk through my analysis and my thoughts.
I’ll try to stick to three simple rules.
- Write about things that will still be relevant in five years.
- Back up my assertions with data.
- Write each new article better than the last.
I’m confident that I’ll fail in the process, but that’s the best way to learn, right?!
