PyData Seattle 2015 Scikit-Learn Tutorial
This is the main index of the PyData Seattle 2015 Introduction to Scikit-Learn tutorial, presented by Jake VanderPlas. Please refer to the github repository for this tutorial for any updates.

From Big Data to Big Profits: A Lesson from Google’s Nest
Google Nest is a very interesting example of how such a seemingly simple item as thermostat, with the addition to Big Data can transform an industry and lead to significant profits.

Revolution R Open 3.2.1 now available
The latest update to Revolution R Open, RRO 3.2.1, is now available for download from MRAN. This release upgrades to the latest R engine (3.2.1), enables package downloads via HTTPS by default, and adds new supported Linux platforms.
Revolution R Open 3.2.1 includes:
• The latest R engine, R 3.2.1. Improvements in this release include more flexible character string handling, reduced memory usage, and some minor bug fixes.
• Multi-threaded math processing, reducing the time for some numerical operations on multi-core systems.
• A focus on reproducibility, with access to a fixed CRAN snapshot taken on July 1, 2015. Many new and updated packages are available since the previous release of RRO — see the latest Package Spotlight for details. CRAN packages released since July 1 can be easily (and reproducibly!) accessed with the checkpoint function.
• Binary downloads for Windows, Mac and Linux systems, including new support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11, and openSUSE 13.1.
• 100% compatibility with R 3.2.1, RStudio and all other R-based applications.

Sunbelt XXXV, Social Network Analysis, Statnet and R
The XXXV Sunbelt Conference of the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) was held last month at Brighton beach in the UK. (And I am still bummed out that I was not there.)

Administrative Maps and Projections in R
Today I will demonstrate how to create maps of ‘other countries’, and use map projections, with the choroplethr package in R. I write ‘other countries’ in quotes because, like most things, translating a high level wish into software can be complicated.

Waterfall plots – what and how?
Waterfall plots’ are nowadays often used in oncology clinical trials for a graphical representation of the quantitative response of each subject to treatment. For an informative article explaining waterfall plots see Understanding Waterfall Plots. In this post, we illustrate the creation of waterfall plots in R.