Replacing Dropbox Pro with Amazon Glacier, and other services

Posted on by mrsoltys
Recently I've started auditing my tech spending to save some money.  One of the things I decided to drop was my subscription to Dropbox Pro, costing me $99/yr for 100 GB.  (really 140, because they double your free-space with a pro account). Here's what I did. Photos: Amazon S3 Glacier Backup A big chunk of my data in dropbox was photos:...Read More

Reading/Writing to CSV in Matlab

Posted on by mrsoltys
When doing data analysis, many times your input will come in a .csv file, and you'll also want output in a .csv file.  Unfortunately, matlab's built-in csvread/csvwrite functions are exceptionally frustrating to use for anything than pure numeric input/output.  Luckily, writing your own code to read /csv files (especially with some knowledge of your desired input/output) is pretty easy. Reading...Read More

How to calculate the 100-year flood

Posted on by mrsoltys
There are a number of ways to calculate the 1 in 100 flood, some more complicated than others. This simple way does a great job of explaining the basics (and the shortcomings behind the metric).  First we start with historical data, and we need a good chunk of it. Since we're in Boulder I'm going to use the Boulder Creek @...Read More

About 100 year floods (and probabilities, and risk analysis)

Posted on by mrsoltys
I'm based in Boulder, and it's flooding.  Luckily, we're all fine here. Flooding is kind of a weird natural disaster.  First: It doesn't feel very threatening: It's just raining outside... a lot. But it does post some serious risks and deserves to be taken seriously. 100 year floods (Should be called: the 1% flood) [caption id="attachment_1348" align="alignright" width="300"] Near Boulder Creek...Read More

Understanding Heart Rate

Posted on by mrsoltys
So I just got a Garmin, mostly to record long rides on strava without killing my phone battery. But I'm also a bit interested in the Heart Rate data craze.  So far, everything i've found on heart rate training seems anecdotal at best: "Subtract your age from 220..."  That's about where I stop reading.  It seems like this formula is a good guess,...Read More

Tool of the Week: Using Google Forms for Research

Posted on by mrsoltys
I love google docs, it's an awesome way to collaborate on word processing files and spreadsheets, and have them available from anywhere.  I have a few google spreadsheets I use daily in the lab with calibration curves and other important info, but I wanted to talk about a less obvious google doc that i find invaluable: Google Forms.  You may have already heard...Read More