Hello! My name is Sumer and I am a BA/MA student here at the University of Chicago, studying psychology and computational social science. I am interested in media psychology, especially in how we can harvest digital footprint data to create rich psychological portraits of individuals. I am taking this class to complete the programming requirement for the certificate in computational social sciences. I am originally from Mumbai, India, which is a considerably warmer place than the frozen tundra that is Chicago. I apologize if my formatting seems a bit weird but I could not think of a creative way to use emphasis in my introduction! If there is anything else you should know about me, it is that I absolutely love books. I love reading non-fiction sampled from popular science, intellectual history and current affairs topics. Here is a list of the books I am currently trying to read, despite the overwhelming coursework: (I have embedded the the Amazon-link into the title of the book)
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Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street by Sheelah Kolhatkar
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The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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Englightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress by Steven Pinker
My favorite quote from one the above books is:
“In God we trust. All others [must] have data" -Bernard Fisher
I experimented with five markdown elements in this assignment:
- Headings
- Emphasis
- Blockquotes
- Linking
- Lists (Numbered and Bullet)
I placed two hashtags prior to the text of my headings to describe a level 2 type heading. I placed three hashtags prior to the text of some headings to describe a level 3 type heading. To italicize words, I wrapped them with one star. To embolden words, I wrapped them with two stars. To embed links I first wrapped the title of the book in square brackets and then copy-pasted the Amazon link in curly brackets, exactly adjacent (without space), to the title of the book. To put text into blockquotes I used ">" operator, which I placed immediately before the text I wanted to put into blockquotes, without space. To create bullet lists, I placed one star and a space stroke before the start of the text of the bullet point.
I wrote everything directly on a text editor and then copy-pasted into the RStudio README text file. I then previewed my document to ensure everthing made sense and displayed properly. I had earlier set-up my GitHub and R Studio to work together. Hence, I simply had to first commit the changed README file by checking the "staged" box adjacent to it, and then clicking on "Commit". I then typed in a commit message and pressed "Commit". Next, I did an empty "pull" to develop a force of habit, by clicking on the blue pull button. Then I did a "push" by the clicking the green upward arrow.
I love that GitHub and RStudio work together so seamlessly. It was very easy to use to use them together, and I see why GitHub is especially equipped to deal with large collaborations and projects spanning multiple collaborators and institutes. The integration of RStudio and GitHub certainly also reduces the complexity of the Git workflow, as everything is now happening in the same environment. Even though I hve been working with Git for the past two quarters now, I only integrated it with RStudio now, and I realized it made me understand the whole Git flow in a much better manner. As for markdown, I have always loved writing using its easy synatx and lightweight approach.