The Backstory

I'll admit -- I've never really understood the appeal of the show, _The Bachelor_. Contrived interactions, fake relationships, all filmed on camera. However, during the last season, I would have the show playing in the background while preparing dinner. After watching all the fanfare and the dramatics, it led me to wonder if we can just skip all of the charades. What if it was just about appearances, and the Bachelor might be appealing to much simpler senses. Perhaps there is a special "look" shared across all Bachelor Winners unwittingly pulling at his heartstrings?

The Questions

1. Can we predict the winner of _The Bachelor_ solely on facial appearances?
2. What might the winner of the _The Bachelor_ look like generally speaking?

The Data and Conclusions

Part 1:

Before jumping to any conclusions, I want to acknowledge that this isn't the best designed data science experiment. We need to make some rather bold assumptions that I will discuss in the technical sections below. Generally speaking, the approach was to take a set of face images for previous Bachelor Winners and Non Winners. We would then use a Convolutional Neural Network to extract embeddings for both sets ...

Photo by Loic801

The Backstory

Most people enjoy the freedom and convenience of having a car, but personally an appeal of the New York City lifestyle is never having to drive. Although this usually means taking the Subway, cabs are a necessary staple of getting around the city. It's hard to imagine a day without hearing their horns blaring or seeing them weave about traffic. But it certainly begs the question of how many rides are accessed on a daily basis?

The Question

On an average day, how many total rides are accessed, how much in fares is generated, and how much is the average fare?

The Data and Conclusions

Unsurprisingly, the data corroborates that Midtown was by far the most active in terms of cab pickups, followed by the Upper East Side. Both LaGuardia and JFK are noticeable locales in the outer-boroughs.

The total amount generated in a day on a neighborhood-basis essentially mirrors the number of pickups. Midtown accounts for more than $1MM in total fares per day. However, both airports now perform roughly equivalent to the Upper West Side by this metric.