To get a grip on what "data science" really is, we'll work through a real text mining problem live on stage. Our mission? Trace the evolution of popular words and phrases in RailsConf talk abstracts over the years! We'll cover all aspects of the problem, from gathering and cleaning our data, to performing analysis and creating a compelling visualization of our results. People often overlook Ruby as a choice for scientific computing, but the Rails ecosystem is surprisingly suited to the problem.

Originally a "math guy", Todd spent six years working for a hedge fund building models to value mortgage-backed securities before a fortuitous foray into web programming got him tangled up with Rap Genius. His recent Rails work includes Rap Stats, Wedding Crunchers, and Gambletron 2000.