# RealityMining, a Case Study in the Woes of Data Processing

DevFeed: [RealityMining, a Case Study in the Woes of Data Processing](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/realitymining-a-case-study-in-the-woes-of-data-processing-40339.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.jeremykun.com/2014/01/21/realitymining-a-case-study-in-the-woes-of-data-processing/>)

Published: 2014-01-21T22:11:49Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Jeremy Kun](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/jeremy-kun.md>)

Topics: [data-processing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data-processing.md>), [Python](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/python.md>), [dataset](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/dataset.md>), [SciPy](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/scipy.md>), [MATLAB](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/matlab.md>), [NumPy](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/numpy.md>)

Tags: [array](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/array.md>), [big-data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/big-data.md>), [data-analysis](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-analysis.md>), [data-mining](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-mining.md>), [data-processing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-processing.md>), [dataset](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/dataset.md>), [how-to](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/how-to.md>), [library](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/library.md>), [matlab](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/matlab.md>), [python](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/python.md>), [reality-mining](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/reality-mining.md>), [research](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/research.md>), [social-networks](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/social-networks.md>), [tutorial](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tutorial.md>)

## AI overview

A tutorial and critique of accessing the RealityMining smartphone dataset with Python. It explains the dataset's communication, cell-tower, survey, and friendship data; the access process; the proprietary Matlab file format; and difficulties loading and inspecting the data with SciPy and NumPy.

## Source excerpt

This post is intended to be a tutorial on how to access the RealityMining dataset using Python (because who likes Matlab?), and a rant on how annoying the process was to figure out. RealityMining is a dataset of smart-phone data logs from a group of about one hundred MIT students over the course of a year. The data includes communication and cell tower data, the latter being recorded every time a signal changes from one tower to the next.