As statisticians, we like to say that statistics is everywhere. Here is an example. Regular readers of this blog might know that my darling daughter number three is the world champion in mixed martial arts. There is a very wide gap in the general discourse at mixed martial arts events and, say, the Joint Statistical…
I’m not really swearing in the title of this post because I am not so much angry as sad. I have been reviewing grant proposals recently. Generally, I hate reviewing proposals because the pay is minimal relative to the time you put in, there are usually a lot to be read in a short time,…
The Rocket Scientist and I just had our first martini in days. Actually, one of us (cough * me * cough) is not a big drinker, but still … Alcohol is against tribal law and I do believe in respecting the customs anywhere I am visiting. If I can’t respect your customs, I won’t go…
Yesterday, I posted how to get SPSS Integration Technologies with Python working on the Mac. Today, I received this certificate of appreciation from one of my blog readers. I’m including this in my performance review. Oh wait, I don’t get performance reviews, I’m the president. Now that I have my certificate in getting the…
So, I did it. I finally got the SPSS Python Integration modules to work on the Mac. There should be angels singing and certificates of achievement handed to me personally by at least four of the twelve apostles. At the very least, I should get a prize. Almost six months ago, I wrote a post…
I hate Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the entire Twilight Series. This came about over the course of a week when my daughter had strep throat and was watching approximately 4,789,362 episodes of vampire shows in the living room, which is just down the hall from my office. Thus, when Brenda Osuna from USC asked…
Kirk Anderson recently mentioned a new course on the American Statistical Association Statistical Education group, Statistics in the Media “The focus will be on how statistics are reported in the media. Students will be asked to read news stories and critically evaluate the conclusions made, recognizing when assertions are and are not supported by evidence….
Several interesting random thoughts from JSM: From a session by Freeda Cooner entitled, “Bayesian statistics are powerful, not magical” ways in which Bayes results could be slanted (one hopes unwittingly) were discussed. One point worth repeating is that the validity assumes accurate priors. Kind of obvious, no? Yet, the question is, where did you get…
Seriously, how weird must you be to fall for this shit? Normally spam is just annoying but today I got one that I cannot imagine anyone could be stupid enough to fall for. It was from Woody Allen, who apparently is a big yahoo fan because his email is adaer22@yahoo.com and the reply to is zbgfsgdr@yahoo.com ….
I’m in North Carolina this week at a class for professors on Advanced Predictive Modeling using SAS Enterprise Miner. This is the sort of statement that causes The Spoiled One & Co. to make faces that look like this: Despite my failure to impress fourteen-year-olds, I think the class has been well worth it. I’m…