My little space in the interwebs.
In the summer of 2005 I became the owner of black lab mix from a coworker. Or she took ownership of me. Either way the dog was free. Her name was Lucy and she was a great dog. A very good girl. The kind of dog that makes it hard to get another, since no…
I’m currently reading the book On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser. As someone who is remediating his writing after a lifetime of neglect it is an amazing book. Even if you just read the first few chapters you’ll learn much. To start: strive for simplicity. I am a wordy…
Now that the Tour de France is wrapping up, I found this paper on comparing the Tour de France and the Vuelta in terms of (how the authors define) difficulty. I like these types of studies. Here is one arguing the Dawn Wall in Yosemite is the hardest rock climb in the world. I need…
The problem of multiple comparison is well established in statistics. The multiple comparison problem occurs when many(!) hypothesis tests are performed on the same dataset. By doing so, the chance of a false positive result (e.g., finding a statistically significant result that is actually not) increases. For example, if performing 100 hypothesis tests each at…
If you are interested in the culture wars and conspiracy theories, Things Fell Apart this is worth a listen. The episodes are well researched and produced, and are easy to listen to. Season 1 is on a broad collection of US culture war battles. Episode 4 is on the “satanic panic” of the 1980’s, which,…
I’m finding that as I age I prefer my outdoor recreation to be less about suffering and adventure, and more about recreation. Think a nice, sunny walk in the woods on a developed trail compared to a remote bushwhack in the pouring rain. Living in upstate New York allows for this, as even “wild” places…
This post could be lifted from an introductory statistics text. But in my experience working with researchers the important distinction between a sample statistic and a population parameter gets a little muddled. A population parameter is an value that describes a population, such as the mean BMI of all American’s or the mean rent in…
My latest favorite podcast is Navel Gazing by John Dickerson. I would recommend listening from the beginning, but I found this episode about todo lists like I was connecting with a long lost twin. I never thought I would hear a reference to the AlphaSmart word processor in a podcast, let alone 43 folders and…
Since November 27, 2022 I’ve been participating in a writing challenge, which is called a very short story (tagged #vss365 on Twitter/X). The rules are to create a Twitter-length story using the prompt of the day. The website that hosted the challenged has ended, so if you want to participate you’ll need to search #vss365…
With the recent explosion of generative AI, what will be the role of expertise in this new world? For example, in coding, can anybody with no expertise write quality computer programs using AI, or is there still a need for computer science expertise? Will photographers be needed, when high-quality images can be created by a…