andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-30 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: Helen DeWitt writes about The Ask, the new book by Sam Lipsyte, author of a hilarious book I read a couple years ago about a loser guy who goes to his high school reunion. I haven’t read Lipsyte’s new book but was interested to see that he teaches at Columbia. Perhaps I can take him to lunch (either before or after I work up the courage to call Gary Shteyngart and ask him about my theory that the main character of that book is a symbol of modern-day America). In any case, in the grand tradition of reviewing the review, I have some thoughts inspired by DeWitt, who quotes from this interview : LRS: I was studying writing at college and then this professor showed up, a disciple of Gordon Lish, and we operated according to the Lish method. You start reading your work and then as soon as you hit a false note she made you stop. Lipsyte: Yeah, Lish would say, “That’s bullshit!” If they did this for statistics articles, I think they’d rarely get past the abstract, most of the ti
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 Helen DeWitt writes about The Ask, the new book by Sam Lipsyte, author of a hilarious book I read a couple years ago about a loser guy who goes to his high school reunion. [sent-1, score-0.546]
2 I haven’t read Lipsyte’s new book but was interested to see that he teaches at Columbia. [sent-2, score-0.281]
3 Perhaps I can take him to lunch (either before or after I work up the courage to call Gary Shteyngart and ask him about my theory that the main character of that book is a symbol of modern-day America). [sent-3, score-0.575]
4 In any case, in the grand tradition of reviewing the review, I have some thoughts inspired by DeWitt, who quotes from this interview : LRS: I was studying writing at college and then this professor showed up, a disciple of Gordon Lish, and we operated according to the Lish method. [sent-4, score-0.238]
5 And that “uniformly most powerful test” is a good idea because . [sent-13, score-0.12]
6 The #1 example of motivation I’ve ever seen was in the move The Grifters. [sent-20, score-0.096]
7 In a very early scene, John Cusack gets punched in the stomach and is seriously injured, and that drives everything else in the plot. [sent-21, score-0.24]
8 DeWitt quotes Gerald Howard: Lish’s influence can been seen in Sam’s obvious concentration on the crafting of his sentences and his single-minded focus on style, a quality less prevalent in the work of younger American writers than it should be. [sent-22, score-0.547]
9 (Savor the perfectly pitched ear required to turn a simple phrase like “a dumpling, some knurled pouch of gristle. [sent-23, score-0.172]
10 ”) Sam replies that “Gordon said many things that I will never forget, but the one thing that I always think about is that he said once, ‘There is no getting to the good part. [sent-24, score-0.222]
11 ’ And so I think that when people are writing their novels they are just thinking about the story, about what has to happen so their character can get to Cleveland. [sent-26, score-0.318]
12 That was one thing that was fun about writing Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks. [sent-32, score-0.239]
13 We felt no obligation to be complete or to include boring stuff just because we were supposed to. [sent-33, score-0.105]
14 Most textbooks I’ve seen have way too many trips to Cleveland. [sent-34, score-0.175]
15 One thing I say about statistics is: I always try to fit the dumbest, simplest possible model for any problem I’m working on. [sent-35, score-0.226]
16 But, unfortunately, the simplest method that is even plausibly appropriate for any problem is typically just a little bit more complicated than the most complicated thing I know how to fit. [sent-36, score-0.48]
17 I guess there’s a similar principle in writing: You restrict yourself to the good stuff, but there’s just a bit too much good stuff to fit in whatever container you have in mind. [sent-37, score-0.345]
18 To connect to another of our common themes: Ed Tufte’s mother, of all people, wrote a good book about the construction of sentences. [sent-41, score-0.239]
19 One thing I love about Marquand are his chapter titles. [sent-49, score-0.102]
20 I can’t usually hope to match him, but he’s my inspiration for blog entry titles such as this one. [sent-50, score-0.145]
wordName wordTfidf (topN-words)
[('lish', 0.399), ('lipsyte', 0.273), ('dewitt', 0.224), ('sam', 0.182), ('gordon', 0.158), ('writing', 0.137), ('simplest', 0.124), ('good', 0.12), ('book', 0.119), ('sentences', 0.113), ('character', 0.112), ('stuff', 0.105), ('ask', 0.104), ('thing', 0.102), ('quotes', 0.101), ('seen', 0.096), ('read', 0.094), ('complicated', 0.091), ('crafting', 0.091), ('dumbest', 0.091), ('princess', 0.091), ('scully', 0.091), ('symbol', 0.091), ('vin', 0.091), ('stomach', 0.086), ('ear', 0.086), ('pitched', 0.086), ('punched', 0.086), ('bullshit', 0.082), ('gerald', 0.082), ('injured', 0.082), ('marquand', 0.082), ('nonfiction', 0.082), ('trips', 0.079), ('courage', 0.079), ('loser', 0.077), ('rephrase', 0.077), ('helen', 0.075), ('titles', 0.075), ('prevalent', 0.073), ('concentration', 0.073), ('plausibly', 0.072), ('inspiration', 0.07), ('lunch', 0.07), ('scene', 0.07), ('goes', 0.069), ('novels', 0.069), ('teaches', 0.068), ('drives', 0.068), ('hilarious', 0.068)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
same-blog 1 0.99999982 30 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-13-Trips to Cleveland
Introduction: Helen DeWitt writes about The Ask, the new book by Sam Lipsyte, author of a hilarious book I read a couple years ago about a loser guy who goes to his high school reunion. I haven’t read Lipsyte’s new book but was interested to see that he teaches at Columbia. Perhaps I can take him to lunch (either before or after I work up the courage to call Gary Shteyngart and ask him about my theory that the main character of that book is a symbol of modern-day America). In any case, in the grand tradition of reviewing the review, I have some thoughts inspired by DeWitt, who quotes from this interview : LRS: I was studying writing at college and then this professor showed up, a disciple of Gordon Lish, and we operated according to the Lish method. You start reading your work and then as soon as you hit a false note she made you stop. Lipsyte: Yeah, Lish would say, “That’s bullshit!” If they did this for statistics articles, I think they’d rarely get past the abstract, most of the ti
2 0.19631718 886 andrew gelman stats-2011-09-02-The new Helen DeWitt novel
Introduction: I read the excerpt in n+1. As one would expect of DeWitt, it was great, while being nothing at all like her other book. THe new book reminded me a bit of Philip K. Dick. Here’s a brief excerpt (which is not actually particularly PKD-like) of the main character talking to himself: “I don’t have what it takes,” he said. He had never said it before because saying it would be like admitting he couldn’t make the grade. I’m not pulling out this quote to sell you on the book. The lines just struck me because of the exquisite distinctions, the idea that “don’t have what it takes” is somehow different than “couldn’t make the grade,” the idea that this character, who expresses his thoughts in empty phrases, ends up assigning to these phrases a set of precise meanings that make sense only to him. One reason Lightning Rods was so fun and refreshing to read is that it’s a non-formula novel that, unlike ChabonFranzenLethemBakerEtc—and, for that matter, unlike Virginia Woolf—is about c
3 0.15527515 824 andrew gelman stats-2011-07-26-Milo and Milo
Introduction: I recently finished two enjoyable novels that I was pretty sure I’d like, given that they were both sequels of a sort. The main characters of both books were named Milo, a name that in literature appears only (to my knowledge) in The Phantom Tollbooth and Catch-22. The Milos in the new books I just read are much different than the two classic literary Milos. One, featured in the new thriller by Olen Steinhauer , is a cool, effective CIA killing machine (but of the good-guy variety, also he has some little character flaws to make him tolerable but he’s basically a superhero). The other is not any sort of killing machine, more of more of a Sam Lipsyte character. Which makes sense since he’s the star of The Ask, the follow-up to Lipsyte’s hilarious lovable-loser saga, Home Land. I have two questions about The Ask. 1. The driver of the plot is as follows. Milo has just been fired from his crappy job at a college in NYC. Milo has a rich friend who asks him to do a favor; in re
4 0.14379638 6 andrew gelman stats-2010-04-27-Jelte Wicherts lays down the stats on IQ
Introduction: Good stuff.
5 0.12340299 111 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-26-Tough love as a style of writing
Introduction: Helen DeWitt links to an interview with Seth Godin, who makes some commonplace but useful observations on jobs and careers. It’s fine, but whenever I read this sort of thing, I get annoyed by the super-aggressive writing style. These internet guys–Seth Godin, Clay Shirky, Philip Greenspun, Jeff Jarvis, and so on–are always getting in your face, telling you how everything you thought was true was wrong. Some of the things these guys say are just silly (for example, Godin’s implication that Bob Dylan is more of a success than the Monkees because Dylan sells more tickets), other times they have interesting insights, but reading any of them for awhile just sets me on edge. I can’t take being shouted at, and I get a little tired of hearing over and over again that various people, industries, etc., are dinosaurs. Where does this aggressive style come from? My guess is that it’s coming from the vast supply of “business books” out there. These are books that are supposed to grab yo
6 0.11990233 264 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-08-Tortoise is planning to vote Republican this year
7 0.11932347 1832 andrew gelman stats-2013-04-29-The blogroll
8 0.10908828 103 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-22-Beach reads, Proust, and income tax
9 0.10732549 2255 andrew gelman stats-2014-03-19-How Americans vote
10 0.10540854 300 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-28-A calibrated Cook gives Dems the edge in Nov, sez Sandy
11 0.10070715 2245 andrew gelman stats-2014-03-12-More on publishing in journals
12 0.095519409 285 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-18-Fiction is not for tirades? Tell that to Saul Bellow!
13 0.09524814 1948 andrew gelman stats-2013-07-21-Bayes related
14 0.092469573 719 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-19-Everything is Obvious (once you know the answer)
15 0.09084136 2172 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-14-Advice on writing research articles
16 0.089717172 1605 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-04-Write This Book
17 0.089695685 1611 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-07-Feedback on my Bayesian Data Analysis class at Columbia
18 0.089684971 316 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-03-Suggested reading for a prospective statistician?
19 0.089443035 1177 andrew gelman stats-2012-02-20-Joshua Clover update
20 0.088577785 240 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-29-ARM solutions
topicId topicWeight
[(0, 0.204), (1, -0.06), (2, -0.07), (3, 0.056), (4, -0.005), (5, 0.019), (6, 0.078), (7, 0.034), (8, 0.094), (9, 0.002), (10, 0.046), (11, -0.025), (12, 0.007), (13, -0.036), (14, 0.057), (15, -0.029), (16, -0.037), (17, 0.023), (18, 0.045), (19, -0.044), (20, 0.02), (21, -0.035), (22, 0.002), (23, 0.014), (24, 0.039), (25, 0.002), (26, -0.026), (27, 0.043), (28, -0.023), (29, 0.013), (30, 0.004), (31, 0.015), (32, 0.016), (33, 0.007), (34, -0.01), (35, 0.004), (36, 0.062), (37, 0.015), (38, 0.012), (39, -0.036), (40, -0.008), (41, -0.04), (42, 0.008), (43, -0.001), (44, 0.045), (45, -0.014), (46, -0.016), (47, -0.047), (48, 0.056), (49, 0.016)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
same-blog 1 0.98376822 30 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-13-Trips to Cleveland
Introduction: Helen DeWitt writes about The Ask, the new book by Sam Lipsyte, author of a hilarious book I read a couple years ago about a loser guy who goes to his high school reunion. I haven’t read Lipsyte’s new book but was interested to see that he teaches at Columbia. Perhaps I can take him to lunch (either before or after I work up the courage to call Gary Shteyngart and ask him about my theory that the main character of that book is a symbol of modern-day America). In any case, in the grand tradition of reviewing the review, I have some thoughts inspired by DeWitt, who quotes from this interview : LRS: I was studying writing at college and then this professor showed up, a disciple of Gordon Lish, and we operated according to the Lish method. You start reading your work and then as soon as you hit a false note she made you stop. Lipsyte: Yeah, Lish would say, “That’s bullshit!” If they did this for statistics articles, I think they’d rarely get past the abstract, most of the ti
2 0.88675398 46 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-21-Careers, one-hit wonders, and an offer of a free book
Introduction: J. Robert Lennon writes : At the moment I [Lennon] am simultaneously working on two magazine articles, each requiring me to assess not just a book, but (briefly) a writer’s entire career. The writers in question are both prominent, both widely published, read, and appreciated. And yet neither, I think, enjoys a full appreciation of their career–its real scope, with all its twists and turns, its eccentricities intact. In one case, the writer had one smash hit, and one notorious book everyone hates. In the other, the writer has somehow become known as the author of one really serious book that gets taught a lot in college classes, and a bunch of other stuff generally thought to be a little bit frivolous. But close readings of each (hell, not even that close) reveals these reputations to be woefully inadequate. Both writers are much more interesting than their hits and bombs would suggest. This naturally got me thinking about statisticians. Some statisticians are famous (within
3 0.86777455 1827 andrew gelman stats-2013-04-27-Continued fractions!!
Introduction: Upon reading this note by John Cook on continued fractions, I wrote: If you like continued fractions, I recommend you read the relevant parts of the classic Numerical Methods That Work. The details are probably obsolete but it’s fun reading (at least, if you think that sort of thing is fun to read). I then looked up Acton in Wikipedia and was surprised to see he’s still alive. And he wrote a second book (published at the age of 77!). I wonder if it’s any good. It’s sobering to read Numerical Methods That Work: it’s so wonderful and so readable, yet in this modern era there’s really not much reason to read it. Perhaps William Goldman (hey, I checked: he’s still alive too!) or some equivalent could prepare a 50-page “good parts” version that could be still be useful as a basic textbook.
4 0.86329365 886 andrew gelman stats-2011-09-02-The new Helen DeWitt novel
Introduction: I read the excerpt in n+1. As one would expect of DeWitt, it was great, while being nothing at all like her other book. THe new book reminded me a bit of Philip K. Dick. Here’s a brief excerpt (which is not actually particularly PKD-like) of the main character talking to himself: “I don’t have what it takes,” he said. He had never said it before because saying it would be like admitting he couldn’t make the grade. I’m not pulling out this quote to sell you on the book. The lines just struck me because of the exquisite distinctions, the idea that “don’t have what it takes” is somehow different than “couldn’t make the grade,” the idea that this character, who expresses his thoughts in empty phrases, ends up assigning to these phrases a set of precise meanings that make sense only to him. One reason Lightning Rods was so fun and refreshing to read is that it’s a non-formula novel that, unlike ChabonFranzenLethemBakerEtc—and, for that matter, unlike Virginia Woolf—is about c
5 0.85856479 115 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-28-Whassup with those crappy thrillers?
Introduction: I was stunned this from Jenny Davidson about mystery writers: The crime fiction community is smart and adult and welcoming, and so many good books are being written (Lee Child was mentioning his peer group – i.e. they were the new kids around the same tie – being Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman – the list speaks for itself) . . . Why was I stunned? Because just a few days earlier I had a look at a book by Robert Crais. It just happened that Phil, when he was visiting, had finished this book (which he described as “pretty good”) and left it with me so he wouldn’t have to take it back with him. I’d never heard of Crais, but it had pretty amazing blurbs on the cover and Phil recommended it, so I took a look. It was bad. From page 1 it was bad. It was like a bad cop show. I could see the seams where the sentences were stitched together. I could see how somebody might like this sort of book, but I certainly can’t understand the blurbs or the i
6 0.85809773 285 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-18-Fiction is not for tirades? Tell that to Saul Bellow!
7 0.85322344 1641 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-27-The Möbius strip, or, marketing that is impervious to criticism
8 0.84717071 57 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-29-Roth and Amsterdam
10 0.83276153 1780 andrew gelman stats-2013-03-28-Racism!
11 0.82573992 258 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-05-A review of a review of a review of a decade
12 0.82307643 432 andrew gelman stats-2010-11-27-Neumann update
13 0.82299751 682 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-27-“The ultimate left-wing novel”
14 0.82236284 824 andrew gelman stats-2011-07-26-Milo and Milo
15 0.80847001 949 andrew gelman stats-2011-10-10-Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
16 0.80711877 203 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-12-John McPhee, the Anti-Malcolm
17 0.80663204 2168 andrew gelman stats-2014-01-12-Things that I like that almost nobody else is interested in
18 0.80564404 2025 andrew gelman stats-2013-09-15-The it-gets-me-so-angry-I-can’t-deal-with-it threshold
19 0.80245233 103 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-22-Beach reads, Proust, and income tax
20 0.80051535 2297 andrew gelman stats-2014-04-20-Fooled by randomness
topicId topicWeight
[(6, 0.016), (10, 0.011), (16, 0.064), (21, 0.023), (24, 0.14), (25, 0.019), (40, 0.013), (44, 0.142), (45, 0.018), (53, 0.011), (72, 0.028), (76, 0.013), (95, 0.045), (99, 0.292)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
1 0.97255206 864 andrew gelman stats-2011-08-21-Going viral — not!
Introduction: Sharad explains : HIV/AIDS, like many other contagious diseases, exemplifies the common view of so-called viral propagation, growing from a few initial cases to millions through close person-to-person interactions. (Ironically, not all viruses in fact exhibit “viral” transmission patterns. For example, Hepatitis A often spreads through contaminated drinking water.[1]) By analogy to such biological epidemics, the diffusion of products and ideas is conventionally assumed to occur “virally” as well, as evidenced by prevailing theoretical frameworks (e.g., the cascade and threshold models) and an obsession in the marketing world for all things social. . . . Despite hundreds of papers written about diffusion, there is surprisingly little work addressing this fundamental empirical question. In a recent study, Duncan Watts, Dan Goldstein, and I [Goel] examined the adoption patterns of several different types of products diffusing over various online platforms — including Twitter, Face
2 0.96548134 748 andrew gelman stats-2011-06-06-Why your Klout score is meaningless
Introduction: Alex Braunstein writes about Klout, a company which measures Twitter/Facebook influence: As a Ph D statistician and search quality engineer, I [Braunstein] know a lot about how to properly measure things. In the past few months I’ve become an active Twitter user and very interested in measuring the influence of individuals. Klout provides a way to measure influence on Twitter using a score also called Klout. The range is 0 to 100. Light users score below 20, regular users around 30, and celebrities start around 75. Naturally, I was intrigued by the Klout measurement, but a careful analysis led to some serious issues with the score. . . . Braunstein continues with some comparisons of different twitter-users and how their Klout scores don’t make much sense. I don’t really see the point of the Klout scores in the first place: I guess they’re supposed to be a quick measure to use in pricing advertising? Whatever, I don’t really care. What did interest me was a remark on Brauns
3 0.95994246 2150 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-27-(R-Py-Cmd)Stan 2.1.0
Introduction: We’re happy to announce the release of Stan C++, CmdStan, RStan, and PyStan 2.1.0. This is a minor feature release, but it is also an important bug fix release. As always, the place to start is the (all new) Stan web pages: http://mc-stan.org Major Bug in 2.0.0, 2.0.1 Stan 2.0.0 and Stan 2.0.1 introduced a bug in the implementation of the NUTS criterion that led to poor tail exploration and thus biased the posterior uncertainty downward. There was no bug in NUTS in Stan 1.3 or earlier, and 2.1 has been extensively tested and tests put in place so this problem will not recur. If you are using Stan 2.0.0 or 2.0.1, you should switch to 2.1.0 as soon as possible and rerun any models you care about. New Target Acceptance Rate Default for Stan 2.1.0 Another big change aimed at reducing posterior estimation bias was an increase in the target acceptance rate during adaptation from 0.65 to 0.80. The bad news is that iterations will take around 50% longer
4 0.95583183 1837 andrew gelman stats-2013-05-03-NYC Data Skeptics Meetup
Introduction: Rachel Schutt writes: The hype surrounding Big Data and Data Science is at a fever pitch with promises to solve the world’s business and social problems, large and small. How accurate or misleading is this message? How is it helping or damaging people, and which people? What opportunities exist for data nerds and entrepreneurs that examine the larger issues with a skeptical view? This Meetup focuses on mathematical, ethical, and business aspects of data from a skeptical perspective. Guest speakers will discuss the misuse of and best practices with data, common mistakes people make with data and ways to avoid them, how to deal with intentional gaming and politics surrounding mathematical modeling, and taking into account the feedback loops and wider consequences of modeling. We will take deep dives into models in the fields of Data Science, statistics, financial engineering, and economics. This is an independent forum and open to anyone sharing an interest in the larger use of
5 0.95215249 1145 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-30-A tax on inequality, or a tax to keep inequality at the current level?
Introduction: My sometime coauthor Aaron Edlin cowrote (with Ian Ayres) an op-ed recommending a clever approach to taxing the rich. In their article they employ a charming bit of economics jargon, using the word “earn” to mean “how much money you make.” They “propose an automatic extra tax on the income of the top 1 percent of earners.” I assume their tax would apply to unearned income as well, but they (or their editor at the Times) are just so used to describing income as “earnings” that they just threw that in. Funny. Also, there’s a part of the article that doesn’t make sense to me. Ayres and Edlin first describe the level of inequality: In 1980 the average 1-percenter made 12.5 times the median income, but in 2006 (the latest year for which data is available) the average income of our richest 1 percent was a whopping 36 times greater than that of the median household. Then they lay out their solution: Enough is enough. . . . we propose an automatic extra tax on the income
6 0.94650418 1627 andrew gelman stats-2012-12-17-Stan and RStan 1.1.0
7 0.94434023 954 andrew gelman stats-2011-10-12-Benford’s Law suggests lots of financial fraud
same-blog 8 0.9420166 30 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-13-Trips to Cleveland
9 0.94073486 617 andrew gelman stats-2011-03-17-“Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School”?
10 0.94032449 693 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-04-Don’t any statisticians work for the IRS?
11 0.93836117 444 andrew gelman stats-2010-12-02-Rational addiction
12 0.93195748 111 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-26-Tough love as a style of writing
13 0.93103278 788 andrew gelman stats-2011-07-06-Early stopping and penalized likelihood
14 0.93014121 865 andrew gelman stats-2011-08-22-Blogging is “destroying the business model for quality”?
15 0.9299956 1231 andrew gelman stats-2012-03-27-Attention pollution
16 0.92978054 1879 andrew gelman stats-2013-06-01-Benford’s law and addresses
17 0.92791641 1436 andrew gelman stats-2012-07-31-A book on presenting numbers from spreadsheets
18 0.92365259 2210 andrew gelman stats-2014-02-13-Stopping rules and Bayesian analysis
19 0.92319107 1117 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-13-What are the important issues in ethics and statistics? I’m looking for your input!
20 0.91884053 2223 andrew gelman stats-2014-02-24-“Edlin’s rule” for routinely scaling down published estimates