andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-354 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining

354 andrew gelman stats-2010-10-19-There’s only one Amtrak


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Introduction: Just was buying my ticket online. Huge amounts of paperwork . . . can’t they contract out with Amazon.com? Anyway, at the very end, I got this item: Recommended: Add Quik-Trip Travel Protection Get 24/7 protection for your trip with a plan that provides: * Electronic and Sporting Equipment coverage up to $1,000 * Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. or more) up to $150 * 24/7 Travel Emergency Assistance Yes! For just $8.50 per traveler, I’d like to add Quik-Trip Travel Protection. This is $8.50 total. Restrictions apply, learn more. No thanks. I decline Quik-Trip Travel Protection. “Restrictions apply,” huh? My favorite part, though, is “Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. or more) up to $150.” I can just imagine the formula they have: “Your delay is 8 hours and 20 minutes, huh? Let’s look that up . . . it looks like you’re entitled to $124. And thanks for riding Amtrak!” But if your delay is only 5 hours and 50 minutes, forget about it. P.


Summary: the most important sentenses genereted by tfidf model

sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore

1 Anyway, at the very end, I got this item: Recommended: Add Quik-Trip Travel Protection Get 24/7 protection for your trip with a plan that provides: * Electronic and Sporting Equipment coverage up to $1,000 * Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. [sent-7, score-0.789]

2 50 per traveler, I’d like to add Quik-Trip Travel Protection. [sent-10, score-0.145]

3 My favorite part, though, is “Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. [sent-17, score-0.292]

4 ” I can just imagine the formula they have: “Your delay is 8 hours and 20 minutes, huh? [sent-19, score-0.569]

5 ” But if your delay is only 5 hours and 50 minutes, forget about it. [sent-25, score-0.556]

6 My most memorable Amtrak experience was several years ago when I found myself sitting next to an elderly gentleman who was reading through some official-looking documents. [sent-28, score-0.385]

7 I started up a conversation and told him our research on political polarization, a topic which he knew all about, of course. [sent-31, score-0.235]


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Introduction: Just was buying my ticket online. Huge amounts of paperwork . . . can’t they contract out with Amazon.com? Anyway, at the very end, I got this item: Recommended: Add Quik-Trip Travel Protection Get 24/7 protection for your trip with a plan that provides: * Electronic and Sporting Equipment coverage up to $1,000 * Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. or more) up to $150 * 24/7 Travel Emergency Assistance Yes! For just $8.50 per traveler, I’d like to add Quik-Trip Travel Protection. This is $8.50 total. Restrictions apply, learn more. No thanks. I decline Quik-Trip Travel Protection. “Restrictions apply,” huh? My favorite part, though, is “Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. or more) up to $150.” I can just imagine the formula they have: “Your delay is 8 hours and 20 minutes, huh? Let’s look that up . . . it looks like you’re entitled to $124. And thanks for riding Amtrak!” But if your delay is only 5 hours and 50 minutes, forget about it. P.

2 0.13027389 894 andrew gelman stats-2011-09-07-Hipmunk FAIL: Graphics without content is not enough

Introduction: I love a good GUI but not if it doesn’t give me the information I need. I again tried Hipmunk and it again failed (this time for a trip to Baltimore where it gave only a useless subset of the available Amtrak trains). I don’t know anything about the internet biz. What I’m guessing is that they set up this cool website that is pretty much functional, with the goal of selling it for a few million dollars to Travelocity or Expedia or Kayak. What I’m wondering is, why haven’t they made the deal already? Hipmunk’s GUI is great. The site is useless because it’s missing so many flights, but if you put it in an actual travel site such as Expedia, it would be great. It’s enough to make me want to hit someone with an i-phone . . .

3 0.086333215 2300 andrew gelman stats-2014-04-21-Ticket to Baaaath

Introduction: Ooooooh, I never ever thought I’d have a legitimate excuse to tell this story, and now I do! The story took place many years ago, but first I have to tell you what made me think of it: Rasmus Bååth posted the following comment last month: On airplane tickets a Swedish “å” is written as “aa” resulting in Rasmus Baaaath. Once I bought a ticket online and five minutes later a guy from Lufthansa calls me and asks if I misspelled my name… OK, now here’s my story (which is not nearly as good). A long time ago (but when I was already an adult), I was in England for some reason, and I thought I’d take a day trip from London to Bath. So here I am on line, trying to think of what to say at the ticket counter. I remember that in England, they call Bath, Bahth. So, should I ask for “a ticket to Bahth”? I’m not sure, I’m afraid that it will sound silly, like I’m trying to fake an English accent. So, when I get to the front of the line, I say, hesitantly, “I’d like a ticket to Bath?

4 0.08312092 1104 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-07-A compelling reason to go to London, Ontario??

Introduction: Dan Goldstein asks what I think of this : My reply: It’s hard for me to imagine a compelling reason for anyone to go to London, Ontario–but, hey, I guess there’s all kinds of people in this world! More seriously, I see the appeal of the graph but it’s a bit busy for my taste. Over the years I’ve moved toward small multiples rather than single busy graphs. That’s one reason why I prefer Tufte’s second book to his first book. The Napoleon-in-Russia graph is a bad model, in that inspires people to try to cram lots of variables on a single graph. Dan wrote back: I [Dan] like it as a travel planning graph, it gives you what you want to know (how how will the days be, how cold will the nights be, will it rain) but is a bit easier on the brain than a table of highs and lows. Also makes it easy to see the trend. I agree the 2nd axis doesn’t help.

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Introduction: Just was buying my ticket online. Huge amounts of paperwork . . . can’t they contract out with Amazon.com? Anyway, at the very end, I got this item: Recommended: Add Quik-Trip Travel Protection Get 24/7 protection for your trip with a plan that provides: * Electronic and Sporting Equipment coverage up to $1,000 * Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. or more) up to $150 * 24/7 Travel Emergency Assistance Yes! For just $8.50 per traveler, I’d like to add Quik-Trip Travel Protection. This is $8.50 total. Restrictions apply, learn more. No thanks. I decline Quik-Trip Travel Protection. “Restrictions apply,” huh? My favorite part, though, is “Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. or more) up to $150.” I can just imagine the formula they have: “Your delay is 8 hours and 20 minutes, huh? Let’s look that up . . . it looks like you’re entitled to $124. And thanks for riding Amtrak!” But if your delay is only 5 hours and 50 minutes, forget about it. P.

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Introduction: How long are songs? Gabriel Rossman discusses the two peaks, one at just under 3 minutes and one at just under 4 minutes. He quotes musician Jacob Slichter: In anticipation of “crossing over” the single to radio formats . . . Each mix had to be edited down to under four minutes, an important limit in the mind of radio programmers. (To submit a single with a track length of 4:01 is as foolish as pricing kitchen knives sold on television at $20.01). We pestered Bob Ludwig, the mastering engineer, with a slew of editing adjustments. “Okay, shorten the intro to what it was two verses ago, cut eight bars off the end of the bridge, and undo the cuts we asked you to make to the final chorus.”

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5 0.63025868 2148 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-25-Spam!

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Introduction: Just was buying my ticket online. Huge amounts of paperwork . . . can’t they contract out with Amazon.com? Anyway, at the very end, I got this item: Recommended: Add Quik-Trip Travel Protection Get 24/7 protection for your trip with a plan that provides: * Electronic and Sporting Equipment coverage up to $1,000 * Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. or more) up to $150 * 24/7 Travel Emergency Assistance Yes! For just $8.50 per traveler, I’d like to add Quik-Trip Travel Protection. This is $8.50 total. Restrictions apply, learn more. No thanks. I decline Quik-Trip Travel Protection. “Restrictions apply,” huh? My favorite part, though, is “Travel Delay coverage (delays of 6 hrs. or more) up to $150.” I can just imagine the formula they have: “Your delay is 8 hours and 20 minutes, huh? Let’s look that up . . . it looks like you’re entitled to $124. And thanks for riding Amtrak!” But if your delay is only 5 hours and 50 minutes, forget about it. P.

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