andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2012 andrew_gelman_stats-2012-1306 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: These (from Shaun Usher) are surprisingly good, especially since he appears to come up with new lists and letters pretty regularly. I suppose a lot of them get sent in from readers, but still. Here’s my favorite recent item, a letter sent to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition in 1931: Dear Sir: My husband is in the habit of buying a quart of wiskey every other day from a Chinese bootlegger named Chin Waugh living at 317-16th near Alder street. We need this money for household expenses. Will you please have his place raided? He keeps a supply planted in the garden and a smaller quantity under the back steps for quick delivery. If you make the raid at 9:30 any morning you will be sure to get the goods and Chin also as he leaves the house at 10 o’clock and may clean up before he goes. Thanking you in advance, I remain yours truly, Mrs. Hillyer
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1 These (from Shaun Usher) are surprisingly good, especially since he appears to come up with new lists and letters pretty regularly. [sent-1, score-0.506]
2 I suppose a lot of them get sent in from readers, but still. [sent-2, score-0.217]
3 Here’s my favorite recent item, a letter sent to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition in 1931: Dear Sir: My husband is in the habit of buying a quart of wiskey every other day from a Chinese bootlegger named Chin Waugh living at 317-16th near Alder street. [sent-3, score-1.059]
4 He keeps a supply planted in the garden and a smaller quantity under the back steps for quick delivery. [sent-6, score-0.929]
5 If you make the raid at 9:30 any morning you will be sure to get the goods and Chin also as he leaves the house at 10 o’clock and may clean up before he goes. [sent-7, score-0.78]
6 Thanking you in advance, I remain yours truly, Mrs. [sent-8, score-0.096]
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same-blog 1 1.0000001 1306 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-07-Lists of Note and Letters of Note
Introduction: These (from Shaun Usher) are surprisingly good, especially since he appears to come up with new lists and letters pretty regularly. I suppose a lot of them get sent in from readers, but still. Here’s my favorite recent item, a letter sent to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition in 1931: Dear Sir: My husband is in the habit of buying a quart of wiskey every other day from a Chinese bootlegger named Chin Waugh living at 317-16th near Alder street. We need this money for household expenses. Will you please have his place raided? He keeps a supply planted in the garden and a smaller quantity under the back steps for quick delivery. If you make the raid at 9:30 any morning you will be sure to get the goods and Chin also as he leaves the house at 10 o’clock and may clean up before he goes. Thanking you in advance, I remain yours truly, Mrs. Hillyer
2 0.097577453 1553 andrew gelman stats-2012-10-30-Real rothko, fake rothko
Introduction: Jay Livingston writes : I know that in art, quality and value are two very different things. Still, I had to stop and wonder when I read about Domenico and Eleanore De Sole, who in 2004 paid $8.3 million for a painting attributed to Mark Rothko that they now say is a worthless fake. One day a painting is worth $8.3 million; the next day, the same painting – same quality, same capacity to give aesthetic pleasure or do whatever it is that art does – is “worthless.”* Art forgery also makes me wonder about the buyer’s motive. If the buyer wanted only to have and to gaze upon something beautiful, something with artistic merit, then a fake Rothko is no different than a real Rothko. It seems more likely that what the buyer wants is to own something valuable – i.e., something that costs a lot. Displaying your brokerage account statements is just too crude and obvious. What the high-end art market offers is a kind of money laundering. Objects that are rare and therefore expensive
3 0.089127772 1063 andrew gelman stats-2011-12-16-Suspicious histogram bars
Introduction: Aleks sent me this (I’m not sure from where):
4 0.070396982 2211 andrew gelman stats-2014-02-14-The popularity of certain baby names is falling off the clifffffffffffff
Introduction: Ubs writes: I was looking at baby name data last night and I stumbled upon something curious. I follow the baby names blog occasionally but not regularly, so I’m not sure if it’s been noticed before. Let me present it like this: Take the statement… Of the top 100 boys and top 100 girls names, only ___% contain the letter __. I’m using the SSA baby names page, so that’s U.S. births, and I’m looking at the decade of 2000-2009 (so kids currently aged 4 to 13). Which letters would you expect to have the lowest rate of occurrence? As expected, the lowest score is for Q, which appears zero times. (Jacqueline ranks #104 for girls.) It’s the second lowest that surprised me. (… You can pause and try to guess now. Spoilers to follow.) Of the other big-point Scrabble letters, Z appears in four names (Elizabeth, Zachary, Mackenzie, Zoe) and X in six, of which five are closely related (Alexis, Alexander, Alexandra, Alexa, Alex, Xavier). J is heavily overrepresented, especial
5 0.069782108 517 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-14-Bayes in China update
Introduction: Some clarification on the Bayes-in-China issue raised last week : 1. We heard that the Chinese publisher cited the following pages that might contain politically objectionable materials: 3, 5, 21, 73, 112, 201. 2. It appears that, as some commenters suggested, the objection was to some of the applications, not to the Bayesian methods. 3. Our book is not censored in China. In fact, as some commenters mentioned, it is possible to buy it there, and it is also available in university libraries there. The edition of the book which was canceled was intended to be a low-cost reprint of the book. The original book is still available. I used the phrase “Banned in China” as a joke and I apologize if it was misinterpreted. 4. I have no quarrel with the Chinese government or with any Chinese publishers. They can publish whatever books they would like. I found this episode amusing only because I do not think my book on regression and multilevel models has any strong political co
6 0.069288224 1345 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-26-Question 16 of my final exam for Design and Analysis of Sample Surveys
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9 0.059478182 2303 andrew gelman stats-2014-04-23-Thinking of doing a list experiment? Here’s a list of reasons why you should think again
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12 0.055451836 1854 andrew gelman stats-2013-05-13-A Structural Comparison of Conspicuous Consumption in China and the United States
13 0.055063393 2353 andrew gelman stats-2014-05-30-I posted this as a comment on a sociology blog
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15 0.053480893 1118 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-14-A model rejection letter
16 0.05285446 2148 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-25-Spam!
17 0.04983687 250 andrew gelman stats-2010-09-02-Blending results from two relatively independent multi-level models
18 0.048074197 730 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-25-Rechecking the census
19 0.047145072 158 andrew gelman stats-2010-07-22-Tenants and landlords
20 0.046988744 1357 andrew gelman stats-2012-06-01-Halloween-Valentine’s update
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simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
same-blog 1 0.95258218 1306 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-07-Lists of Note and Letters of Note
Introduction: These (from Shaun Usher) are surprisingly good, especially since he appears to come up with new lists and letters pretty regularly. I suppose a lot of them get sent in from readers, but still. Here’s my favorite recent item, a letter sent to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition in 1931: Dear Sir: My husband is in the habit of buying a quart of wiskey every other day from a Chinese bootlegger named Chin Waugh living at 317-16th near Alder street. We need this money for household expenses. Will you please have his place raided? He keeps a supply planted in the garden and a smaller quantity under the back steps for quick delivery. If you make the raid at 9:30 any morning you will be sure to get the goods and Chin also as he leaves the house at 10 o’clock and may clean up before he goes. Thanking you in advance, I remain yours truly, Mrs. Hillyer
2 0.72946984 2148 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-25-Spam!
Introduction: This one totally faked me out at first. It was an email from “Nick Bagnall” that began: Dear Dr. Gelman, I made contact last year regarding your work in the CMG: Reconstructing Climate from Tree Ring Data project. We are about to start producing the 2014 edition and I wanted to discuss this with you as we still remain keen to feature your work. Research Media are producing a special publication in February of 2014, within this report we will be working with a small selected number of PI’s with a focus on geosciences, atmospheric and geospace sciences and earth Sciences.. At this point, I’m thinking: Hmmm, I don’t remember this guy, is this some sort of collaborative project that I’d forgotten about? The message then continues: The publication is called International Innovation . . . Huh? This doesn’t sound so good. The email then goes on with some very long lists, and then finally the kicker: The total cost for each article produced in this report is fixed a
3 0.71284682 1240 andrew gelman stats-2012-04-02-Blogads update
Introduction: A few months ago I reported on someone who wanted to insert text links into the blog. I asked her how much they would pay and got no answer. Yesterday, though, I received this reply: Hello Andrew, I am sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I’d like to make a proposal for your site. Please refer below. We would like to place a simple text link ad on page http://andrewgelman.com/2011/07/super_sam_fuld/ to link to *** with the key phrase ***. We will incorporate the key phrase into a sentence so it would read well. Rest assured it won’t sound obnoxious or advertorial. We will then process the final text link code as soon as you agree to our proposal. We can offer you $200 for this with the assumption that you will keep the link “live” on that page for 12 months or longer if you prefer. Please get back to us with a quick reply on your thoughts on this and include your Paypal ID for payment process. Hoping for a positive response from you. I wrote back: Hi,
4 0.68791354 1831 andrew gelman stats-2013-04-29-The Great Race
Introduction: This post is by Phil. Last summer my wife and I took a 3.5-month vacation that included a wide range of activities. When I got back, people would ask “what were the highlights or your trip?”, and I was somewhat at a loss: we had done so many things that were so different, many of which seemed really great…how could I pick? Someone said, wisely, that in six months or a year I’d be able to answer the question because some memories would be more vivid than others. They were right, and I was recently thinking back on our vacation and putting together a list of highlights — enjoyable in itself, but also worth doing to help plan future vacations. One of the things we did was go to four evenings of track and field events at the London Olympics. After we got back, people would ask what we had seen at the Olympics. I would say “We saw Usain Bolt run the 200m, we saw the women’s 4x100m relay and the men’s 4×400, we saw the last events of the decathlon…lots of great stuff. But my favorite was
5 0.68207777 1421 andrew gelman stats-2012-07-19-Alexa, Maricel, and Marty: Three cellular automata who got on my nerves
Introduction: I received the following two emails within fifteen minutes of each other. First, from “Alexa Russell,” subject line “An idea for a blog post: The Role, Importance, and Power of Words”: Hi Andrew, I’m a researcher/writer for a resource covering the importance of English proficiency in today’s workplace. I came across your blog andrewgelman.com as I was conducting research and I’m interested in contributing an article to your blog because I found the topics you cover very engaging. I’m thinking about writing an article that looks at how the Internet has changed the way English is used today; not only has its syntax changed as a result of the Internet Revolution, but the amount of job opportunities has also shifted as a result of this shift. I’d be happy to work with you on the topic if you have any insights. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Best, Alexa Second, From “Maricel Anderson,” subject line “An idea for a blog post: Healthcare Management and Geri
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9 0.67198128 532 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-23-My Wall Street Journal story
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11 0.66122538 158 andrew gelman stats-2010-07-22-Tenants and landlords
12 0.65912801 1589 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-25-Life as a blogger: the emails just get weirder and weirder
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20 0.64446753 2080 andrew gelman stats-2013-10-28-Writing for free
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1 0.95552725 169 andrew gelman stats-2010-07-29-Say again?
Introduction: “Ich glaube, dass die Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung das richtige Werkzeug zum Lösen solcher Probleme ist”, sagt Andrew Gelman , Statistikprofessor von der Columbia-Universität in New York. Wie oft aber derart knifflige Aufgaben im realen Leben auftauchen, könne er nicht sagen. Was fast schon beruhigend klingt. OK, fine.
same-blog 2 0.90096021 1306 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-07-Lists of Note and Letters of Note
Introduction: These (from Shaun Usher) are surprisingly good, especially since he appears to come up with new lists and letters pretty regularly. I suppose a lot of them get sent in from readers, but still. Here’s my favorite recent item, a letter sent to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition in 1931: Dear Sir: My husband is in the habit of buying a quart of wiskey every other day from a Chinese bootlegger named Chin Waugh living at 317-16th near Alder street. We need this money for household expenses. Will you please have his place raided? He keeps a supply planted in the garden and a smaller quantity under the back steps for quick delivery. If you make the raid at 9:30 any morning you will be sure to get the goods and Chin also as he leaves the house at 10 o’clock and may clean up before he goes. Thanking you in advance, I remain yours truly, Mrs. Hillyer
3 0.883259 2153 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-29-“Statistics Done Wrong”
Introduction: Govind Manian points me to this online textbook by Alex Reinhart. It’s hard for me to evaluate because I am so close to the material. But on first glance it looks pretty reasonable to me.
Introduction: Paul Nee sends in this amusing item: MELA Sciences claimed success in a clinical trial of its experimental skin cancer detection device only by altering the statistical method used to analyze the data in violation of an agreement with U.S. regulators, charges an independent healthcare analyst in a report issued last week. . . The BER report, however, relies on its own analysis to suggest that MELA struck out with FDA because the agency’s medical device reviewers discovered the MELAFind pivotal study failed to reach statistical significance despite the company’s claims to the contrary. And now here’s where it gets interesting: MELA claims that a phase III study of MELAFind met its primary endpoint by detecting accurately 112 of 114 eligible melanomas for a “sensitivity” rate of 98%. The lower confidence bound of the sensitivity analysis was 95.1%, which met the FDA’s standard for statistical significance in the study spelled out in a binding agreement with MELA, the compa
5 0.7840814 1731 andrew gelman stats-2013-02-21-If a lottery is encouraging addictive gambling, don’t expand it!
Introduction: This story from Vivian Yee seems just horrible to me. First the background: Pronto Lotto’s real business takes place in the carpeted, hushed area where its most devoted customers watch video screens from a scattering of tall silver tables, hour after hour, day after day. The players — mostly men, about a dozen at any given time — come on their lunch breaks or after work to study the screens, which are programmed with the Quick Draw lottery game, and flash a new set of winning numbers every four minutes. They have helped make Pronto Lotto the top Quick Draw vendor in the state, selling $3.3 million worth of tickets last year, more than $1 million more than the second busiest location, a World Books shop in Penn Station. Some stay for just a few minutes. Others play for the length of a workday, repeatedly traversing the few yards between their seats and the cash register as they hand the next wager to a clerk with a dollar bill or two, and return to wait. “It’s like my job, 24
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