andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2012 andrew_gelman_stats-2012-1641 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Johnny Carson had this great trick where, after a joke bombed, he’d do such a good double-take that he’d end up getting a huge laugh. This gimmick could never have worked as his sole shtick—at some point, Johnny had to tell some good jokes—but it was a reliable way to limit the downside. For the purpose of our discussion here, the point is that, even when the joke failed, Carson had a way out. I thought of this today after following a link from a commenter that led to this blog on publicity-minded author Tim Ferriss. I’ve never read anything by Ferriss but I’ve read about him on occasion: his gimmick is he promotes his book using ingenious marketing strategies. Sort of like how Madonna is famous for being famous, and Paris Hilton is famous for being famous for being famous, Ferriss is famous for self-promotion. Matt Metzgar writes : I [Metzgar] saw a bunch of ads on the internet today for Tim Ferriss’ new book. Even though the book was released today, it already has all
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1 Johnny Carson had this great trick where, after a joke bombed, he’d do such a good double-take that he’d end up getting a huge laugh. [sent-1, score-0.175]
2 This gimmick could never have worked as his sole shtick—at some point, Johnny had to tell some good jokes—but it was a reliable way to limit the downside. [sent-2, score-0.197]
3 For the purpose of our discussion here, the point is that, even when the joke failed, Carson had a way out. [sent-3, score-0.1]
4 I thought of this today after following a link from a commenter that led to this blog on publicity-minded author Tim Ferriss. [sent-4, score-0.097]
5 I’ve never read anything by Ferriss but I’ve read about him on occasion: his gimmick is he promotes his book using ingenious marketing strategies. [sent-5, score-0.358]
6 Sort of like how Madonna is famous for being famous, and Paris Hilton is famous for being famous for being famous, Ferriss is famous for self-promotion. [sent-6, score-0.904]
7 Matt Metzgar writes : I [Metzgar] saw a bunch of ads on the internet today for Tim Ferriss’ new book. [sent-7, score-0.222]
8 Even though the book was released today, it already has all these five-star reviews that were coincidentally all posted today. [sent-8, score-0.436]
9 From a perceptive (real) reviewer on Amazon: I find it interesting that all the reviews for this book are 5 star. [sent-9, score-0.501]
10 I was impressed UNTIL I noticed that all the reviews were submitted on the same day at almost the same time. [sent-10, score-0.301]
11 Then notice how this person gets attacked by commenters – “but Tim Ferriss produces all this great content”, “these are all honest reviews”, etc. [sent-13, score-0.149]
12 And Ferriss is laughing all the way to the bank. [sent-15, score-0.074]
13 Indeed, what’s impressive about this strategy is its fail-safe nature. [sent-16, score-0.081]
14 Step 1 is to hire a bunch of people in India or wherever to create Amazon accounts and write five-star reviews for your book. [sent-17, score-0.537]
15 (It might seem cleverer to slip in a few 3-star or 4-star reviews, but don’t do it; what browsers notice is the average number of stars, so don’t get cute. [sent-18, score-0.23]
16 ) Step 2 is, if you’re caught at it, hire more puppets to defend and deny. [sent-19, score-0.266]
17 Finally, once it’s all out, don’t just admit it, embrace it: make it part of your legend that you sold thousands of books this way. [sent-22, score-0.198]
18 ) There’s an almost mathematical beauty to it: once you establish a reputation as a rule-breaking bad boy, every time you get caught is just one more chapter in your life story. [sent-24, score-0.145]
19 The above is just the kind of thing I can imagine, a clever way of promoting yourself by getting around the rules, knowing that, if you do get called on it, you always have the fallback plan of using it as an example of how enterprising you are. [sent-26, score-0.294]
20 ) I find it a bit repulsive myself but perhaps this is just a sign that I’m getting older; in earlier decades I enjoyed reading stories about charming scam artists. [sent-27, score-0.212]
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Introduction: Johnny Carson had this great trick where, after a joke bombed, he’d do such a good double-take that he’d end up getting a huge laugh. This gimmick could never have worked as his sole shtick—at some point, Johnny had to tell some good jokes—but it was a reliable way to limit the downside. For the purpose of our discussion here, the point is that, even when the joke failed, Carson had a way out. I thought of this today after following a link from a commenter that led to this blog on publicity-minded author Tim Ferriss. I’ve never read anything by Ferriss but I’ve read about him on occasion: his gimmick is he promotes his book using ingenious marketing strategies. Sort of like how Madonna is famous for being famous, and Paris Hilton is famous for being famous for being famous, Ferriss is famous for self-promotion. Matt Metzgar writes : I [Metzgar] saw a bunch of ads on the internet today for Tim Ferriss’ new book. Even though the book was released today, it already has all
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Introduction: I don’t have much sympathy for well-paid academic plagiarists who are too lazy to do their jobs, but I actually can feel for the author in this story who posted fake positive Amazon reviews of his own books and negative reviews of his competitors’. I mean, sure, this is despicable behavior, I won’t deny that, but it’s gotta be harder and harder to make money writing books. Even a so-called bestselling author must feel under a lot of pressure. I was recently reading a book by Jonathan Coe—he’s just great, and famous, and celebrated, but I doubt he’s getting rich from his books. Not that there’s any reason that he has to get rich, but if even Jonathan Coe isn’t living the high life, that’s not good for authors in general. It’s a far cry from the days in which Updike, Styron, etc., could swagger around like bigshots.
3 0.15829067 836 andrew gelman stats-2011-08-03-Another plagiarism mystery
Introduction: Nick Cox comments : I heard of a leading U.S. statistician who delegates some of his book reviews to smart graduate students. The (very grateful) ex-student who told me said, in effect, it’s just his way of working. He makes the deal evident beforehand and makes it up to you in other ways by superb mentoring. I don’t understand this at all! If the student wrote the review, he or she should be sole author, no? The thing that puzzles me about this story is that if you’re a “leading statistician,” you don’t really get any credit for reviewing. If anything, people probably think you’re writing reviews as a way to avoid doing real work. If there’s some concern that the journal won’t publish a review under the sole authorship of obscure student X, they could always compromise and include the senior prof as a second author on the review (in which case the prof should at least read the review and vet it, but that can’t take much time). I guess what I’m saying is that it makes pe
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Introduction: Follow the Amazon link and check to see if it’s still on sale . P.S. I don’t make any money through this link. We do get some royalties from the book, but only a very small amount. I’m pushing the Amazon link right now because (a) I think the book is great, and I want as many people as possible to have it, and (b) 40% off is a pretty good deal and I don’t know how long this will last. P.P.S. Just so this post has some statistical content, here’s one of my favorite papers , Bayesian model-building by pure thought: some principles and examples. It’s from 1996, and here’s the abstract:
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Introduction: Johnny Carson had this great trick where, after a joke bombed, he’d do such a good double-take that he’d end up getting a huge laugh. This gimmick could never have worked as his sole shtick—at some point, Johnny had to tell some good jokes—but it was a reliable way to limit the downside. For the purpose of our discussion here, the point is that, even when the joke failed, Carson had a way out. I thought of this today after following a link from a commenter that led to this blog on publicity-minded author Tim Ferriss. I’ve never read anything by Ferriss but I’ve read about him on occasion: his gimmick is he promotes his book using ingenious marketing strategies. Sort of like how Madonna is famous for being famous, and Paris Hilton is famous for being famous for being famous, Ferriss is famous for self-promotion. Matt Metzgar writes : I [Metzgar] saw a bunch of ads on the internet today for Tim Ferriss’ new book. Even though the book was released today, it already has all
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