Briggs

A Bust—I mean must—Read; Or, An Evolution in Bra Sizes

"Excuse me, miss. Would you care to participate in science?" Sometimes being a statistician is enviable. In a flash of scientific brilliance, Australian statisticians have just completed a massive study…

Fun Statistics

M. Night Shyamalan, Mel Gibson, and John Wayne

Part II of the Two-Envelope problem was not too friendly, so here's something that is. Via HotAir, I came across the site Marginal Revolution, in which was featured a graph…

Philosophy Statistics

The Two-Envelope Problem Solution: Part II

Read Part I first. We are in the peek first game here. The distribution of N When X is odd, and all X are discrete, we know we should always…

Philosophy Statistics

The Two-Envelope Problem Solution: Part I

Another probability "paradox", the two-envelope problem1, goes like this: Before you are two envelopes, A and B. One of them contains $X and the other $2X (which is equivalent to…

Culture Fun

Four Chords Is All You Need: The Limited Nature of Pop Music

Coming tomorrow: the infamous two-envelope problem, solved! More mathematical constructivism. But today, as it's Sunday, something light and airy...and non taxing. A "comedy rock" group which bills itself as the…

Statistics

St Petersburg Paradox; Games and Statistical Decisions; RIP David Blackwell

David Blackwell, who died two weeks ago, was one of the first mainstream statisticians to "go Bayesian." And for that and his unique skill in clearly explaining difficult ideas, we…

Statistics

How to Fool Yourself—And Others—With Statistics

See the news box to the left. I wrote this long ago and never used it. I do not love it. But since I am so busy, I haven't the…

Statistics

US Military Fatality Statistics: Have Suicides Increased?

All statistics were gathered from this DOD site. 2010 numbers were current as of 5 June this year; they were not part of the plots below. In 1983, the year…

Neil Jordan on Class 93: P-values Challenge! List The “Good Uses” of P-valueSeptember 10, 2026
How wee is the P for a coincidence? Separately, I will forward the short paper by William Feller, Scientific Research,…
Briggs on Class 93: P-values Challenge! List The “Good Uses” of P-valueSeptember 10, 2026
Neil, Now, I promise this is true, but I also got an oil change this morning. P < ???
Neil Jordan on Class 93: P-values Challenge! List The “Good Uses” of P-valueSeptember 10, 2026
Reply via iPhone while waiting for car oil change - Use for wee P? Yes there is one. Without wee…
Brian (bulaoren) on Is the West Dying Out? The Demographic Crisis Explained: Jon Harris PodcastSeptember 9, 2026
Nature abhors a vacuum
The True Nolan on Lindsay Clancy Strangled Her Kids Because Of “Climate Change”September 9, 2026
In the distant past when dinosaurs roamed the earth and volcanoes belched hourly, we kids (being on summer vacation from…