July 2010 – Page 2 – William M. Briggs

Feigned Surprises of the Week: Journolist and Our New Tax

Said the main-stream journalist on Journolist, "If they of the right wing don't behave and treat our Golden Boy properly, we'll call them racists. It matters not whom we pick…

Fun Statistics

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…

hudbwu on Academics Debate Which Term Best Describes Those Who Love (in that way) Their PillowsNovember 16, 2025
I like how it's implied nuking from orbit is a lesser strike than defunding. :)
Williis Eschenbach on Why Study Probability?November 16, 2025
John, you say: "Try a different Aunt Sally, Eschenbach: an actual physical dice is an object that can be examined…
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The technocrats are unconcerned: they claim they can fix it all via gene editing, or maybe embryo selection, but anyway…
John Pate on Why Study Probability?November 15, 2025
Try a different Aunt Sally, Eschenbach: an actual physical dice is an object that can be examined and measured to…
Uncle Mike on Why Study Probability?November 14, 2025
The answer is a question: what did you expect the counts to be? On what premises did you base your…