Monthly Archives: June 2008

It’s the Wrong Data, Grommit!

David Basanta pointed out a provocative article in Wired, in which the author claimed that we won’t need to think about it any more, we can just throw it into a big computer along with an SVM1 or a NN2. … Continue reading

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Random Pickings

Just a few things, as it’s Friday and I have The Beast sat on me.

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I can guess where I can stick this

Yesterday I found a long tube in my departmental pigeonhole. This was something of a surprise. Luckily it all became clear. The tube contained a poster, and this certificate:

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Outdone by Mis-prints

In 1972, Prof. Sir. David R. Cox F.R.S. and statistical deity published one of the all-time great papers1, where he introduced a neat idea into survival analysis which is now called the Cox Proportional Hazards model. Because survival analyses are … Continue reading

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How the World Works, Part 357

Now this is fun for a Friday evening1. Apparently the good (and possibly not so good) people of Washington D.C. have discovered that the quickest way to manage the commute near the airport there is to buy a cup of … Continue reading

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Exploring Banditry

This morning I got the usual update from arXiv (that’s a chi, not an X, folks!) with the list of newly uploaded manuscripts. Including this one: Bandit Exploration How could you not be interested?

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On Purity

Just because I’m in a maths and stats department Of course, statistics is a part of all of these subjects, so we get to choose how pure we want to be. Oh, I should also point out that our department … Continue reading

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Reviewing: the Situation

One of the better books about statistics is Abelson’s Statistics as Principled Argument“. Amongst the many words of wisdom, he gives us this useful dictum: Chance is Lumpy

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A Meeting Report

I’ve been sat in a project meeting for a Finnish Centre of Excellence that I lurk in. We have heard that swallows are more stressed when in Africa than in Finland (presumably because in Africa they are constantly being asked … Continue reading

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The Birds and The Beast

I have been remiss about updating on The Beast lately. But he has been active – perhaps too active. It all started when Spring arrived, so I could open the balcony for him. He could sit outside and watch the … Continue reading

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