Deep thoughts and silliness

Viktor Poor has written some strips specially for the science blogging conference. He has p-printed them ahead of the online publication. So, by the tradition of the internets, I had to scoop his online publication…

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This from The Guardian:

2,865 bikes recovered from world’s most prolific cycle thief

They found drugs at his house. I guess he was peddling them as well.

I have to stand up and talk about blogging about research on Saturday, and it’s about time I wrote my talk. I guess a natural way to compose my thought (and receive feedback) is to write a blog post on the topic. All cooments are, of course, welcome. Particularly if you have some good examples of what I’m describing, or if you think I’ve left something out.

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I was remiss in not posting about this last week, so, only a week late, I post now that the winners of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest were announced, with little fanfare and even less financial reward for the efforts of those writers who felt able to put pen to paper, finger to keyboard, and apply their minds to tortuous, lengthy, prose of only a single sentence, running for word after word, in a … oh sod it, you get the idea.

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OK, technology is getting silly. I’m sat in a bar on a ferry in the middle of the Gulf of Finland, between Tallinn and Helsinki, and I can get a wireless signal.

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Over the last week or so I have been asked a couple of statistical questions where the root cause of the problems has been the unthinking application of p-values. In both cases, the solution was to use confidence intervals instead; i.e. to look at the size of the effect, not whether it was different from zero. I decided it was time to take the battle to the host of p-values, armed only with a t-test. It is enough.
What is so bad about p-values? Let’s start with a question: what does a p-value tell you?

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I really ought to write a serious blog post at some point. But until then, here’s something I should show The Beast:

When I left him this morning, he was catching up on his sleep, having had to get up early to remind me that he needed (a) some fussing, and (b) some food. It’s a good job he keeps track.

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Is Madis Uusorg a polygamist?
And why isn’t this in the Olympics?

I had a difficult experience at the start of my PhD. I was about a month into it when I was talking to my supervisor, who I’ll call James, in the lab. Behind him was a sign hanging from the light cord with the legend:

Beware! High stress levels – James working in the lab

This explains why I particularly enjoyed the latest PhD cartoon:

And now I’m a PI, I have established myself in a field without labs. It’s the kindest way for all concerned.

The BBC has a story up about a group at Durham University who have produced a map of Arctic boundaries and areas of dispute. Taking a look at the map, I was surprised to read this in the legend:

Denmark claimed continental shelf beyond 200 nm

Setting aside the grammatical contortions that necessitate reading this like a tabloid headline, claiming an area beyond 2 x 10^-7^ m seems a bit picky.

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