Category: Metrics / Statistics
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Firearm stocks under Trump
Talking about gun regulation causes increased gun sales. People buy out store stocks seeking to get them while they still can. So in that regard, President Obama was terrific for gun stores and manufacturers. For all the talk needing to do something, there was little done. The talk was enough to spike gun sales. “Sales…
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Goodreads Page Stats
The better metric for tracking how much I have read, in my opinion, is the number of pages. The number of books is okay, but the reality is reading a 50-page novella is not nearly the same commitment as a 1,500-page tome. (I might prefer a statistic for words when looking at my daughter’s reading…
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How wide was the Equifax data breach?
143 million US consumers were caught up in the data breach. I keep seeing it portrayed as 44% of the US population. But, the US population includes children. Initially, it seemed to me the better metric was 11 million more than all of 2016 IRS tax filers. The problems with this latter comparison? Lots of…
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Death of Childhood Icons in 2016
This post will date me, but people about my age have whined a lot this year about iconic people to our lives dying. A year is an arbitrary range of time for a solar revolution. It could could run from March 21st (the spring equinox) to March 20th just as easily as it currently runs…
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Better Predictions
13.7: Cosmos and Culture has a good article on predictions. Making good predictions isn’t just about your accuracy; it’s also about your calibration. Accuracy = how often correct Calibration = confidence level in the prediction All too often when we see predictions no one asks about the calibration. Nor do we go back and check the…
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Solution to Black-On-Black Crime
(This post on black-on-black crime is satire. Thought I would point that out before someone gets too upset over it.) A Georgia state lawmakers showed concern about the amount of black-on-black crime. He is obviously referencing the FBI homicide statistics for perpetrator race. Fortunately the actual number is lower than the 98% he claimed. But he’s not…
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Review: Dataclysm: Who We Are
Dataclysm: Who We Are by Christian Rudder My rating: 3 of 5 stars Maybe really 2.5 stars, but I rounded up. I have read the OkTrends blog since its inception. Human behavior fascinates me, so I take any opportunity to read on it. The We Experiment On Human Beings post ensnared my attention since it…
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Shortcuts: Math
(This post is part of a series. Intro > 1. Illusions > 2. Labeling > 3. Math > 4. Multitasking) Behavioral economics fascinates me. Humans have amazing abilities to miscalculate risk with extreme confidence they accurately assessed it. These appear to be rules of thumb which work in certain situations, but really are not applicable to others yet most people do. Part of the…
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Accounting Predictions
In my Prediction Accountability, I ranted on how no one really knows whether predictions are accurate and ended with it really does not matter because no one is going to really stop using these services because they are usually wrong. Basically, I thought it futile to even try. In retrospect that is probably the perfect…