Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Mark Twain
Category: books (Page 3 of 4)
Doing Bayesian Data Analysis now in JAGS
Around Christmas time I presented my first impressions of Kruschke’s Doing Bayesian Data Analysis. This is a very nice book but one of its drawbacks was that part of the code used BUGS, which left mac users like me stuck.
Kruschke has now made JAGS code available so I am happy clappy and looking forward to test this New Year present. In addition, there are other updates available for the programs included in the book.
The introduction of a new system
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 6.
E debbasi considerare, come non è cosa più difficile a trattare, né più dubia a riuscire, né più pericolosa a maneggiare, che farsi capo ad introdurre nuovi ordini; perché lo introduttore ha per nimici tutti quelli che degli ordini vecchi fanno bene, e ha tepidi defensori tutti quelli che delli ordini nuovi farebbono bene.
Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe, Capitolo VI.
I’m a big fan of this quote, because it applies to so many new endeavors including the introduction of new topics in a university curriculum.
First impressions of Doing Bayesian Data Analysis
About a month ago I was discussing the approach that I would like to see in introductory Bayesian statistics books. In that post I mentioned a PDF copy of Doing Bayesian Data Analysis by John K. Kruschke and that I have ordered the book. Well, recently a parcel was waiting in my office with a spanking new, real paper copy of the book. A few days are not enough to provide a ‘proper’ review of the book but I would like to discuss my first impressions about the book, as they could be helpful for someone out there.
Solomon saith
Solomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Solomon giveth his sentence, That all novelty is but oblivion.
Francis Bacon: Essays, LVIII quoted by Jorge Luis Borges in The Immortal (1949).