Category: flotsam (Page 3 of 4)

Derelict house in Sintra, Portugal (Photo: Luis).

Early August flotsam

2012-08-06 / Luis

Back teaching a couple of subjects and it’s the constant challenge to find enough common ground with students so one can push/pull them to the other side of new concepts. We are not talking about complex hierarchical models using mixed models or Bayesian approaches, but multiple linear regression or similar. What do students actually learn in first year stats…?

Unfortunately named Fiat dealer in Southern Brazil. Ideal if you want to zipoisson your way around.

End of May flotsam

2012-05-29 / Luis

The end is near! At least the semester is coming to an end, so students have crazy expectations like getting marks back for assignments, and administrators want to see exam scripts. Sigh! What has been happening meanwhile in Quantum Forest?

Late-April flotsam

2012-04-26 / Luis

It has been month and a half since I compiled a list of statistical/programming internet flotsam and jetsam.

Via Lambda The Ultimate: Evaluating the Design of the R Language: Objects and Functions For Data Analysis (PDF). A very detailed evaluation of the design and performance of R. HT: Christophe Lalanne. If you are in statistical genetics and Twitter Christophe is the man to follow.
Attributed to John Tukey, “without assumptions there can be no conclusions” is an extremely important point, which comes to mind when listening to the fascinating interview to Richard Burkhauser on the changes of income for the middle class in USA. Changes to the definition of the unit of analysis may give a completely different result. By the way, does someone have a first-hand reference to Tukey’s quote?
Nature news publishes RNA studies under fire: High-profile results challenged over statistical analysis of sequence data. I expect to see happening more often once researchers get used to upload the data and code for their papers.
Bob O’Hara writes on Why simple models are better, which is not positive towards the machine learning crowd.
A Matlab Programmer’s Take On Julia, and a Python developer interacts with Julia developers. Not everything is smooth. HT: Mike Croucher. ?
Dear NASA: No More Rainbow Color Scales, Please. HT: Mike Dickinson. Important: this applies to R graphs too.
Rafael Maia asks “are programmers trying on purpose to come up with names for their languages that make it hard to google for info?” These are the suggestions if one searches Google for Julia:

I suggest creating a language called Bieber and search for dimension Bieber, loop Bieber and regression Bieber.

That’s all folks.

Gratuitous picture: caterpillar of Emperor gum moth (Photo: Luis).

Early-March flotsam

2012-03-08 / Luis

It has been a strange last ten days since we unexpectedly entered grant writing mode. I was looking forward to work on this issue near the end of the year but a likely change on funding agency priorities requires applying in a few weeks; unfortunately, it means that all this is happening at the same time I am teaching.

Check out at Pak N Save. Are they creepy too?

Mid-February flotsam

2012-02-18 / Luis

This coming Monday we start the first semester in Canterbury (and in New Zealand for that matter). We are all looking forward to an earthquake-free year; more realistically, I’d be happy with low magnitude aftershocks.