I've been working with linear regression, both as a tool for understanding psychology and as a primary professional skill, for more than eight years now. At last, my conceptual understanding of statistics has advanced to the point where I've stopped understanding it. In a few years, I'll probably have to take some time off to think hard about what ( Read more... )

Today I stopped by the Smart & Final warehouse club / grocery store near my apartment. They had some sugar.


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I got a letter from my credit union saying that I can receive $2,000 in accidental death or dismemberment insurance from CUNA Mutual completely free. It looks like it's really no strings attached; they're just hoping I'll sign up for the additional benefits they offer at grossly unfavorable rates. Limitations: no benefits are paid in the case of " ( Read more... )

I got up late and made it in for the end of the talk on doing research at social netowrking sites and bug search engines. The first thing I heard was the guy from Yahoo saying that you really need to know how to sift through tons of badly organized, incommensurately-formatted data, and to write code that can cope with your users having done things ( Read more... )

The number 18/19 came up, and I had to go to the bathroom, so I entertained myself during the trip by thinking through what the decimal expansion would be. I realized that I haven't done a procedural (as opposed to intuitive) division problem in my head in a long time (if ever?), and didn't actually know a good way to do it. So I thought back to ( Read more... )

On a recent visit to the hardware store, I saw this product


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I just spent a little over an hour writing up a very careful description of a method of calculating time-adjusted area under the curve for diurnal cortisol, so I could ask for help verifying my math before I sent it to an important person. I tested the first part of the formula several times until I was sure I had it right, then tested the second. ( Read more... )

Last night I got into another discussion with someone who believes in the Martingale betting system, and then sat down and ran numbers for a while. I think I understand it better than when I wrote about it before. What the Martingale system does is concentrate risk ( Read more... )

Does anyone here have trouble converting between Fahrenheit and Celsius? I used to try, and get my brain stuck in a jumble of 9's and 5's and 14's or maybe 40s. A few years ago, I realized that was because when I learned the conversion in school, they taught me the formula without teaching me what it meant (like so many other things! ask me about ( Read more... )