therandomtexan
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When all you have is a hammer…
…everything looks like a nail. Daniel Lakens, the 20% Statistician, takes a rare but easy shot at statisticians and null hypothesis significance testing. Our statistics education turns a blind eye to training people how to ask a good question. After a brief explanation of what a mean is, and a pit-stop at the normal distribution, Read more
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A Tinned Oyster Treat
Some time ago, I promised I’d report on my attempts at recipes from Barbara-Jo McIntosh’s Tin Fish Gourmet. As usual, I didn’t read the cookbook so much as fixed recipes, but as more of a guide. So I combined elements from two different recipes, “Christmas Eve Oysters” (p 82) and “Shrimp and Spinach-Stuffed Tomatoes” (p Read more
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Seven Pillars
Wisdom hath built her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars. –Proverbs 9:1 I just finished Stephen Stigler’s The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom, and I’m daunted–and embarrassed that I waited so long to read it. Stigler gives us a structure and taxonomy to statistical thinking* that gives us the “big picture” of statistics. Read more
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Deus ex Machina, on steroids
…is the tagline I’d use to describe Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds’ The Medusa Chronicles, the startling sequel to Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “A Meeting with Medusa.” Baxter and Reynolds are up to their usual tricks of piling wonder atop wonder in their usual over-the-top scenarios, while cleverly maintaining Clarke’s style and tone, AND Read more
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Bad Choice, Pop
Spurs coach Greg Popovich continues to lecture us about President Trump’s shortcomings. Nice try, Pop, but you’re getting tuned out with all the other pro sports and Hollywood folks who’ve squandered what little moral authority they ever had. Victor Davis Hanson recent wrote Pollsters, pundits, and the media have vastly underestimated how many in America Read more
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ICAN gets Nobel Peace Prize. BFD.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, another international gang of virtue signallers, has just received the Nobel Peace Prize. So far, they have motivated fewer than 50 pipsqueak countries to sign a UN treaty banning nuclear weapons (122 have “adopted” it, but signing off? Don’t hold your breath) . BUT, they do have Yoko Read more
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OK, so I’m just a little “fabulous.”
“Plus sized” is out, “fabulously sized” is in. This is the latest spin from K-Mart: Now, in a push to move beyond labels, Kmart is calling their line of plus-size fashions “Fabulously Sized.” This comes at a time when body-positivity and inclusivity is on the rise with fashion shows adding curvier models and celebs fighting Read more
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Houston, We Have a Solution
Long-time south Texas residents swear by the H-E-B grocery chain for value, selection, quality, and always being well-stocked. These guys are supply-chain ninjas; we see groceries, they see a logistics network. And they always step up in emergencies; Houston may be their finest hour to date. Tip from American Digest. Read more
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Stanford Invents AI Gaydar, Flubs Write-Up
Yilun Wang and Michal Kosinsksi, researchers at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, have developed a neural-net classifier that purportedly detects sexual orientation (in caucasians). The authors report an avalanche of experimental results, and claim the classifier can “correctly distinguish between gay and straight men 81% of the time, and 74% for women.” OK, that’s the Read more
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You can see a lot just by looking*
Any lawyer or successful bureacrat will tell you to never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to. Some folks aren’t that smart: It was a strange moment of triumph against racism: The gun-slinging white supremacist Craig Cobb, dressed up for daytime TV in a dark suit and red tie, hearing that his DNA testing Read more
The Random Texan 