Posts from June 2013 (39)

While watching Discovery Channel’s coverage of Nik Wallenda’s nerve-wracking high-wire walk across the Little Colorado Gorge Grand Canyon*, it was somewhat bothersome to hear the commentators repeatedly say that there was “no room for margin of error”.

I wonder if there’s any other statistical phrase that is used in other contexts so often?

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday June 28 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of June 22 – 28 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

If you have read media stories recently that say ‘yes’, you’d better read this article from the Genetic Literacy Project …

Team Ratings for Round 15

Here are the team ratings prior to Round 15, along with the ratings at the start of the season. I have created a brief description of the method I use for predicting rugby games. Go to my Department home page to see this.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 107 matches played, 65 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 60.75%.

Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 15

Here are the predictions for Round 15. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

• Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday June 21 2013.
• Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
• The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of June 15 – 21 2013 inclusive.
• Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

(more…)

If you’d like to comment on or debate any of this week’s Stat of the Week nominations, please do so below!

Team Ratings for Round 18

This year the predictions have been slightly changed with the help of a student, Joshua Dale. The home ground advantage now is different when both teams are from the same country to when the teams are from different countries. The basic method is described on my Department home page.

Here are the team ratings prior to Round 18, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 103 matches played, 70 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 68%.

Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 18

Here are the predictions for Round 18. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.

Kieran Healy uses data from the time of the American Revolution to show how membership of organisations can be turned into social network information

Rest assured that we only collected metadata on these people, and no actual conversations were recorded or meetings transcribed. All I know is whether someone was a member of an organization or not. Surely this is but a small encroachment on the freedom of the Crown’s subjects. I have been asked, on the basis of this poor information, to present some names for our field agents in the Colonies to work with. It seems an unlikely task.

If you want to follow along yourself, there is a secret repository containing the data and the appropriate commands for your portable analytical engine.

You may well already have seen this, but I’ve been travelling.

Team Ratings for Round 14

Here are the team ratings prior to Round 14, along with the ratings at the start of the season. I have created a brief description of the method I use for predicting rugby games. Go to my Department home page to see this.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 99 matches played, 60 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 60.61%.

Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 14

Here are the predictions for Round 14. The prediction is my estimated expected points difference with a positive margin being a win to the home team, and a negative margin a win to the away team.