Stats Chat

• Henry Cooke for the Dominion Post “A routine report on the Government’s mental health services was delayed for over a year as officials battled behind the scenes over plans to dramatically reduce the amount of data in it”
• A letter in response by Len Cook (former  NZ and UK chief statistician): “Few important agency statistics are prepared in order to comply with a law; rather, they maintain  public trust and inform practitioners in the field of progress and conditions across the populations of importance”
• Kate Newton writes in the Sunday Star-Times about the impact of pre-departure Covid testing, “In the two-and-a-half months prior, the average (mean) case rate was 0.66 new cases per 1000 people in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ). In the following two-and-a-half months, the daily rate has fallen – but only slightly — to 0.55.”
• Derek Thompson in the Atlantic on vaccine misinformation “In a crowded field of wrongness, one person stands out: Alex Berenson.” 
• Dan Bouk and danah boyd: The technopolitics of the U.S. census “Almost no one notices the processes that produce census data—unless something goes terribly wrong. Susan Leigh Star and Karen Ruhleder argue that this is a defining aspect of infrastructure: it “becomes visible upon breakdown.” In this paper, we unspool the stories of some technical disputes that have from time to time made visible the guts of the census infrastructure and consider some techniques that have been employed to maintain the illusion of a simple, certain count. “

Team Ratings for Week 8

The basic method is described on my Department home page.
Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 26 matches played, 19 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 73.1%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Week 8

Here are the predictions for Week 8. 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.

Team Ratings for Round 5

The basic method is described on my Department home page.
Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 32 matches played, 24 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 75%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 5

Here are the predictions for Round 5. 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.

• Eden Park is the world’s sexiest bald man. Or something like that.   The results are bogus for the obvious reason: Prince William and Eden Park both get a lot of internet coverage, so they will show up on what is basically a count of Google hits.  You might well get the same winners for ‘ugliest bald man’ and ‘least popular cricket ground.  These reports are typically done in order to get some company’s name in the news, and since they typically don’t provide any real information about the numbers, it would be poetic justice to report the claims but just leave out the company name.  Or, better, ignore them.
• Good news: there are clinical trial results for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in children aged 12-15. These still need review based on more detail than just a press release, but it’s quite likely that we’ll be vaccinating this age group by the time we’d get around to them based on risk.  Trials in younger children are just starting; the end date will depend on how bad the pandemic is in the next few months, but might be around the end of the year.
• Books:
  • The Data Journalism Handbook (including open-access version) By a large cast including Aotearoa’s own Prof Tahu Kukutai on Indigenous Data Sovereignty
  • How to Make the World Add Up, by Tim Harford (or, in USA/Canada, The Data Detective). It’s a non-technical book on thinking clearly about numbers: “We need to be open-minded without being gullible, maintaining a healthy scepticism without lapsing into corrosive cynicism. Above all, we need to keep being curious.”. He’s on the Slate Money podcast talking about the book here.

Team Ratings for Round 4

The basic method is described on my Department home page.
Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 24 matches played, 17 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 70.8%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 4

Here are the predictions for Round 4. 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.

Team Ratings for Round 21

The basic method is described on my Department home page.
Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 140 matches played, 93 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 66.4%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 21

Here are the predictions for Round 21. 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.

Team Ratings for Week 7

The basic method is described on my Department home page.
Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 22 matches played, 16 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 72.7%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Week 7

Here are the predictions for Week 7. 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.

Team Ratings for Round 16

The basic method is described on my Department home page.
Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 83 matches played, 50 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 60.2%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Round 16

Here are the predictions for Round 16. 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.

Team Ratings for Week 6

The basic method is described on my Department home page.
Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 18 matches played, 13 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 72.2%.
Here are the predictions for last week’s games.

Predictions for Week 6

Here are the predictions for Week 6. 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.

Team Ratings for Round 15

The basic method is described on my Department home page.
Here are the team ratings prior to this week’s games, along with the ratings at the start of the season.

Performance So Far

So far there have been 77 matches played, 47 of which were correctly predicted, a success rate of 61%.
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.