A little cartoon gambling advice. via Never Buy Two Lottery Tickets — Math with Bad Drawings
Politeness, formality, and science
As a graduate student, I often heard that polite, formal emails are critical when communicating with your colleagues or collaborators. There is always some story going around the internet about professors being catty to students about their poor grammar and informality. I could not disagree more. We are scientists Scientists spend their whole lives learning… Continue reading Politeness, formality, and science
Self Awareness
Socrates said, 'A wise man knows that he knows nothing.' It isn't possible to comprehend exactly how much you don't know if you don't know a tiny bit to begin with. Understanding the sheer magnitude of knowledge and understanding out there is one of the first things encountered by someone who seeks to understand the… Continue reading Self Awareness
Statistics Jokes
A mathematician, a physicist and a statistician went hunting for deer. When they chanced upon one buck lounging about, the mathematician fired first, missing the buck's nose by a few inches. The physicist then tried his hand, and missed the tail by a wee bit. The statistician started jumping up and down saying "We got… Continue reading Statistics Jokes
Analysis of the predictors of Pokemon strength
My presentation on the best predictors of Pokemon strength (as measured by the sum of Pokemon statistics) were analyzed using clustering methods.
Er, about those other approaches, hold off until a balanced appraisal is in
Bayesian vs frequentist statistics Source: Er, about those other approaches, hold off until a balanced appraisal is in
Prediction and Inference in Mathematical Modeling
It's fairly intuitive that a model should accurately represent the data. But what exactly does that mean? Fitting the data In order for a model to be useful at all, it should reasonably fit the data. What constitutes 'reasonable' depends on the fitting method as well as the purpose of the model. Prediction If the… Continue reading Prediction and Inference in Mathematical Modeling
What makes a model good?
How can we identify a good mathematical model? Over focusing on one aspect of modeling (fitting, inference) may not be the best approach. Here are 6 qualities that defines a good model: Reflects data accurately Not overly complex Has predictive power Consistent with general knowledge of the system Can be studied mathematically Can be simulated… Continue reading What makes a model good?
Modern philosophy
Some people may be more aware of relatively popular ancient philosophers. This graphic shows the diversity of modern philosophical thought. Some of my favorites include: Merleau-Ponty - described the phenomenon of facial recognition, even across species. Focault - wrote some very interesting post-Freudian analyses of sexuality, particularly heteronormativity and its effect on society's views of… Continue reading Modern philosophy
The meaning of life
There are many different beliefs about the meaning of life. This infographic mixes up existentialism and logical positivism. Existentialism and absurdist are very closely related, as demonstrated in Camus' Myth of Sisyphus. Another Asian philosophical tradition is Taoism, which is very closely related to existentialism.
i am become computational 