DavidMSmith

367 Articles

Don’t think percentages, think real people

We see risk statistics in news articles every day. "One extra unit…

DavidMSmith DavidMSmith 2 Min Read

Word of the day

Andrew Gelman introduces me to a new (well, new to me) word…

DavidMSmith DavidMSmith 1 Min Read

Visualizing correlation matrices

Looking at the components of a correlation matrix can be an important…

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Physicists, models, and the credit crisis, ctd.

Allen Engelhardt, physicist and former quant, provides a thoughtful response to my…

DavidMSmith DavidMSmith 5 Min Read

Underestimating the tails

Collective wisdom about the location of Ground Zero for the credit crisis…

DavidMSmith DavidMSmith 3 Min Read

How a highly-variable point estimate becomes a headline

The media were jubilant earlier this week that an economic indicator was…

DavidMSmith DavidMSmith 1 Min Read

R, March Madness, and the Statistics of Basketball

Back in February, Mark Cuban announced on his blog that the Dallas…

DavidMSmith DavidMSmith 2 Min Read

First meeting of New York UseR Group, April 2

The newly-formed New York UseR Group will have its first user group…

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How to make a progress bar in R

If you're writing a function that you expect to take a long…

DavidMSmith DavidMSmith 2 Min Read

Physicists, models, and the credit crisis

The New York Times had an article last week on the cadre…

DavidMSmith DavidMSmith 3 Min Read