Category Archives: Uncategorized
Chartporn.org (in the wild)
If graphical displays of data get you going, you should go to Chartporn.org.
Cheers.
God fearing, gun toting, family values……porn subscribers (in the wild)
From Charles Blow’s blog, By The Numbers:Red (Light) States.
Cheers.
Mountains out of Molehills (in the wild)
A fantastic graphic: “Mountains out of Molehills: A time-line of global media scare stories.”
Cheers.
The Value of Statistics (in the wild)
Form the Freakonomics blog: “The Value of Statistics“.
I like the last line of this post: “It goes to show that thinking up the right regression to run can be worth millions.”
Cheers.
Global Warming and Faith (in the wild)
Earlier this year the Pew research group released some interesting findings on “Religious Groups’ Views on Earth Warming Evidence”.
If you want, you can download the actual data set, as well as many other interesting data sets, directly from their site.
Cheers.
Chernoff faces (in the wild)
I took a multivariate class several years ago and towards the end of the semester the professor showed us Chernoff faces. I was thinking about them for some reason tonight, and so I figured I’d do a search for Chernoff faces on the internet. Here is an interesting application of Chernoff faces to MLB managers. This got me excited so I did a google search for “R faces” hoping to find an R package for Chernoff faces, however, this search yielded this web site. The headline on that web site says: “French rapper Monsieur R faces up to three years in prison and a 75,000-euro fine for referring to France as a ‘slut’ and a ‘bitch’ and saying ‘I piss on Napoleon and General de Gaulle’ on his latest album.” Not quite what I was looking for, but completely fantastic. God Bless the internet.
After another quick search, I downloaded this R Package. And now I’ve spent all night “Chern”-ing out Chernoff Faces.
Here is one for a few selected MLB hitters:
Here is one for a few selected MLB pitchers:
And here is my favorite about the economy (Data is from here):
I especially like how the Chernoff faces get smaller and actually appear to get sadder as the economy worsens. I guess it’s so bad that even Chernoff’s faces are feeling the recession.
Cheers.
Risk in the wild
Ever play Risk and notice the first person has a huge advantage? Apparently, Andrew Gelman has too, and he offers a simple solution to the problem here.
Cheers.
Cocaine’s a hell of a drug (in the wild)
Here is a nice little post about the price and purity of cocaine over time. The second graph released by the Washington Office on Latin America shows a huge decline in the price of cocaine in the eighties and a much more gradual decline in price from the early nineties through 2008.
They conclude: “In a report released this week, WOLA points out that there has been a general downward trend in cocaine prices in recent decades, despite the occasional spikes, indicating that crackdowns on cocaine trafficking are not working.
I’m not an economist, but couldn’t this also be a result of less demand for cocaine? If anyone actually knows what they are talking about, I would love to hear from you.
Also as a note, the SITW blog officially does not endorse the use of cocaine. As Kurt Cobain once said, “Drugs are bad for you, They will fuck you up.” And you better believe we’re not going to censor that like the local Aberdeen authorities. Not on SITW.
Cheers.
Stats in the Wild 