tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25143523128594475612024-03-19T05:34:25.254-04:00Bad Data, Bad!When in doubt, put it to the t-test.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.comBlogger377125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-89431641292994118602013-09-02T19:39:00.001-04:002013-09-02T19:39:08.893-04:00Gone but not forgottenIt's been a long summer. In April, I wrote to let you know <a href="http://baddatabad.blogspot.com/2013/04/lt-james-clark-rip.html" target="_blank">my uncle had died unexpectedly</a>. A few weeks later, a different uncle of the same name also passed away. On Tuesday, <a href="http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/UnionLeader/obituary.aspx?n=James-R-King&pid=166688701#fbLoggedOut" target="_blank">my grandfather died</a>. It's an interesting coincidence that these three men were all named James, and that despite their disparate ages (56, 60, 89) all died within such a short time period.<br />
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I've done a lot of reflecting over the past several days, and I wanted to say a few words about my grandfather, then write a few things about where I go from here. I've subdivided this so you can skip parts you're not interested in.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">James R King</span><br />
My grandfather was the original stat-man in our family. He quite literally <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Probability-Charts-Decision-Making-James/dp/0831110236/ref=sid_dp_dp" target="_blank">wrote the book on it</a>. As we went through his stuff this weekend, I was amused to find that he had also been the original stats blogger in the family. Apparently he had spent years running a stats newsletter where he wrote about stats topics that interested him and then sent it out to those who payed him $10 or so for the privilege of reading his thoughts. Judging by his archives, it seems to me quite a few people were interested in what he had to say.<br />
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My grandfather was truly a man of his time in many many ways. He was hard working, hard drinking, driven by duty to God, country, family, intellectual curiosity and deep desire to see things work correctly. He served in two wars (WWII, Korea), helped put a man on the moon, and had a deep disdain for stupidity. As recently as a few months ago, he was grilling me about how to apply quality principles to health services environments. He was annoyed that the administration of his assisted living facility wouldn't take him on as an operational consultant. He wasn't trying to get money, he was just annoyed that things could be done better. I'm not sure they ever knew how much free brain power they lost.<br />
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Since I got the new on Tuesday, I've been reflecting on what it means to watch another member of the greatest generation slip away. For me, I have lost not only a grandfather, but someone who understood my way of viewing the world. For all that "geek culture" has become mainstream, it's still a bit of a lonely life for those of us who prefer to view the world through numbers and systems, and my grandfather was one of the few people I could count on to always know how I felt. I'll be raising a martini or two over a spreadsheet or three in his memory, I'm sure.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Future of this Blog</span><br />
Three deaths in 5 months is a lot, especially when the people involved were meaningful to your family structure. I've been slow in posting this summer, and at this point, I've realized I need a complete break. I started this blog as a fun project to work out some frustrations I had about political campaigns, and it worked well for that. I've loved the readers I've had and the conversations that took place here. I hope to get back to this at some point, to renew those conversations, but right now I don't have it in me. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the other hand...</span><br />
I have some projects in the works you all might be interested in. First and foremost, this blog has helped start an ongoing conversation with my (science teacher) brother about what it would take to give kids a good sense of how to apply math and science to the media that bombards them, and give them a good sense of practical scientific literacy. These discussions have led to us start collaborating on an e-book/curriculum guide of sorts. The idea is it would be a bit like this blog adapted for a classroom setting....a sort of "here's how you take the dry concepts you're hearing and here's when you should use them in the real world". I'll be posting periodic updates on this project, so you can check back for those. <br />
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Also, I know many of my readers have pretty awesome blogs of their own. I'm always available for guest posts and/or random stats commentary if you miss me :).<br />
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Again, I want to thank everyone who has made this blog such a fun place for me to write. The internet certainly has it's ups and downs, but (in the words of the AVI) I have been happy to be part of this "small but excellent corner" of it. <br />
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Keep being 2SD above the norm, and good luck out there.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-25240846242775567552013-08-19T21:49:00.001-04:002013-08-19T21:49:37.014-04:00Autism and LaborCommenter Erin brought up the recent hubbub regarding induced labor and autism, and while I'd like to comment on it, Science Based Medicine has <a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/autism-and-induced-labor/" target="_blank">already done a pretty thorough job</a>. They put the breakdown quite succinctly:<div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #636b75; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.59375px;">In the case of this study, either inducing/augmenting labor triggers autism in some children, children with autism are more likely to require induced labor, or some other factor(s) is a risk factor for both developing autism and needing to induce or augment labor. This current study does not contain data that can differentiate among these possibilities.</span></blockquote>
Induced labor is a hard thing to study because (unlike c-sections) induction is very rarely completely elective. It is almost always precipitated by some other complication. It's an interesting study though, and definitely indicates a need for more research. Anything that gets people off the vaccine thing makes me happy.<br />
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bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-64113604100433779832013-08-19T19:29:00.001-04:002013-08-19T19:29:23.452-04:0030 Days of Data Storytelling: Day 4 and 5Two videos for today, a <a href="http://bit.ly/30Days-Tapestry" target="_blank">long-ish one</a> that gives more details about how to do things, and a <a href="http://www.blogger.com/n%20http://bit.ly/30Days-Machine" target="_blank">Hans Rosling video</a> that is a great example of a story with data. I've seen the Rosling video a few times, but it's worth a look just to see how he shows his data off.<br />
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The other video is a good primer of what to do and what not to do when presenting data. If you have time, worth a watch.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-62662829782083813242013-08-13T20:44:00.001-04:002013-08-13T20:44:12.346-04:00Literally UnbelievableIn 2013, I'm pretty sure it's a pretty universal experience to have at least one Facebook friend who is a bit of a train wreck. I have one such person on my list, and for a variety of reasons I cannot delete him. He is quite prone to daily postings of dozens of ridiculous political comments/links/cartoons that range from condescendingly disagreeable to outright offensive. A large part of this offensiveness, IMHO, comes from the fact that a decent amount of what he posts <i>isn't actually true.</i><div>
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He seems to be a deep sucker for a story that fits his pre-existing narrative, and at least twice a day I see something out of him that doesn't even pass a basic sniff test. To be fair, he at least occasionally gets called out on this. Apparently this has been getting to him though (the "hey that story's not true" part), because last night he posted quite the disclaimer that let everyone know that he "thoroughly researches" every story he posts. </div>
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A mere 10 hours later, with no irony and lots of anger, he posted this article:<a href="http://nineinchnews.com/lance-armstrong-fails-drug-test-for-job-at-target/" target="_blank"> Lance Armstrong Fails Drug Test for Job at Target.</a></div>
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On the bright side, just a few posts down on my newsfeed, a different friend posted <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/the-35-best-times-someone-on-facebook-thought-the-onion-was-real/" target="_blank">this</a> list chronicling the 35 best times someone on Facebook thought <a href="http://www.theonion.com/" target="_blank">The Onion</a> was real. These two friends don't know each other, so it was pretty serendipitous.</div>
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It's a great list, and apparently it's drawn from a whole website of this sort of thing called<a href="http://literallyunbelievable.org/" target="_blank"> Literally Unbelievable.</a></div>
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Check your sources people, check your sources. </div>
bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-73762788179806161822013-08-12T21:21:00.000-04:002013-08-12T21:21:46.640-04:0030 Days of Data Storytelling: Day 3Doubling up on the posts since I got behind.<br />
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Today's entry was <a href="http://bit.ly/30Days-LongJump" target="_blank">this awesome data simulation/graph/narrative about Olympic long jumping</a>.<br />
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I remember watching a few of these around the Olympics last year, and it was pretty cool. It's a good overview of raw data, with visuals and comparisons to put it in context. Context is one of the most underutilized aspects of data presentation. Hearing "he jumped 26 feet" is impressive, but hearing "he jumped from the edge of the court past the 3 point line" gives context. <br />
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It's a short video, definitely worth a watch if you have the time.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-85168854434664455882013-08-12T19:56:00.001-04:002013-08-12T19:56:16.208-04:0030 Days of Storytelling: Day 2 (Pixar version)So after posting the first two articles last week, I realized those were supposed to be a combined Day 1, making this the real day 2.<br />
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Day 2 was two interesting Pixar related things...<a href="http://bit.ly/30Days-PixarRules" target="_blank">one a list of their rules for great storytelling</a> and the other a short (about 3 minutes) video <a href="http://vimeo.com/8243280" target="_blank">where they tell a story with no words</a>. If you've ever seen a Pixar movie, you know they can tell a fantastic story, so it was interesting to read their take on the craft.<br />
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A few of their rules particularly stood out as relevant to data stories:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;">#2 You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;">#11 Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;">#17 No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.</span></blockquote>
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I'm sure there are others that could apply, but those are the 3 that really struck me. Sometimes I find fun and funky data that no one else is interested in. I'm always having to refocus on the question at hand. When you analyze data a lot, the "normal stuff" can get boring, but normal is interesting to someone who's seeing it for the first time. That bleeds in to #11....you can't always know what's interesting to people until you start to share it. Testing reactions and assessing opinion is valuable. <br />
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When something flops, that's when #17 comes in. I store all the data I come across for future use. It's interesting how often something no one was interested in can later become critical. <br />
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The video's just cute. Show it to the small child in your life.<br />
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bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-46411492297549268522013-08-07T19:49:00.002-04:002013-08-07T19:49:16.851-04:00McDonald's wages: not what they appearLast week I saw a HuffPo headline peppered on several facebook/twitter feeds/etc that claimed that "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Doubling McDonald's Salaries Would Cause Your Big Mac To Cost Just 68¢ More." It was an interesting claim, but ultimately I didn't click on the link, as I tend to find most economic analysis pretty dubious from the get go. Now, I know nothing about economics, but as a systems person, I generally believe you can't change things dramatically in one area of a business (such as doubling salaries) and expect to fully know the results just by adding a few numbers (the cost of a Big Mac going up just $0.68). </span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">I actually almost blogged about it, when I saw a snippet on </span><a href="http://www.volokh.com/2013/07/31/doubling-mcdonalds-salaries/" style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" target="_blank">Volokh</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> about the lack of thought about the repercussions of such a change on the type of person McDonald's hired. Most people seemed to be assuming that all the poor folks currently working at McD's would get raises, but isn't it more likely the jobs would become more competitive and the population they hired would change? Interesting thought.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Well, I'm now glad I didn't post on any of it, because apparently the <a href="http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/a_big_mac_miss_by_the_huffingt.php" target="_blank">whole analysis was crap anyway. </a> Apparently the guy who was looking at it left out the 80% of McDonald's that are franchises (but included the franchise fees as profits), and it excluded a bunch of other accounting issues I don't understand. Oh, and the "study" that had shown this originally was the work of an independent undergrad and the HuffPo didn't recheck it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/mcdonalds-salaries_n_3672006.html" target="_blank">HuffPo has a retraction up in the place of the original article</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">What baffles me most about their retraction is that they ask a blogger they have on their own staff to review it, and he calls BS immediately. How did that conversation not happen <i>before </i>you put up the sensational claim?</span></span>bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-63912622949451309202013-08-06T21:33:00.000-04:002013-08-06T21:33:04.431-04:0030 Days of Data Storytelling: Day 2Today's <a href="http://bit.ly/30Days-NextStep" target="_blank">lesson</a> is actually an academic-ish paper on the history and application of story telling to data presentations. It's an interesting review of the literature up until now, and some ideas for future research.<br />
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It struck me while reading this that measuring story telling is a lot like measuring humor: most people know it when they hear it, but it's really hard to define what makes one person better than another at it. For both topics you can get mired down in issues of audience and personal taste, but it's clear there are still some general rules. That visuals should be a part of storytelling if possible (and especially with data) is one of these general rules.<br />
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I certainly applaud for anyone who calls for more research about how to effectively communicate data through visuals. Translating complex concepts in to usable information is what's going to allow data nerds to increase their scope of influence.<br />
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<b>Overall impression: </b>A longer read, but lots of interesting citations and resources mentioned.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-77663179787482583572013-08-05T19:37:00.001-04:002013-08-05T19:39:11.039-04:0030 Days of Data Storytelling: Day 1The first day of the 30 Day guide is a short article from Harvard Business Review on <a href="http://bit.ly/30Days-RealJob" target="_blank">the real job of data scientists.</a><br />
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It's a solid article, covering the idea that the point of data collection is not just to throw out a whole lot of data, but to use it to tell a story. This is done primarily through making sure your presentation is visual and accessible...both sold ideas.<br />
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This is certainly good advice, especially if the data you're pulling is data related to a problem with no solution or getting information no one knows. When data is being pulled to support a particular agenda, the "data scientist as storyteller" idea could get dangerous, but I'm not sure most big data is being used that way at the moment (though obviously instances of this will be more high profile).<br />
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<b>Overall impression:</b> good for a read if you're interested in data science, short piece, easy reading<br />
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<br />bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-75862552033132338482013-08-05T19:30:00.003-04:002013-08-05T19:30:43.356-04:0030 Day Challenge: Data StorytellingAnyone who knows me knows me knows I love a good list. That's why I was so intrigued a few months ago when Juice Analytics put up <a href="http://www.juiceanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/30-Days-Data-Storytelling.pdf" target="_blank">this list</a> of "30 Days to Data Storytelling"...their list of resources to watch/read/do/play in order to improve your data storytelling skills. <br />
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I've been wanting to take a look at this for a while now, and it occurred to me that August might be an excellent month for me to go through this and blog about the experience. I'll likely still do a few regular posts, but most of them will be relating to the resources they list, adding my thoughts and commentary.<br />
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I know this is a departure from the norm, but hey, what's wrong with a little experimentation now and then?bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-64751617090462103612013-07-31T05:55:00.000-04:002013-07-31T05:55:02.130-04:00Context? There's an app for thatOr at least a chrome extension. <br />
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The <a href="http://www.dictionaryofnumbers.com/" target="_blank">Dictionary of Numbers</a> is a browser add on that gives context to the numbers people throw out there. Apparently it will add in line context to numbers it encounters (ie 8 million people = about the population of NYC), and also provides a search function when that doesn't work.<br />
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I'm going to try this out and see how I like it. Intentionally or not, people are always throwing out big numbers without proper context, and something like this could really help mollify that. <br />
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I'll be reporting back.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-6881548034211013112013-07-28T08:30:00.000-04:002013-07-28T08:30:07.740-04:00Boy or girl...the choice is yours!Apparently I am enjoying my summer a bit too much, or just the right amount, depending on how you're measuring. I have an interesting backlog of articles to get to, just so you know I haven't forgotten about you all.<br />
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The one that's been bugging me the most is <a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/12/3-mammals-that-choose-their-babies-sex/" target="_blank">this article</a>, titled "3 mammals that "choose" their babies sex". Now to be fair, the article does pretty quickly clarify that there's likely no "choosing" going on...but there is proof that the gender ratio at birth changes based on circumstance. I got interested in this because the last mammal on the list is human beings.<br />
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This conclusion is based on two studies. The first one found that the <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004195" target="_blank">400 billionaires in the US were more likely to have sons than daughters</a> (60% sons, 40% daughters). This study got some press around the last presidential election, where it was noted that Romney had 5 sons, and Obama had 2 daughters. Apparently the higher son ratio existed irrespective of whether the wealth was fully inherited, "actively grown" or earned from scratch. This only existed for the male billionaires however...when it was the woman who had the money, she had a more even ratio of children (52% sons, 48% daughters). One of the theories behind this is that men with lots of resources have more children, whereas it appears women with lots of resources do not. This means there would be a genetic advantage to having more sons if you were at this level.<br />
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Now that's interesting to me, but I'm sort of curious what would have happened if you cross-referenced this with when the children were born in relation to the earning of the money. This whole notion is precipitated on the woman somehow knowing the resources were there first...and yet if you look at many billionaire bios, it seems that some children were born prior to any wealth (as was the case with Romney's first three sons). The study authors said that because the ratio is no different for inherited vs earned wealth, it is clearly not a quality of the males that influences the ratio (such as more testosterone = more male babies AND more financial success) , but I'm not so sure. This could be easily tested by seeing if the gender ratio shifts once money is made (could be even more interesting if the men involved had second families with different women once they made their money...would the first wife or second wife be more likely to have boys?) Also, the study authors mention they found these sex ratios by googling the billionaires....is it totally out there to think male children might be mentioned more often than female children? Especially due to last name issues?<br />
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Now, I was going to leave it at that originally, but then I was googling a bit myself, and I found <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3578789/" target="_blank">this paper</a>. It turns out someone had thought of my critiques already, and decided to go back and redo this research to try to amend for timing of earned wealth and also to get more meticulous about the counting. It turns out male children ARE more likely to be mentioned in Wikipedia pages, and that the real ratio is 52% sons/48% daughters (general population is 51%/49%). It also turns out that those with inherited wealth are more likely to have more sons than daughters (57%/43%), and those who worked for it are slightly (but not statistically significantly) more likely to have sons than daughters. <br />
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Now I don't think it's too hard to figure out why sons come up more in google searches than daughters...my guess is more sons take an active part in the family business and more daughters change their last names so they may appear to be unassociated with the father. I think this whole thing highlights how important raw data source is when trying to study something. I mean, the authors of the first paper did multiple regressions, but they didn't bother to spend much time making sure that Wikipedia was accurate???? My guess is far fewer people know about the refutation of this paper than the original.<br />
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Anyway, it's an interesting case of researchers confirming their own expectations. No one went back to check the crazy ratio of sons/daughters, because they <i>expected</i> a skew. It also shows how weirdly people use evolution at times...essentially the first paper argued that (for some) there was a selection effect happening before the event that should have skewed things actually occurred. Timing is important, not just outcomes. It's not that sex selection doesn't occur, but I would be hesitant to assign a specific mechanism without more data.<br />
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<br />bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-68965017441767637352013-07-17T20:53:00.005-04:002013-07-17T20:53:46.738-04:00Wednesday Riddler?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Via SMBC<a href="http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20130715.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20130715.png" width="308" /></a></div>
bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-14969947104341109552013-07-03T19:15:00.000-04:002013-07-03T19:15:06.633-04:00Wednesday Brain Teaser 7-3-13Not a true brain teaser, but I figure people may be away for the looooong weekend.<div>
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I saw an article today complaining about <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/07/new_revolutionary_war_books_by_nathaniel_philbrick_and_joseph_ellis_ignore.html" target="_blank">how much new research</a> gets left out of books about the Revolutionary War. I'm not a history buff, but in my skimming of the article it seems his primary complaint is that books tend to go for narrative over ambiguous but accurate portrayals of events. No kidding.</div>
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This got me thinking though, of a question for this week:</div>
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<b>What historical fallacy, commonly taught in schools or repeated in the press, is most annoying to you?</b></div>
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Feel free to define "historical fallacy" as you see fit...I have no agenda here...I'm just genuinely curious. </div>
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Happy 4th of July everyone!</div>
bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-53688411228326127162013-07-02T21:45:00.000-04:002013-07-02T21:45:24.861-04:00A false positive nightmareOnce upon a time, I took an International Public Health class. As part of this class, the professor was teaching us about false positives and false negatives (false positives = test results that say you have something when you do not, false negatives = test results that say you don't have something when you do), and he asked which one we'd prefer in an initial screening test for disease. Most of the class said false positives...better to initially believe you have something and be told later you don't, right? He agreed that we were likely right...in the US at least. However, he explained, in other countries this may not be the case. In some areas, even an initial suggestion that you had something like HIV could lead to some major fallout...spouse leaving, getting let go from your job, etc...that may not be easy to correct even once the final results were in. The problem is not always what a <i>patient</i> will do with information, but rather what <i>others </i>might do with the information.<br />
<br />
I thought of this today when I read <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23153685" target="_blank">this</a> story about a new mom in Pennsylvania who got her 3 day old baby taken away because she had eaten a bagel before going in to labor. Yeah, you read that right. The bagel happened to contain poppy seeds, and it turns out this caused her to test positive for opiates, which caused the hospital to report her, which caused her to have her daughter ripped out of her hands right after she got home. Now, this story didn't make a tremendous amount of sense to me, so I read through <a href="http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/Mortcmplnt.pdf" target="_blank">the whole lawsuit</a> (the hospital settled). A few details that fill in some of the blanks:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>This hospital has mandatory drug testing for all moms in labor. This is actually not standard practice...my hospital for example only did this if there was cause. No behavior on the part of the mother triggered this.</li>
<li>The cutoff used for the initial screening test is low...100 nanograms/uL. <a href="http://www.cnsproductions.com/drugeducationblog/diagnosis-and-drug-testing/132" target="_blank">In contrast the cutoff for say, Olympic athletes is 1000 nanograms/uL. For federal drug testing, it's 2000 nanograms/uL for codeine, and 4000 for morphine.</a> The mother's levels were 300 nanograms/uL on the initial test, and 500 on the confirmatory test. </li>
<li>The doctor who saw the mom and baby thought they were fine, so didn't even tell them about the test results. She assumed they were a false negative.</li>
<li>The hospital reported these positive tests to state, whose policy states that two positive drug tests are all that's needed to take the child away. They did no other investigation prior to removing the child.</li>
</ul>
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Now based on the fact that the hospital and state social services have both paid money and changed their policy, I'm going to assume most of what's said above is true. Given that, this is a scary real world case of people not understanding the ramifications of a false positive. </div>
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Now truly, in the real world, is it better that a (known to be healthy) 3 day old baby spend two extra days in the care of a mother who uses opiates while an investigation can be done, or is it better that new parents have their baby taken away for several days for no reason? The answer depends heavily on how often are they happening relative to one another. Is it worth it if they happen at equal rates? More false positives than false negatives? More false negatives than false positives?</div>
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This is why it's so critical that people in many professions understand statistics. As part of the lawsuit, it was explicitly mentioned that the training of the case worker failed to properly advise them that this could happen and to conduct themselves accordingly. The judge who granted the ex parte petition also seemed to not know/not care about the false positive issue. </div>
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Obviously we'd love to get the right information all the time, but the false positive/false negative debate is really about choosing which type of bad information you'd rather get. This is a difficult choice, but the way to mitigate that is to remember that numbers are harder to misinterpret when you take them in the whole context, rather than just as stand alone facts. In this case, the numbers are neutral...it's the standards set around them that cause the problems.</div>
bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-55802378263546333112013-07-01T20:04:00.001-04:002013-07-01T20:04:36.619-04:00Single vs Married at WorkSorry for the impromptu hiatus. I wish I had a good reason, but it's really a few random personal issues combined with being totally obsessed with finishing the Games of Thrones books. I decided I needed to put them down when I unironically called someone "craven". <br />
<br />
Anyway, I've had a story up in my browser for a bit now that I've been meaning to comment on. It's <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/06/21/family_friendly_workplaces_are_great_unless_you_re_childless.html?wpisrc=flyouts" target="_blank">this Slate stor</a>y about how "family-friendly" workplaces are discriminating against those who don't have kids, by making those without kids cover for those with them.<br />
<br />
*Bias alert* I have a great deal of sympathy for the argument that kids should not be the only acceptable reason for people to leave the office early on a regular basis. If people are able to leave to get to soccer games for their kids, it should be just as valid if it's your own rec league soccer game. Obviously people with kids will likely have more emergency calls, but I believe that too should apply to kids as well as parents needing a caretaker, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, pets etc. If you're a caretaker for someone, you have my support...as long as you're getting your job done or taking available leave as allowed. OTOH, there are some highly competitive or otherwise inflexible jobs that just don't allow this sort of thing, and I know that sucks. When I've worked in environments like that (example: where you had to work on major holidays) there were generally blanket rules for everyone to keep things fair (work 2 out of 3 of Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years) Either way, I'm not a fan of having two sets of rules based on personal life choices. *End alert*<br />
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Given that I'm inherently sympathetic to the viewpoint expressed, I was interested to find that I got really annoyed at what I was perceiving as a bit of a bait and switch within the article...as exemplified by this quote:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;">When almost half of the people in the U.S. are single, why do companies continue to cater to their employees who are married with children?"</span> </blockquote>
This quote came from an author of a book about discrimination against single people. What irks me is that she's moving the goalposts around...are people being asked to do more work because they're single or because they're childless? Yes, half of the population may be single, but as best I can tell <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/25/AR2010062500188.html" target="_blank">nearly 80% of women </a>have a biological child by age 44*. That doesn't count step kids or adoptions, by the way. <br />
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Now there may be some data somewhere that shows married people with no kids get asked to do less than single people with no kids, but if it exists it was not included in the article. At least anecdotally though, I think single people with kids actually tend to get more sympathy than married people with kids when it comes to time off. That's absolutely fine with me...not having a back up must suck...but at least some of the single people she cited above will be singles with children getting more breaks than singles without children. <br />
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I guess it's just strange to me that we can all suffer through endless headlines about how many children are being born to unwed mothers and then turn around and imply that single = childless. Additionally, the number of people checking "single" who are living with someone has been growing as well. As family structures change, binary categories are less and less meaningful. I don't doubt that some workplaces could get better at this, but we have to accurately identify the problem before we can agree on solutions.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-9061716160607770002013-06-20T20:53:00.000-04:002013-06-20T20:53:21.258-04:00Thursday Quickie: the Fake BlakeI've written about <a href="http://baddatabad.blogspot.com/2013/02/who-do-you-believe-me-or-your-brain.html" target="_blank">false literary attributions</a> before, but I found <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22971225" target="_blank">this one</a> particularly amusing. Apparently a librarian in England figured out that a poem (written in the 1980s) was being falsely attributed to William Blake (a poet from the 1800s). Worse yet, this poem was actually being <i>taught in multiple classrooms </i>as an example of his work. <br />
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It's one thing when students don't check their sources, but teachers? Come on guys.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-21413835677511894832013-06-19T22:06:00.002-04:002013-06-19T22:06:58.947-04:00Wednesday Brain Teaser 6-19-13I think my one last week was too hard. I'll provide the answer as soon as I can find it...I'm trying to remember which book I got it out of.<br />
<br />
Anyway, here's an easier one:<br />
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A car travels at a speed of 50 mph over a certain distance, and then goes 30 mph over the same distance on the way back. What's the average speed for the trip?bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-44055298755132400872013-06-17T20:02:00.003-04:002013-06-17T20:02:54.976-04:00Self righteous hand washingIn honor of my little sister taking her nursing boards today, I thought I'd do a post about a pet peeve of mine: hand washing. Well not hand washing exactly, but rather those who get worked up in to a foamy lather* when others don't do it. Let me explain<br />
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I'm a fairly avid reader of advice columns, and there is a genre of letter that pops up every few months that goes something like this "Dear _____, my coworker doesn't wash their hands and it makes me wretch and think they're a disgusting human being. How do I confront them?"<br />
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Now these people are never hospital/patient care type employees, they tend to be just regular office workers. What gets me so annoyed is that I <i>have </i>worked in patient care, and when I got my nurses aide license I even had to wash my hands in front of a state inspector. <i>Washing your hands is not easy and almost everyone does it wrong. </i>That's what annoys me about these letters. Unless they're very meticulous, these people are likely not even being very effective themselves...and even if they are doing it effectively, nearly everyone else they work with is doing it wrong. Also, as someone who carries hand sanitizer around just to avoid having to insufficiently wash my hand in a public restroom, I get annoyed at people who think water = clean. <br />
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I thought about this today because I heard about a large scale study that vindicated my feelings: <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-06/only-5-percent-people-wash-their-hands-correctly" target="_blank">95% of people do not wash their hands properly.</a> Properly means with soap, lathering for at least 20 seconds. If you want to be good enough to get your nurses aide license, you also better use a paper towel to shut the faucet off, and angle your hands downward when you rinse to make sure you're not spreading germs up your wrists. People are so bad at this that many hospitals now recommend that hand washing only be used to remove stuff that may have gotten on your hands, and that hand sanitizer is what should be use to disinfect. <br />
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I like studies like this because they are very useful for reminding people that our self-assessment does not always match reality. My guess is that a very high percentage of people believe they are washing their hands correctly. It's like how everyone believes they're an above average driver.<br />
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Anyway, best of luck to my favorite little sister, may you be several deviations from the norm (in the passing direction of course).<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*See what I did there?</span>bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-197512416642924872013-06-16T21:13:00.001-04:002013-06-16T21:13:25.520-04:00NSA and Father's DayHappy Father's Day to all those in the relevant group!<br />
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I saw my father yesterday, and we, like much of the country, spent some time talking about the NSA leaks and Snowden. My father asked how I felt about it, and I answered in a way only a daughter who's been debating her father for decades could answer: You already know how I feel about it Dad, we debated this years ago when Bush was President. He was testing me. Nothing makes my Dad happier than knowing he raised kids who keep their opinions consistent regardless of who's in power. <br />
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At that point my Dad mentioned that he had seen a survey that showed that Democrats and Republicans have switched places when it comes to supporting programs like this. Under Bush, Republicans supported NSA surveillance programs, now the don't. Vice versa for the Democrats. <br />
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I didn't have a chance until today to look up the survey my Dad was talking about, and I found a good breakdown at reason.com <a href="http://reason.com/archives/2013/06/14/nsa-confidential-we-love-big-brother-if" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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There are actually 3 different polls cited: one from 2002, one from 2006, and one from just recently. The numbers do, in fact, flip (and 2006 is more dramatic than either of the other two years). Eugene Volokh however, <a href="http://www.volokh.com/2013/06/14/virtually-unyielding-preference-for-partisanship-over-principle/" target="_blank">does an interesting take on the numbers,</a> and points out a different spin:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 20px;">If the 38% of Republicans who said no still say no today, and the 45% who say yes new said yes in 2002, that amounts to 83% (out of the average of 93.5% responding) whose answers were the same. Likewise, if the 41% of Democrats who said yes still say yes today, and the 43% who say no now said no in 2002, that amounts to 84% (out of the average of 94% responding) whose answers were the same. (I oversimplify here by assuming that the same people were surveyed today as before, despite the changing composition of the public overtime; but if you relax that assumption, then the consistency rate might be even higher.)</span></blockquote>
Those numbers actually sound pretty reasonable to me. One also has to wonder how many of those 16/17% would actually admit they legitimately changed their minds. 11 years is a long time. Even if you took the more dramatic 2006 numbers, about 75% of each party maintained their beliefs. <br />
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Now obviously it was not very likely that the same exact people were polled, so we don't actually have evidence that any individual changed their mind. The one thing to keep in mind when you see polls like this talking about Democrat vs Republican attitudes is that the type of person who identifies themselves with either party is changing. Here are the <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/01/trend-in-party-identification-1939-2012/" target="_blank">breakdowns</a> of Dem vs Rep vs Independent for the 3 years listed:<br />
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Dem Rep Ind<br />
2002 31 30 30<br />
2006 33 28 30<br />
2012 32 24 38<br />
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Even if these survey had polled the exact same group of people and they all had answered identically, the numbers would have changed based on changing political affiliation (or lack thereof). Things to ponder. bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-88518048379368499532013-06-12T21:58:00.001-04:002013-06-12T21:58:08.010-04:00Wednesday Brain Teaser 6-12-13If you're finding my weekly brain teaser too low stakes, <a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/11/solve-this-math-problem-win-a-million-bucks/" target="_blank">try this one</a>, win a million bucks!<br />
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There are 11 ways of expressing the number 100 as a number and fraction using the nine digits once each.<br />
Example:<br />
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91+ (5823/647) = 100<br />
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The challenge is to find some of the other 10 ways. <br />
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Hint: In 9 of them, that first number is above 80. In one of them, it's less than 10.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-88651838767537266622013-06-11T20:46:00.000-04:002013-06-11T20:46:31.311-04:00Transitivity, bicycle helmets and teleoanalysisI've mentioned before on this blog that I get annoyed when people link A to B and B to C and then proceed to assume that the relationship between A and C is just the average/sum/etc of the first two. In pure mathematics, the technical term for this is transitivity and it tends to be pretty valid. <br />
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I learned recently that there is actually a term for this when applied to epidemiology research:<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC194099/" target="_blank"> teleoanalysis</a>. Developed in the realm of public health, it's defined as<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">the synthesis of different categories of evidence to obtain a quantitative general summary of (</span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">a</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">) the relation between a cause of a disease and the risk of the disease and (</span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">b</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">) the extent to which the disease can be prevented. </span></blockquote>
It has also been <a href="http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/teleoanalysis-misleading-term" target="_blank">criticized</a>, in large part because it was invented to help support pre-existing assumptions. Both papers I linked to reference the "does cutting back on saturated fat actually prevent heart disease" controversy as an example.<br />
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I was thinking of this recently when reader Dubbahdee sent me <a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/05/do-bike-helmet-laws-really-make-people-safer/5732/" target="_blank">this</a> article about bicycle helmet laws. The issue follows the same formula as above: <br />
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A. Bicycle helmets protect cyclists<br />
B. Mandatory helmet laws increase the number of cyclists who wear helmets<br />
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Therefore:<br />
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C. Bicycle helmet laws save lives<br />
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What's interesting is it appears this is not the case. The paper's authors suggest that increased helmet laws decrease bike ridership, and apparently having lots of bicyclists in an area makes it safer for cyclists in general. Also, helmet laws seem to potentially inoculate lawmakers against making any bigger changes...the sort that actually help cyclist safety (infrastructure building, etc).<br />
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I thought this was interesting because it's absolutely proven that you as an individual should wear a helmet, but the conclusions drawn from that weren't valid. Someone out there guaranteed that these helmet laws would save x number of lives, and they were wrong.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-31898429649212534302013-06-10T22:06:00.001-04:002013-06-10T22:06:40.270-04:00Post migraine postI had a nasty migraine last night that kept me up for most of the night, and I'm not sure I have a real post in me.<br />
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In lieu of that, I have a linguistic issue I'd like to get off my chest: Misnomer does not mean "error" or "misconception"...it refers to an error in naming.<br />
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I'm sure my very smart and wonderful readers know this, but 3 times in the past two weeks I've heard people make this error. If you're going to try to use big/unusual words, please use them accurately. Oh, and that also goes for phrases in Latin. Saying part of your argument in Latin doesn't make you right.<br />
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bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-21259093453100092402013-06-09T20:51:00.000-04:002013-06-09T20:51:23.062-04:00Sunday Fun Links 6-8-12<br />
Good morning! It's hard to find fun links this week. Why? Because George @#&$@* Martin wrecked my life. Game of Thrones may land me in therapy. I knew about the red wedding, but really George Martin, really? Your life goal is to make your readers scared to turn the page? Well you've got me. Fine. <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/24-reasons-why-george-rr-martin-is-the-biggest-troll-in-lite" target="_blank">You win</a>. <br />
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Alright, here we go, the New Yorker has an interactive map of <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/sandbox/business/beer.html" target="_blank">the rise of the microbrews</a>. Little known fact: there was an award winning microbrew in Texas named after me. True story.<br />
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This here is possibly the most <a href="http://gizmodo.com/prankster-photoshops-people-into-ads-while-they-wait-fo-511927575?utm_source=recirculation&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=afternoon" target="_blank">joyous/beautiful practical joke/prank I've ever seen</a>. It made me smile.<br />
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These are some pretty cool illustrations about <a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/31/edward-youmans-chemical-atlas/" target="_blank">how chemistry works</a>.<br />
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Looking for some more summer reading? How about a book that will tell you "<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/06/what-wine-would-jesus-drink-a-new-book-tells-you/" target="_blank">what would Jesus drink?</a>"<br />
<br />bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514352312859447561.post-3869830249931493012013-06-06T20:24:00.000-04:002013-06-06T20:24:26.054-04:00Thursday Quickies: DNA and the legal systemIn other DNA related news, <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/maryland-v-king/" target="_blank">Scalia's dissenting opinion </a>regarding DNA sampling in Maryland v King was my favorite thing I read this week.<br />
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There's some<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/dna_math_if_police_find_a_genetic_match_that_doesn_t_mean_they_have_the.html" target="_blank"> interesting math</a> behind the practice of using DNA matching as sole proof in criminal cases. The stats are normally presented to the jury as though it was a one in five million chance the person is innocent...but if the size of DNA databases starts to grow, that could lead to several hits. Additionally, the stats do not factor in the chance that the sample was contaminated, or the chance that your DNA ended up somewhere randomly rather than intentionally. <br />
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End message: it shouldn't be treated as perfect.bs kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02871717971078952304noreply@blogger.com0