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What Are the Chances?
Musings on everyday probability
Random Post
Rent or Buy?
February 12, 2008
By Alan J. Salzberg
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The answer to the age-old question, according to every grandmother out there, is "buy." But do the data really support this? Housing as an Investment...
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Throw away your cold medicine?
January 22, 2008
By Alan J. Salzberg
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A recent article in the New York times touts: "Seawater Seems to Beat Medicine in Fighting Colds." The article g...
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Election Math - Update
January 10, 2008
By Alan J. Salzberg
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So my guess was wrong. Clinton won. The question is, was it the various selection biases and undecided voters, the measurement error (polls were on Saturday and Sunday but th...
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Election Math
January 7, 2008
By Alan J. Salzberg
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Today's CNN headline screams out "Obama opens double-digit lead over Clinton." When you read the article, you find that the poll,...
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Where is the safest place to live?
January 1, 2008
By Alan J. Salzberg
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If you figure out where to live by the crime rate, many of the safest places to live are outside the United States, where crime, though lower than it
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The lottery: a tax on stupidity?
December 13, 2007
By Alan J. Salzberg
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It is often quipped that the lottery is a tax on stupidity (google "lottery: tax on stupidity" and you will see what I mean). I've always been bothered by this for two reasons: 1) one of the first peo...
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Hospital infections-what are the chances?
December 1, 2007
By Alan J. Salzberg
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For those of us with aging parents, visits to the hospital can become somewhat routine, unfortunately. An overnight stay for minor surgery, as my father recently had, isn't particularly worrisome--exc...
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Thanksgiving Brothers
November 22, 2007
By Alan J. Salzberg
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I had some role in coming up with these statistics in the New York Times, though I thought it was more li...
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Lost luggage - 1 in 138?
November 22, 2007
By Alan J. Salzberg
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Thanksgiving is the beginning of peak travel season, and what did I read this morning? That 1 in 138 checked bags gets lost....
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