Briggs

Google’s Eric Schmidt & Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel Blaze Path Of Ugliness

This is a picture of Google's Eric Schmidt & Chicago's Rahm "Crisis" Emanuel from today's Wall Street Journal story Google Move Buoys Chicago Tech Hub. Chicago! The city of the…

Culture

The Chicago Way With Chik-Fil-A

There is a sense in which we all argue that is statistical. For instance, if we say of a group that it sports an "arrogant attitude" we do not mean…

Philosophy Statistics

True Value Of A Parameter

Jelle de Jong writes in to ask: Working as a quant analyst in finance I recently got interested in the Briggsian/Jaynesian/Bayesian interpretation of probability but am still struggling a bit…

Philosophy Statistics

What Probably Isnâ€™t: Heat Waves and Nine Feet Tall Men: Part II

McKibben's Folly Suppose it is true that we have E = "A six-sided object, just one side of which is labeled 6, and when tossed only one side will show."…

Philosophy Statistics

What Probably Isn’t: Heat Waves and Nine Feet Tall Men: Part I

Probability is screwy, and we statisticians do a horrible, rotten job of teaching it. The first thing students learn in normal statistics classes is about "measures of central tendency" or…

Statistics

Men Nine Feet Tall And Bayes Theorem

The OFloinn put up a most readable and recommended essay When is Weather Really "Climate"? and in one of the comments a reader named Gyan in part said: Many economists…

Culture Statistics

The Decline And Increase Of Mainstream Religions In The USA: With Pictures!

The Episcopals, like many other old guard protesting religions, are in trouble. Jay Akasie tells us that at this year's annual conclave, the Episcopalian leadership had their most serious discussions…

Philosophy Statistics

Certainty & Uncertainty: Logical Probability & Statistics

Since we have spent the weekend with these matters, I thought it appropriate to include the first part of the Introduction to the new book I've been working on. It…

Rudolph Harrier on On Not ReadingMarch 14, 2026
Idonotreadcomments: you are making the wrong observation from bookstores. Certainly that sort of smut is plentiful in bookstores, and this…
Nym Coy on On Not ReadingMarch 13, 2026
Might I interest you in a book? It is called Mumbai Singularity, and it is a mythic cyberpunk detective thriller…
Uncle Mike on Class 82: Be More Uncertain (About Models)March 12, 2026
The probability of significant "climate change" in equatorial Africa is very small because most climate change occurs at the poles.…
Idonotreadcomments on On Not ReadingMarch 12, 2026
First of all, you only need to visit a big chain bookstore to know that the fiction market is driven…
C-Marie on On Not ReadingMarch 12, 2026
Well, I do knpw that Malchi Martin and David McCullough were great authors.... The Final Conclave and John Adams, respectively.…