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Here's one that won't be appearing in the Insider, since it's only tangentially related to programming:
The whole world is suddenly talking about election pundit Nate Silver, and as a longtime heckler of Silver I find myself at a bit of a loss. These days, Silver is saying all the right things about statistical methodology and epistemological humility; he has written what looks like a very solid popular book about statistical forecasting; he has copped to being somewhat uncomfortable with his status as an all-seeing political guru, which tends to defuse efforts to make a nickname like “Mr. Overrated” stick...
The situation is that many of Nate Silver’s attackers don’t really know what the hell they are talking about. Unfortunately, this gives them something in common with many of Nate Silver’s defenders, who greet any objection to his standing or methods with cries of “Are you against SCIENCE? Are you against MAAATH?” If science and math are things you do appreciate and favour, I would ask you to resist the temptation to embody them in some particular person. Silver has had more than enough embarrassing faceplants in his life as an analyst that this should be obvious.
Cash indicts Silver's work on PECOTA as "a glutinous mass of Excel formulas," "large, complex, and full of creaky interactions and pinch points" with a "copious lack of documentation." Then he throws out a few edge-case misses in the analysis...
I dunno. Sounds like a typical software project to me. And it works, so... what's the problem?
Director of Content Development, The Code Project
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All statistical models are approximations and are subject failure when stressed in unexpected ways.
What I got from this blog was that while Colby Cosh agrees with most of what Nate Silver has said, Nate has been wrong in the past so no one should listen to him now. This sounds petty and envious. Now I am no Nate Silver acolyte, but anyone who shuts up the idiotic pundits is okay with me; however, if you think that Nate Silver, or anyone else for that matter, is a modern day Cassandra, then you need to go back to astrology or phrenology lest you become like those who spent over $300 million on the last Cassandra, Karl Rove.
m.bergman
For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state : afraid.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
In most cases the only difference between disappointment and depression is your level of commitment. -- Marc Maron
I am not a chatbot
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Michael Bergman wrote: All statistical models are approximations and are subject failure when stressed in unexpected ways.
Every abstraction is leaky, due to the fact that it's an abstraction
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