Stats

Witness the Magic of Regression Analysis…

Nov 5th, 2008 | By | Category: Stats

… and some damn good statistics. FiveThirtyEight’s election-eve prediction, of 349 electoral votes for Obama: Reality this afternoon, of a projected 349 electoral votes for Obama: I might start caring about baseball, just to further appreciate the awesomeness of Nate Silver.



How to Read a Histogram

Oct 20th, 2008 | By | Category: Stats

Nate Silver, the wonky head of the mathematically rigorous election projection site FiveThirtyEight.com, has a computer model that uses all of the available polling, weighted for accuracy, demographics and the rest, to run through ten thousand possible elections every day. Each one of these simulated elections pops out an electoral vote total for Obama. What’s […]



How to Read a Poll

Jun 18th, 2008 | By | Category: 2008, Featured Articles, Stats

As we approach November, I anticipate a tidal wave of blog posts on polls. Reading the polling data improperly is hazardous to your health. The disconnect between the polling and the 2004 election results nearly resulted in my death. Avoid my mistakes. 1. Remember that polls are always of a population that may or may […]