Top all-time · #1256
Allen Downey
Personal blog · allendowney.blogspot.commathdataprogramming
Allen Downey writes Probably Overthinking It, a personal blog at allendowney.blogspot.com about math, data and programming. Since 2011, 58 different Hacker News readers have linked it 92 times, most often “There is only one statistical test”. The last post was in 2018, but the archive is still widely read.
Most-linked posts?
- There is only one statistical test6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-09-29
- Probably Overthinking It: There is only one test4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-08-28
- The inspection paradox is everywhere (2015)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2015-08-24
- The Inspection Paradox Is Everywhere (2015)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-10-29
- Correlation Is Evidence of Causation3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-02-23
- Are your data normal? Hint: no. (2013)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-01-26
- New version of the Girl Named Florida: now with more Bayes.2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-11-10
- Learning to program is getting harder2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-02-16
- Bayesian Survival Analysis of GOT2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-03-25
- All your Bayes are belong to us: fun Bayes's Theorem problems.2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-10-27
What Hacker News says?
The article posted on G+ is this one I believe: https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2018/09/two-hour-marathon-i... The only thing I could see violating TOS would be a misinterpretation of this proposition: > Note that this model is based on data from races. Where "races" would be taken for "Human races" rather than "Sport races" (as intended).
Comment linking /2018/09/two-hour-marathon-in-2031-maybe.html
on “This blog has moved”Submitted Learning to program is getting harder as a story · 470 points
HN discussionYou can use overlap to estimate total number of bugs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_index http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2014/07/last-year-my-occasio...
Comment linking /2014/07/last-year-my-occasional-correspondent.html
on “This POODLE bites: exploiting the SSL 3.0 fallback”Submitted This blog has moved as a story · 431 points
HN discussionThis is my first exposure to it, but yes, I think so. My paraphrase is: The Inspection Paradox is when you ask someone "in the mix" about the mix. You're only going to get an accurate estimation of the mix by standing outside of the mix. So yes, if you want an accurate count of siblings, you would consult some spreadsheet that just lists how many children each family had. If you go and start asking the families them…
Comment linking /2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere.html
on “The Waiting Time Paradox, Or, Why Is My Bus Always Late?”Submitted The inspection paradox is everywhere (2015) as a story · 130 points
HN discussionLooking at a different pivot to the question, Allen Downey gives a good theoretical reason for the decline in times and projects 2041 as the year for the 2-hr marathon. Also, his original projection was made in 2011, so there are three years of data to compare against, which is interesting. http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-hour-marathon-in...
Comment linking /2014/09/two-hour-marathon-in-2041.html
on “What will it take to run a 2-hour marathon?”Submitted All your Bayes are belong to us: fun Bayes's Theorem problems. as a story · 80 points
HN discussionAlso check out his companion blog post: "Python as a way of thinking". Has some nice slides there. ( http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2017/04/python-as-way-of-thi... )
Comment linking /2017/04/python-as-way-of-thinking.html
on “Programming as a Way of Thinking”Submitted Inspection Paradox (2015) as a story · 69 points
HN discussionThis is a great example of the Inspection Paradox, mentioned on HN earlier this week: https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-para...
Comment linking /2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere.html
on “Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)”Submitted Millennials are still not getting married as a story · 50 points
HN discussionhttp://allendowney.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-retreat-from-rel... This blogger has been covering the phenomenon among college freshmen since 2008. Notably the most recent results segregate none, atheist, and agnostic whereas before it was just 'none', but the effects are the same regardless of which label you want to associate with / avoid. Personally I think the actual cultural movement towards 'atheism' is simple Le…
Comment linking /2016/03/the-retreat-from-religion-is.html
on “U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High”Submitted Learning to Program Is Getting Harder as a story · 17 points
HN discussion>This was a fairly large change that we, understandably, only wanted to deploy to a small subset of users. This was facilitated by Bengineer Kamen's GAE/Bingo split-testing framework for App Engine. I think this method of A/B testing has some faults. I blogged about it A/B testing. Is Khan doing it wrong? http://liveatthewitchtrials.blogspot.com/2011/09/ab-testing-... and Allen Downey ran some simulations at Repeate…
Comment linking /2011/10/repeated-tests-how-bad-can-it-be.html
on “How Khan Academy is using machine learning to assess student mastery”Submitted Bayesian statistics tutorial: video from PyCon as a story · 10 points
HN discussionI read the first article more carefully, and it inspired this new blog post: http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2011/08/jimmy-nut-company-pr...
Comment linking /2011/08/jimmy-nut-company-problem.html
on “Think Stats: Probability and Statistics for Programmers”Submitted Learning to program is getting harder (2018) as a story · 8 points
HN discussionRather than get into a catalog of tests, I take the approach that "There is only one test." I wrote more about it here: http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2011/05/there-is-only-one-te...
Comment linking /2011/05/there-is-only-one-test.html
on “Think Stats: Probability and Statistics for Programmers”Submitted By 2030, None will be the second-largest religious affiliation in the US. as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSo, I'm going to counter here and say I don't find this to be a good intro. I started reading and had not heard of the "Girl named Florida" problem and then went to the linked to blog post http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2011/11/girl-named-florida-s... The way he explains it I found to be confusing and counter-intuitive. I've taken basic stats in college, and learned some of the associated problems, though not this…
Comment linking /2011/11/girl-named-florida-solutions.html
on “Think Bayes - Bayesian Statistics Made Simple”Submitted Excerpts from new O'Reilly book on Complexity Science. as a story · 7 points
HN discussionhttp://allendowney.blogspot.com/2014/02/correlation-is-evide... Your comment is severely misguided in several ways. 1. Correlation does not prove causation, but it is evidence of a causal relationship. 2. Optimal decision theory doesn't require you to be 100% sure that evidence is causal. You can still use correlations to make good decisions. "Oh, it's not clear that eating paint causes me to be sick; it could be th…
Comment linking /2014/02/correlation-is-evidence-of-causation.html
on “New data challenges the cultural consensus on public housing”Submitted A new version of the Monty Hall problem, now with more Bayesian estimation. as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSince this is the Internet, of course this has been done, several times: http://www.math.canterbury.ac.nz/~r.vale/got_290814.pdf http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/03/bayesian-survival-an...
Comment linking /2015/03/bayesian-survival-analysis-for-game-of.html
on “Han Solo and Bayesian Priors”Submitted Why are we so surprised by the outcome of the 2016 presidential election? as a story · 6 points
HN discussionNon-mobile link: https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-para...
Comment linking /2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere.html
on “Inspection Paradox (2015)”Submitted Probably Overthinking It: There is only one test as a story · 5 points
HN discussionIt's not like that. Correlation does not imply causation only in the strict meaning of "imply", =>, in mathematical logic. But correlation is sure as hell evidence for casual relationships. Just yesterday I found a blog post by author of "Think Bayes" book explaining that nicely. http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2014/02/correlation-is-evide... Moreover, with good enough correlation data, you can even determine the di…
Comment linking /2014/02/correlation-is-evidence-of-causation.html
on “Misleading Graph Generator”Submitted Correlation Is Evidence of Causation as a story · 5 points
HN discussion
