Models now running the world
Models will run the world according to this recent op-ed by the Wall Street Journal. This sounds a lot less alarming than a prior essay on “Why Software is Eating the World”. However, one (software) enables the other (modeling).
Models are good in my estimation—beautiful both in mathematical aspects and for their double meaning for those who wear clothes well. For example, the weather-casters often debate during hurricane season whether the American or the European models will prove most accurate. Taking “models” in the fashionable sense, it’s no contest—the winner is American Karly Kloss, who’s Kode with Klossy camps empower girls to code. She is the cross over—a model who can model.
“In the hunt for competitive advantage, model-driven companies will accelerate away from the pack.”
– Steven A. Cohen and Matthew W. Granade
Marketers trick math-challenged consumers with ploys on percentages
Posted by mark in Consumer behavior on August 5, 2018
WSJ’s “The Numbers” columnist, Jo Craven McGinty, advised readers “To Shop Smart, Mind the Percentages” in this weekend’s issue. It turns out that, as I blogged back in 2007, percentages are puzzling to many people. Put yourself to this test from McGinty: You can buy a regular container of ice cream at 33% off (option 1) or pay the usual price for a 33% more of it as a free bonus (option 2). If you picked the first option without any hesitation, you go to the head of the class. Those of you—likely the majority of the general population–who went for option 2 are the target for the marketers.
“People always go for the bonus.” – Quote in WSJ from Akshay Rao, marketing professor, University of Minnesota and co-author of When Two and Two is Not Equal to Four: Errors in Processing Multiple Percentage Changes
The remainder who withheld judgement until they do the calculation get full credit for knowing that percentages require thinking to work out their effect. Kudos to you for being math-savvy.
“To be statistically literate, one must be able to form arithmetic comparisons of any two numbers.”
– Milo Schield, Department of Business, Accounting and MIS, Augsburg College, Minneapolis, “Common Errors In Forming Arithmetic Comparisons”, Sept 1999, Association of Public Data Users, Volume 1.51 Journal Of Significance
Fireworks that do not go Fourth deserve a resounding fizgig
My word for today is “fizgig”, a type of firework that makes a loud hiss. I consider this an onomatopoeic word, given the “fiz” characterizes the sound.
Residents of Saint Paul, where I grew up, must be fizzing their mayor today after he canceled the city’s fireworks this year due to budget concerns. Boo, hiss!
More commonly, fireworks are frowned upon due to safety concerns. For example, a Florida television station broadcast a warning yesterday that Independence Day revelers should be careful not to “be a statistic” by shooting off fireworks. I don’t get this. Isn’t being a statistic a good thing?
An enterprising fireworks vendor turned the statistics around in a very creative way by touting a long-term trend toward fewer injuries per pound of pyrotechnics—citing a decrease of more than 50% since 1994. I find this fellows numerical and sentimental arguments in favor of fireworks very compelling: Check it out here.
“It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
– John Adams, July 3, 1776
Are you seeing red sorting out how much sunscreen to apply and at what strength?
As pointed out in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, this is the burning question for those of us in the northern hemisphere as we enjoy our brightest days of the year. According to The Numbers columnist Jo Craven McGinty, the answers are:
- At least 2 milligrams per square centimeter—about one-fifth the depth of a piece of paper. Although this seems very thin, most people only put on about half that amount, so you’d best apply your sunscreen twice.
- Go for at least an SPF of 50. However, do not sweat it if all you have on hand is SPF 30, or the level 50 costs more than you care to pay—the difference is minor as you can see in the graph I made by fitting the FDA data WSJ
provided to a curve (using Design-Expert® software).
It seems to me it would be best to stay out of the sun as much as possible, and, when you do, cover up, but seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider, such as a dermatologist. Be careful out there!
PS. McGinty detailed a study that found a significant advantage to increasing SPF from 50 to 100. It being done via a randomized split on 199 snow skiers bodes well. However, the research was sponsored by a sunscreen maker. An independent, contrary view of 100 SPF pros and cons is laid out here.
Fascination for pendulums piqued by Foucault’s in France
Posted by mark in science, Uncategorized on June 26, 2018
Earlier this month I visited the Pantheon in Paris where I observed this attendant recalibrating Foucault’s pendulum.
This French scientist’s elegant scientific demonstration of earth’s rotation has delighted observers like me since 1851. For more on this story read this Ask Smithsonian blog. Unfortunately, one morning in 1998, the cable on the 52-foot long pendulum at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (originally History and Technology when opened in 1964) snapped, nearly ‘clocking’ a staffer with its wayward 240-pound brass bob. This Foucault device being unAmerican and dangerous, it was removed in favor of the Star-Spangled Banner Preservation Project, thus eliminated a favored place for folks to gather.
By the way, I am now reading The Discoverers by The Librarian of Congress, Daniel Boorstin—the first in his wonderful Knowledge Trilogy. There, coincidentally, I learned that Galileo—only 19-years old at the time (1583) and bored by a church service in Pisa—became distracted by the swinging of a chandelier. By timing his pulse, he observed the time of a pendulum being independent of its arc length—an important discovery of a property called isochronism. This simple discovery, as pointed out by Boorstin, began a new age where science developed from observation and measurement rather than pure speculation.
Boffins baffled by baseballs being bashed beyond ballpark borders
On May 24, Major League Baseball released this scientific report on a puzzling increase–nearly 50%–in home runs from 0.86 to 1.26 per game over the last three years (2014-17).
A panel of 10 experts, including math and stats professors as well as PhDs in physics, saw nothing changed in the properties of the baseballs—size, weight, seam height, and COR (coefficient of restitution—a measure of the ball’s “bounciness”). However, they did observe a reduction in drag, an aerodynamic phenomenon that may be due to the rubber pill being more centered and thus causing the ball to stay rounder while spinning in flight. This is a very impressive explanation. But, if I were an umpire for this study, I’d call these fellows out.
Based on the results of this study, the Commissioner will, among other things, consider adding humidors to all stadiums to keep the baseballs under more controlled storage conditions, and create standards for mud rubbing. It seems that he’s getting seriously down and dirty on home runs.
I tip my ball cap to such marvelous frivolity for application of science and statistics, flavored with a fillip of voodoo. What a game!
“We do admit that we do not understand this.”
– Study Chairman Alan Nathan, Professor of Physics Emeritus, University of Illinois.
What gets measured gets gamed
Posted by mark in quality improvement on May 10, 2018
I just finished a fun listen on Audible of “The Tyranny of Metrics”, the gist of which can be read here in a WSJ article by the author—history professor Jerry Muller. It was a great ‘read’ to accomplish while commuting to and from work because I could yell “yes!” at every point Muller made without disturbing anyone at the office or at home (only passing drivers seeing me expostulating alarmingly).
In a nutshell, the book shoots down these two dictums:
- “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” (Lord Kelvin) and
- “What gets measured gets done.” (Tom Peters)
In actuality, what gets measured gets gamed—the prime example being the sales quotas that ruined Wells Fargo ban by incenting their employees into opening millions of fake customer accounts. Muller provides plenty of other perverse effects of measurement in healthcare, education and other arenas.
I think this admonition aimed at the quants on Wall Street, passed along in “The Tyranny of Metrics” from British historian Niall Ferguson, says it all about going overboard on measurement:
“Those that the gods want to destroy they first teach math.”
Spoken like a true professor of liberal arts.
Are you one of the elite 10% who can work out this test of logic?
Posted by mark in pop, Uncategorized on May 2, 2018
Four cards are laid out before you, each with a letter on one side and a number on the other. You see E, 2, 5 and F. Which cards should you turn over that will prove the following rule: If there is an E on one side, the number on the other side must be a 5? See the answer by Manil Suri, Professor at University of Maryland, in this April 15 New York Times article that asks “Does Math Make You Smarter?”.
As to whether math really does make you smarter, the answer remains unclear. However, those who do well with numbers make far more money. That is not surprising, but the multiplier may be. See this U.S. News report (or not if you failed the test above) for the statistics.
Creatures (other than cats) with innate sense of direction and purpose
I am continually amazed by creatures great and small who know just where to go and what to do. For example, who would have thought that a dog could apply calculus to find the optimal angle at which to jump into a lake and fetch a tennis ball. See the proof here from a mathematics professor who worked it out after observing his Welsh Corgi “Elvis”.
Naturally ants do very well going about their business, as we’ve all observed when they get into our homes. I was alarmed to hear recently that these industrial insects apply an algorithm for building bridges over any gaps that hinder their travel. See how they do it in this 2/26/18 blog by Quanta Magazine. Things are getting a bit too ‘swarm’ for my comfort when entire institutes such as this one do nothing but model collective behavior. To what ends will this knowledge be applied? I foresee it being used by the military to program hordes of diabolical drones. But, perhaps, it will mainly be for more peaceful pursuits, such as managing traffic on par with ants, who according to this report, never get into a jam.
But just counteract the notion that creatures might be a lot smarter than we think, either individually, like Elvis, or collectively, such as ants, there’s this cat who showed a lack of capability in its calculations of distance.
High-tech brain-wave devices that make you very sleepy, plus other innovations now being tested at experimental hotels
Posted by mark in pop, Uncategorized on April 13, 2018
While watching CBS News the morning of March 26, this report on “smart hotels” caught my eye—not so much for concerns about privacy, but more due to knowing these came by very clever experimentation by Marriot and other leading innkeepers. Perhaps not purely by coincidence, just a week before being featured in this broadcast, Marriot posted a job opening for the Manager of Digital Analytics. In similar postings by them over the past several years I see the hotel seeking someone able to “understand and apply best practices for designing statistical experiments.”
The funny thing is that I was once a subject for a factorial design by Marriott. This happened in the early 1980s during their development of the Courtyard. For a discount off my bill (I think $20—a fair amount of money back then), I got sent from room to room with various combinations and permutations of desks, chairs, bathroom layouts, etc.—so many that I became a bit bewildered trying to sort out what really hit the spot for me as a business traveler. Anyways, being into designed experiments, I enjoyed being a very small part (one data point!) of this Marriott success story in product development.
Nowadays Marriott tests their new concepts at the M Beta hotel in Charlotte seen here. Buttons throughout the property register resident’s reactions and impressions. Read more about these feedback devices and check out photos of recent innovations in this report by Innovation Leader.
My favorite hotelier, Hilton, also experiments on their rooms and services as you can see in this article by USA Today. At their Innovation Gallery in northern Virginia Hilton you can strap on a VR device and take a tour of a guestrooms of the future. Whoohoo!
As the CBS report noted, some of the new features coming at these high-tech hotels do create queasiness for them being so intrusive on one’s personal space. For example, I will take a pass on Hilton’s NuCalm device (not at all related to what’s pictured), which purportedly sends its wearers into 20 minutes of dozing that feels like three hours of deep sleep, thus evaporating stress and promoting utter relaxation. Leave my brain be, please!