Statistics

Why you shouldn’t trust forecasts…

…but, you need them anyway.  A simple example showing why financial market forecasts aren’t worth much except in terms of historical forensics.

Recently TD Bank suggests that oil prices will be 30USD in the 2nd quarter of 2009.
In their prior forecast they suggested that the price would be closer to 45USD.
In a report on agriculture from [...]

Change diapers often! (just in case you didn’t know)

Best study conclusion I read this past week:
Among infants wearing disposable diapers, there is an increased risk of [Urinary Tract Infection] as the frequency of changing diapers decreases.
Boy am I glad I read the study, I was getting this diaper changing thing all wrong…

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Alberta tidbits from OECD stats

After hearing about the interactive OECD regional stats tool I headed over to check it out.  If you are at all interested in statistics, economics, demographics or otherwise it’s well worth a visit if you have the time - it’s the kind of tool I’d love to have built.  I certainly hope they extend their [...]

National Geographic is poor with stats

…  or at least with their headlines.  From an article at National Geographic this week, comes this headline:
Oceans Ten Times More Acidic Than Thought
If this were true then the expected pH of the Ocean at about 8 would probably be acidic enough to eat through most anything.  Though exactly what a 10 times increase in [...]

Parents are confused about how to measure children’s weight

A study by Pene Schmidt, released last month, has the plug: 4 In 10 Parents Wrong On Whether Their Child Is Under Or Overweight.  While this is an interesting statistic it seems that the study also identified that:
…different methods of assessing children’s weight – such as BMI or waist circumference – result in different rates [...]