Sunday data/statistics link roundup (12/9/12)

Jeff Leek
2012-12-09
  1. Some interesting data/data visualizations about working conditions in the apparel industry. Here is the full report. Whenever I see reports like this, I wish the raw data were more clearly linked. I want to be able to get in, play with the data, and see if I notice something that doesn’t appear in the infographics. 
  2. This is an awesome plain-language discussion of how a bunch of methods (CS and Stats) with fancy names relate to each other. It shows that CS/Machine Learning/Stats are converging in many ways and there isn’t much new under the sun. On the other hand, I think the really exciting thing here is to use these methods on new questions, once people drop the stick. 
  3. If you are a reader of this blog and somehow do not read anything else on the internet, you will have missed Hadley Wickham’s Rcpp tutorial. In my mind, this pretty much seals it, Julia isn’t going to overtake R anytime soon. In other news, Hadley is coming to visit JHSPH Biostats this week! I’m psyched to meet him. 
  4. For those of us that live in Baltimore, this interesting set of data visualizations lets you in on the crime hotspots. This is a much fancier/more thorough analysis than Rafa and I did way back when. 
  5. Check out the new easy stats tool from the Census (via Hilary M.) and read our interview with Tom Louis who is heading over there to the Census to do cool things. 
  6. Watch out, some Tedx talks may be pseudoscience! More later this week on the politicization/glamourization of science, so stay tuned.