applied statistics

We may no longer need the humans, at least for data-driven stories.

Every story on each site was written by a robot, or to put it more precisely, by StatSheet’s content algorithms. “The posts are completely auto-generated,” says founder Robbie Allen. “The only human involvement is with creating the algorithms that generate the posts.”

It has about 20 different types of articles that it generates, from season previews to game recaps. StatSheet might analyze 10,000 data points and 4,000 possible phrases to generate a single story.

you have to innovate faster and faster in order to avoid the collapse

The system will collapse, because eventually you would have to be making a major innovation, like you know, IT every six months. Well, that's completely crazy.

There's a theorem you can prove that says that if you demand continuous open growth, you have to have continuous cycles of innovation. Well, that's what people believe, and it's the way people have suggested that’s how you get out of the Malthusian paradox. This all agrees within itself but there is a huge catch.

Advertising and journalism do not complement each other the way they used to.

successful media companies of the future have to build an infrastructure that turns them into reliable data hubs, able to analyze even very large and complex datasets internally and to build stories on their insights

machine can assemble large portions of articles through structured data

spinning balls suddenly change trajectory, from a smooth arc to a sharp inward curl

spinning balls follow a kind of circular arc as they slow from drag forces and are pushed from a linear path by the so-called Magnus effect

For a well-struck soccer ball, the researchers estimate, one might expect a gentle arc followed by a sharp hook at about 50 meters

We live in a world where the thorniest policy issues increasingly boil down to arguments over what the data mean. If you don’t understand statistics, you don’t know what’s going on — and you can’t tell when you’re being lied to.

Activists propagate horror stories

correlation is not causation. And individual stories don’t prove anythin

Facebook launched an early attack with its implication that some people would rather get information from their friends than from an anonymous formula. Twitter’s ability to parse its constant stream of updates introduced the concept of real-time search, a way of tapping into the latest chatter and conversation as it unfolds. Yelp helps people find restaurants, dry cleaners, and babysitters by crowdsourcing the ratings.

Microsoft purchased Farecast — a Web site that tracks airline fares over time and uses the data to predict when ticket prices will rise or fall — and incorporated its findings into Bing’s results. Microsoft made similar acquisitions in the health, reference, and shopping sectors

Google uses signals to ensure that only the most relevant tweets find their way into the real-time stream. “We look at what’s retweeted, how many people follow the person, and whether the tweet is organic or a bot,”

"We found that on average the player who committed the foul is taller than the one who was the victim,"

Humans throughout evolution needed to be more afraid of bigger animals because bigger animals usually have more potential to harm us,"

direct reciprocity. This is when individuals have repeated interactions, so if I help you now, you may help me later

indirect reciprocity, which takes place in groups. If I help you, somebody else might see our interaction and conclude that I'm a helpful person, and help me later

cooperators survive in clusters. This is called spatial selection, and it plays an important role, not only for people but for bacteria, animals and plants

Those more receptive to bull**** are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions [beliefs in things for which there is no empirical evidence (i.e. that prayers have the ability to heal)] and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.