Fun with geekage while social distancing for March 15, 2020

(I'm trying to get a post out every week, as a challenge to produce something intellectual outside of work. Some* of this is recycled from Twitter, as I tend to send things there first.)

Multicriteria decision-making gets a boost from Covid-19

A potential upside (among many downsides) of the coronavirus covid-19 event is that some smart people will realize that there's more to life choices than a balance between efficiency and convenience and will build [for themselves if not the system] some resilience.

In a very real sense, it's possible that PG&E's big fire last year and follow-up blackouts saved a lot of people the worst of the new flu season: after last Fall, many local non-preppers stocked up on N95 masks and home essentials because of what chaos PG&E had wrought in Northern California.

Anecdotal evidence is a bad source for estimates: coin flips

Having some fun looking at small-numbers effects on estimates or how unreliable anecdotal evidence really can be as a source of estimates.

The following is a likelihood ratio of various candidate estimates versus the maximum likelihood estimate for the probability of heads given a number of throws and heads of a balanced coin; because there's an odd number of flips, even the most balanced outcome is not 50-50:

This is an extreme example of small numbers, but it captures the problem of using small samples, or in the limit, anecdotes, to try to estimate quantities. There's just not enough information in the data.

This is the numerical version of the old medicine research paper joke: "one-third of the sample showed marked improvement; one-third of the sample showed no change; and the third rat died."

Increasing sample size makes for better information, but can also exacerbate the effect of a few errors:

Note that the number of errors necessary to get the "wrong" estimate goes up: 1 (+1/2), 3, 6.

Context! Numbers need to be in context!

I'm looking at this pic and asking myself: what is the unconditional death rate for each of these categories; i.e. if you're 80 today in China, how likely is it you don't reach march 15, 2021, by all causes?

Because that'd be relevant context, I think.

Estimates vs decisions: why some smart people did the wrong thing regarding Covid-19

On a side note, while some people choose to lock themselves at home for social distancing, I prefer to find places outdoors where there's no one else. For example: a hike on the Eastern span of the Bay Bridge, where I was the only person on the 3.5 km length of the bridge (the only person on the pedestrian/bike path, that is).

How "Busted!" videos corrupt formerly-good YouTube channels

Recently saw a "Busted!" video from someone I used to respect and another based on it from someone I didn't; I feel stupider for having watched the videos, even though I did it to check on a theory. (Both channels complain about demonetization repeatedly.) The theory:

Many of these "Busted!" videos betray a lack of understanding (or fake a lack of understanding for video-making reasons) of how the new product/new technology development process goes; they look at lab rigs or technology demonstrations and point out shortcomings of these rigs as end products. For illustration, here's a common problem (the opposite problem) with media portrayal of these innovations:

It's not difficult to "Bust!" media nonsense, but what these "Busted!" videos do is ascribe the media nonsense to the product/technology designers or researchers, to generate views, comments, and Patreon donations. This is somewhere between ignorance/laziness and outright dishonesty.

In the name of "loving science," no less!

Johns Hopkins visualization makes pandemic look worse than it is

Not to go all Edward Tufte on Johns Hopkins, but the size of the bubbles on this site makes the epidemic look much worse than it is: Spain, France, and Germany are completely covered by bubbles, while their cases are

0.0167 % for Spain
0.0070 % for Germany
0.0067 % for France

of the population.

Cumulative numbers increase; journalists flabbergasted!

At some point someone should explain to journalists that cumulative deaths always go up, it's part of the definition of the word "cumulative." Then again, maybe it's too quantitative for some people who think all numbers ending in "illions" are the same scale.

Stanford Graduate School of Education ad perpetuates stereotypes about schools of education

If this is real, then someone at Stanford needs to put their ad agency "in review." (Ad world-speak for "fired with prejudice.")

Never give up; never surrender.


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