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Supercrunchers is a book about statistics.  The main premise is that human beings who rely on their judgment can make serious errors simply because we are blind to our own bias.  It’s the old story of numbers don’t lie.

Ian Ayres discusses projects and marketing research that have used statistics to come to conclusions.   He goes over some surprising places that they are used from web design, serving up pages in real time and adjusting to whichever pages get the best responses to statistics programs that can choose winning movie scripts.  Personally I’m skeptical of the last.  If statistics can solve … Continue Reading

Who doesn’t love a good short story?  A novel is like a marriage, when you get started on something as thick as your wrist you’re making a commitment, saying you’ll be there to the end, through the slow bits, the overextended dialogue, the what was that scene doing in there anyway moments, all of them.  When you read a novel you’re doing it as much so that you have a trophy on your wall, or in our modern world so that you have another post on your blog.

Short stories though, those are like quick dates.  Some are outstanding and life … Continue Reading

So I’ve eliminated the spam problem with a WordPress upgrade!

It was quite an experience to get the upgrade done,  I’ve never done any website administration and it turned into a two day project.

My first step was to download the newest version of WordPress but I had no idea how to get it onto my site.  I read some web tutorials about FTP servers and uploading to them.  In my mind an FTP server was some server that you loaded your stuff onto and then you somehow transferred it tor your site.  It took me quite a while to figure out … Continue Reading

I love yard sales.  There was a time in my life when it was new or nothing but now that I have children I’ve learned the value of a hard earned dollar.  There was a time when money was harder to come by (knock on wood it stays that way for a while) but all my money was mine.  No house payments, no car payment, and especially no kids poking holes in your living room flat screen or slashing holes in your leather couches.

So yes even though there is more money around than before less of it is mine to … Continue Reading

This was a bargain book I picked up from Amazon.  Either this book is better than the bargain price would indicate or things are slow at work because I’ve already had two people borrow it.

This book was written by the head of Coca-Cola during the “New Coke” debacle.  Many of the best lessons are from his experience as an executive of the company during that time, it was the time dominated by cola wars, for any who are too young to remember cola advertising was on everything and in an obnoxious way.  Pepsi challenges were the centerpoint of state fairs … Continue Reading