September 17, 2012
Stat of the Week Competition: September 15 – 21 2012
Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.
Here’s how it works:
- Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday September 21 2012.
- Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
- The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of September 15 – 21 2012 inclusive.
- Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.
Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.
The fine print:
- Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
- The judges’ decision will be final.
- The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
- Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
- Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
- The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
- The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
- The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.
Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »
Statistic: “How easy would it be for a thief to guess your four-digit PIN?
If he were forced to guess randomly, his odds of getting the correct number would be one in 10,000 – or, if he has three tries, one in 3333.
But if you were careless enough to choose your birth date, a year in the 1900s, or an obvious numerical sequence, his chances go up. Way up.”
Source: Stuff / Business Day
Date: 20 Sept 2012
A human interest story masqerading as an informative statistical analysis piece opens with a blindingly obvious warning.
The article gets better, but only a little.
12 years ago
Statistic: Stats Book of the week – Addiction by Design
Source: Princeton
Date: September 2012
Not really stat of the week, just a book that may be of interest to people who have followed the pokie machine controversies.
The books shows how pokie machines are designed to be addictive. It’s really about the human aspects of probability. A good read for statisticians.
A very favourable review is at http://readingthemarkets.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/schull-addiction-by-design.html. Here’s the quote which really got me interested:
Increasingly, mathematicians are designing games that match “math with markets, player types with schedule types.” (p. 109) There are two basic types of players—jackpot players who prefer “high volatility, low hit frequency” games and escape players (play-to-win-to-play players) who prefer “low volatility, high hit frequency” games. “On both machines you end up in the same place, which is zero. … It just takes longer to get there on the second one.” (p. 111)
[I persuaded the Auckland Public Library to order a copy and I’m first on the list. So there will be a bit of a wait]
12 years ago
Statistic: “The Aucklander has studied the number of cars stolen in Auckland City, Waitemata and Counties-Manakau in the six months to the end of August and Nissan comes out on top as car of choice for thieves.”
Source: The Aucklander
Date: 20 August 2012
We always love crime statistics, don’t we?
There are so many makes and models of cars I am not sure absolute comparisons are all that meaningful.
I always wonder how the numbers would look if market share was taken into account – it might make more expensive cars a bit more prominent.
It is great that the story gives you a direct link to where they got the data from.
12 years ago
Statistic: Why the cheap seats are safest
Researchers crashed a Boeing 727 airliner into the Mexican desert to find out what happened to crash-test dummies inside.
Survival rates in the rear seats were deemed to be 69 per cent as opposed to 56 per cent over the wing and 49 per cent for those at the front of the plane.
Source: NZ Herald
Date: 20/09/12
Think is an interesting article.
I guess the proportion of a plane crash is extremely low, however, if the incidence occurs, the survival rate is extremely low. Well, it really depends on what types of crash was…
12 years ago
Statistic: http://www.statschat.org.nz states :
… their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday September 23 2012.
That’s an impossible date !
Source: http://www.statschat.org.nz
Date: 17-Sep-12
For a site to be criticising mistakes, it is ironic that they make mistakes
12 years ago
Statistic: Scott states:
I’m not much of a statistician, but I think the reporter is wrong to say that the thief would have 1/3333 chance of getting the PIN correct after three guesses. It should be 1/1000, then 1/999, then 1/998, which I think gives a different overall figure.
I think the 1/3333 figure is pretty accurate. Given three random guesses, the first guess has 1/10000. The second guess has 1/9999, but is only made if the first guess is wrong, ie 9999/10000 times, so it too has 1/10000. Similarly for the third guess,which has 1/9998 of being right, but will only be made 9998/10000 parts of the time. This is effectively identical to choosing 3 numbers in the first place, ie 3/10000, which is pretty much 1/3333, as the reporter indicated.
I also find it ironic that he describes it as coming from the NZ Herald website, but then links to the Stuff website.
Source: Stuff website
Date: 20/09/12
Just following up on other poster’s comments.
12 years ago