What the heck is Benford's law and why should anyone care? I was oblivious until I recently saw an episode of the series Connected on Netflix on the topic, but it turns out, the distribution of numbers in our world is a lot less random than you might think. Physicist Frank Benford was actually the… Continue reading Benford’s Law and the Weird & Wacky Ways Our World Works
Tag: statistics
What Political Polls Mean – And What They Don’t
With an election looming, lots of figures from politicals are getting tossed around all the time. But what do those figures actually mean, if anything? To understand that, it's important to look at how polling works. Sample The sample is the people that the pollers gather opinions from. The goal is to get a sample… Continue reading What Political Polls Mean – And What They Don’t
Some Surprising Mental Illness Statistics
While I know that people tend to be somewhat skeptical of statistics, I thought it would still be interesting to explore some of the stats that are out there related to mental illness. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) These figures come from CAMH in Toronto, Canada, on their Facts and statistics page. Mental… Continue reading Some Surprising Mental Illness Statistics
Can You Believe Statistics?
There are all kinds of statistics that get thrown around, some of which appear rather dubious. As a result, there seems to be a lot of suspicion about statistics in general. But is that warranted? Let's start with what statistics are. According to Wikipedia, statistics is "the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, displaying, analysis,… Continue reading Can You Believe Statistics?
Having Fun with Blog Statistics
I'm not normally keen on blog statistics, and try to avoid looking at them for the most part. They can offer some fascinating information, though. This posts is going to focus on the "Referrers" section of your stats, i.e. sites where people click on a link to go visit your site. I'm not going to… Continue reading Having Fun with Blog Statistics