Thursday, March 30, 2006

Statement, and tmi:

statement

I think I hate Bayesian analysis. Or maybe I don't understand it well enough to say "hate." Or maybe it's just this paper I'm slogging through. The fact the the authors refer to it, and other methods I'm not comfortably familiar with yet as "the new statistics" kind of annoys me. (Kind of like "pink is the new black")

tmi question

Other sciencemathy girls* out there, here's a question:

are there particular times of the month when your math-comprehension-ability just TANKS? I get that. The other day when I was trying to build some models I realized I was having a bad-spatial-relations day. (Usually I'm really good at visualizing things spatially, but not this week).

(*I can still call myself a "girl" at 37, no? Please?)

1 comment:

TChem said...

Hmmm... I have had that experience within a few days of coming down with a cold (Beginning of the day: data analysis, keeping track of propagation of errors in my head and having the calculations line up within 10% of my approximations. End of the day: "What is this crazy nonsense I was doing earlier in the day? And what number bus do I take to get home, again?" Next morning: Head full of goo.)

I haven't specifically noticed a ladystuff relation, but I'd believe it. I'd also believe that it'd be especially noticable on a task that is using your maximum thinking capacity, the same way high-level athletes notice that certain foods make them .1 seconds slower while they're competing.

Did I just compare science nerds to Olympians? Oof.