Statistician vs Data Scientist

Vincent Granville measures the frequency of use of different keywords and finds the use of the word 'statistician' dropping versus 'data analyst'.   Death of the statistician?  I don't think so, but some re-calibration of the meaning of this and related roles like 'data scientist'.   He also explores the use of related terms.

Counting Deaths

In the WSJ Blog:   The consequence of what is commonly call a harvesting effect, in statistical models.   Using the data, often reported in the news, of how many people died in heat waves, or shoveling snow.  Had always wondered about this data.  Also seen that in recording manufacturing system failures. How much does a variable context influence an event?  For this case in health, how many of those people would have died without an extreme weather context.  And then, how much the extreme context influences earlier death (failure).  The article points out that the general problem in healthcare is unsolved. Thought provoking ....

Stat Methods

See Robert Kabacoff's web site: StatMethods.  And his associated blog.   These cover statistical methods delivered in R.  Devoted to learning R quickly and providing examples for its use for real statistical and visualization problems.

Short Non Mathematical Statistics Course

Nice idea, Kaiser Fung from Junkcharts.   I have often been in the need of having concise statistics training for managers and executives.  "How to do statistics without really doing statistics?"  .... Not a math course.  Have not looked at this, but will.

This also introduced me to the training system and construct called 3 Nights and Done, which I like the general premise of.  " ... It's free. It's non-profit. It won't sell your student activity records. It makes learning fun for people of all ages. You watch 1 hour of educational material each night, and in 3 nights' time it's done. Simple as that. You will get a sense of accomplishment instantly over say a weekend. ... "