Data Skeptic

This episode explores the k-nearest neighbors algorithm which is an unsupervised, non-parametric method that can be used for both classification and regression. The basica concept is that it leverages...

24 Juli 20158min

How do people think rationally about small probability events? What is the optimal statistical process by which one can update their beliefs in light of new evidence? This episode of Data Skeptic expl...

17 Juli 20151h 24min

This mini-episode is a high level explanation of the basic idea behind MapReduce, which is a fundamental concept in big data. The origin of the idea comes from a Google paper titled MapReduce: Simplif...

10 Juli 201512min

The Credible Hulk joins me in this episode to discuss a recent blog post he wrote about glyphosate and the data about how it's introduction changed the historical usage trends of other herbicides. Lin...

3 Juli 201534min

More features are not always better! With an increasing number of features to consider, machine learning algorithms suffer from the curse of dimensionality, as they have a wider set and often sparser ...

26 Juni 201510min

This episode discusses video game analytics with guest Anders Drachen. The way in which people get access to games and the opportunity for game designers to ask interesting questions with data has cha...

19 Juni 201531min

This mini-episode discusses Anscombe's Quartet, a series of four datasets which are clearly very different but share some similar statistical properties with one another. For example, each of the four...

12 Juni 20159min

A recent episode of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe included a slight rant by Dr. Novella and the rouges about a shortcoming in operating systems.  This episode explores why such a (seemingly obvio...

9 Juni 201530min