topostat

Monday, January 31, 2005

Armagedon or just a really great tan?

Scientists at Oxford University in London, England have been conducting climate experiments for the past few years and have finally gathered enough sufficient data to make predictions. Greenhouse gas emissions could cause global temperatures to rise by up to 11 degrees Celsius.(20 degrees Fahrenheit). They have calculating machines set up on all corners of the Earth that meausure seasonal fluctuations and compare them past and present. Not only will this lead to drastic temperature changes but it will also cause the Earth's sea level to rise, which will create huge biblical size floods. The temperature range is based from figures from the Industrial Revolution to present. These scientist warings are being heard. The Kyotol protocal, which is the U.N.s scheeme to reduce the greenhouse gas, has stated that carbon dioxide levels must be at 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. This is the deadline so that the 20 degree rise will not come about in the upcoming years. As optimistic as one can be, I persoanlly would advise investing in a nice pair of sunglasses, sunblock(strongest) and a surf board to ride out floods. Doesn't leathery skin sound fun?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/01/27/climate.temps.reut/index.html

Puerto Rico's Homocide Rate and a Little bit More

HI to everyone, I was reading the blog about the New Orleans crime rate and it came up to my mind to show all of you something that probably you would never think of my homeland, Puerto Rico. Well, as great as us the Puerto Ricans say that Puerto Rico is, which in fact it is, there something really bad happening in over there and that is crime. Yes, it is true that the rate in Puerto Rico (http://www.puertorico-herald.org/issues2/2005/vol09n03/CBWithHiMrdr.shtml]crime) -with a population close to four million- is higher than all the crime rate in the United States mainland according to the FBI. In the 2004, there were reported 790 murders in the island, going over New York's 571 (population of eight million), Los Angeles's 511 (population of four million), and Chicago's 445 (population of three million) crime rates, which in fact are the three largest cities of the mainland. Incorporating some of the class discussion in the information I found it said that Puerto Rico's mean (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lane/stat_sim/descriptive/) homicide rate is three times the U.S. mainland and four times Europe’s rate. Out of the 790 murders reported in the 2004, 60% of them are linked with drugs and their trafficking. If any of you would like to find out more about the past rates of crime in Puerto Rico or the plan to reduce this rate that our new governor and superintendent of the police have for the next four years please go to the first link posted in this blog.
Yet, me being a Puerto Rican I have go away a little bit from the main theme of this blog to let all of you know that you should not me scared about this and should visit my homeland. I now that these numbers seem pretty big for an island as small as Puerto Rico (100 miles long by 35 miles wide) and in fact it is, but still there is much more there than just that. In fact Puerto Rico has a lot to offer so I recommend all of you to visit the page that I’m going to link next and see some videos and facts about my beautiful island. So, don’t hesitate and go to Puerto Rico (http://www.gotopuertorico.com/index.php?language=english).

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Pregnancy Rates Among U.S. Teenagers

My blog deals with the pregnancy rates among teenagers all around the United States of America. The web link is http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/state_pregnancy_trends.pdf
Nationwide, the teenage pregnancy rate declined by 2% between 1999 and 2000 (from 85.7 to 83.6 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19). From 1986 to 2000, the rate dropped by 22% and, more importantly, fell by 28% since peaking in 1990. The birthrate for teenagers also declined by 2% between 1999 and 2000 (from 48.8 to 47.7 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19). The 2000 rate was 5% lower than the 1986 rate and 23% lower than the peak rate of 61.8 births per 1,000 women reached in 1991. Teenage pregnancy rates in 2000 varied widely by state, ranging from 42 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15–19 in North Dakota to 113 per 1,000 in Nevada and 128 per 1,000 in the District of Columbia (Table 2). The highest state adolescent pregnancy rates after Nevada’s were in Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. Vermont, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Maine had the lowest rates after North Dakota’s.
Teenage birthrates for 2000 also varied considerably by state (Table 2). The highest rates
(66–71 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19) were in Mississippi, Texas, Arizona,
Arkansas and New Mexico; in the District of Columbia, 56 births occurred per 1,000
teenage women. New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Dakota and Maine had
the lowest rates (23–29 per 1,000). According to the website, pregnancies are calculated as the sum of births, miscarriages (including stillbirths) and abortions. The number of births to teenagers in each state and teenage birthrates wereobtained from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). I found this information to be interesting and informative. I had no clue the teen pregnancy rate was actually falling. I was almost certain it was rising. There wasn't any information dealing with the teen pregnancy rate only in New Orleans. I would like to look at that. I am almost certain the rate of teen pregnancy is rising.

New Orleans Murder Rate Down in 2004

I am posting a blog on statistical research dealing with the decreasing murder rate in New Orleans for the year 2004. The following website deals with this excellent news: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1104562641254380.xml In the first six months of 2004, the number of homicides in New Orleans dropped 14 percent over the same period in 2003, more than double the national average of a 5.7 percent drop, according to the FBI. Police took a new approach and scoured numbers every day to determine where best to put the extra officers. This way, the city can be properly protected wherever the most violence and murder occurs. Not every part of the city saw a drop in the murder rate though. Although murders dipped in 2004, the 7th and 6th districts saw increases of 30 percent or more. One of the hardest, hottest, decrepit streets in the city, for the year 2004 was Tara Lane in eastern New Orleans, in the 7th District. The murder rate and way of murder was so violently out of control that the U.S. attorney's office, began in 2003 to send more cases to the federal government in the hopes of keeping repeat offenders behind bars longer. Compass said the department also regrouped and joined forces with Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan. Another resource that the city has tapped just recently is the use of ministers patrolling the streets with love and tidings of good hope and feelings. Five hundred ministers, led by the Rev. Antoine Barriere, fanned out into the city in force looking for the bad guys. First, they gathered in the 7th Ward neighborhood where an elderly mother and daughter were killed brazingly by bad guys. They prayed for witnesses to come forward, for justice for the slain women. They ministered to drug addicts and invited those without a church to worship with them. These statistics should help console those who are afraid of moving to New Orleans due to the murder rate.

The Best Movie Ever

There are dozens of movies made every year. Some are critically acclaimed and some are not. Some gross lots of money and some may not gross much. Some win many awards and some just don't. So, how can we determine which is the best movie of all time.
According to Yahoo Movies the highest grossing movie of all time is Titanic with about 600 million dollars of cumulative gross, followed Star Wars and Shrek 2 which accumulated 461 million and 436 million dollars respectively. Yea, these movies made a lot of money but personally I like Star Wars more than I liked Titanic and I also liked The Incredibles, another animated movie made by Pixar Animations Studios, more than Shrek 2. Money grossing can be a little deceiving since movies like Life is Beautiful are not exactly blockbuster but they are great movies.
The best movies are awarded every year around February and March in The Academy Awards Ceremony. The Academy Awards, or Oscars, are the most prestigious movie awards in the year. There are 24 different categories, but essentially a movie can only win 19 Oscars at the most since three categories award short films and the other three are Best Documentary, Best Adapted Screen Play and Best Original Screenplay, and a movie can only take one of these. The most Oscars collected by a single movie are 11. Titanic in 1997, The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King in 2003 and Ben-Hur in 1959. Although all these are great movies people could argue that these movies swept the Ceremony because in all these years there were a lack of other good movies.
Good movies are identifiable but the single Best movie is not. My personal favorite is the whole Star Wars collection (can't wait for the third one to come out). What is yours?

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Poker Phenomenon!

Within the last two years poker has become a huge craze among 15 to 30 year old people, mostly male. Along with live games, the Internet has helped facilitate the popularization of the game through online poker websites. Me and my boyfriend live together and almost every minute of the day when he has nothing else to do, he is playing online poker! However, he just bought a program that helps calculate the odds of him winning depending on the cards he has been dealt and the cards on the table. The way the program works is it sees the cards he has initially and states what his likely hood will be of overall winning depending on the possible hands he might receive. When the first round of betting happens, depending on how many people fold, call, or raise, it recalculates his odds. This continues until the hand is over.
I do not know if many of you play poker, but it is a game of strategy, and statistics become a large part of this. If one knows the probability of them getting a good hand, they can play smarter and hopefully win the pot! Poker is a card game, so there is an amount of luck to it, however, if you understand game theory, your chances of winning is significantly heightened.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Wealth Distribution. Thinking about the world around us.

Think for a minute about who owns how much stuff in the United States.

Rather than stuff, I'll refer to wealth, which I'm defining as net worth, which is assets - liabilities.


Think about shape of the distribution of wealth, where the horizontal axis ranges from very, very poor, poor, average wealth, middle class, rich, super rich.

Draw pictures of the types of distributions you're familiar with (normal, skewed left, skewed right, bimodal).

Which of these would you consider to be a "fair" distribution of wealth? Think about the spread between those who have a lot of wealth and those that don't have much.
Does it matter whether the distribution is rather narrow or rather wide? What does this mean?



Now that you've got some of your own ideas about wealth distribution in the US, the mean US wealth in 2001 was
$397,533 and the median wealth was $87,200. What does this distribution look like?
Here's a chart of the distribution of wealth in the US.


What does this distribution tell you in terms of who owns what in our society?


Here's some other info regarding wealth in the US. It contains mean and median wealth for households where the head of the household is white and not white, female and not female, and by the age of the head of the household. (it's in a .pdf file)




Economists measure this using a measure called the Gini coefficient. The Gini coefficient measures extent to which the distribution of income among households within a country deviates from a perfectly equal distribution.


The United Nations publishes information about the distribuiton of income in their Human Development Reports. This page has a table listing 177 countries and their Gini coefficients.

Which of these countries has the most even income distribution? United States, Norway, Greece.
Is there anything surprising about the list of countries? Any trends? What do you notice about the countries near the top of the list? Where is the United States in relation to these countries? Any explanations for the differences in rankings?


Which of these countries has the most uneven income distribution? United States, Sierra Leone, India. Why do some countries appear towards the bottom of the list? What do these countries have in common?

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Mardi Gras

I found some interesting info about New Orleans from New Orleans Online. Did you know that the population N.O. is 484,674. This may not seem that significant until you compare it to the number of visitors that will be here for Mardi Gras: 6,135,890! That's over a 1,200% increase. These stats gave me a new understanding for Loyola's strict rules for visitation during this holiday.
Some more interesting N.O. info is from New Orleans Crime Statistics. As everyone probably knows, we have more than the average share of crime here in the Mardi Gras capital. However, according to that site we score below the national average for "forcible rapes" 162 in 2002...If that's of any consolation. But it seems that this great city makes up for it with 258 murders in 2002. I still think this is a great city...Just don't make any enemies.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Cell phones equal crippled fingers

The vast majority of Americans these days have cell phones and use them frequently. I mean why not? They are very convenient technology, especially now with text messaging. It's just like chatting online. But, recent studies in Italy have shown that because of the spacing of the numbers/digits on any cell phone, and the amount of time the average person spends on text messaging per day, it causes health problems. With all this furious, finger bending typing going on, acute tendonitis will become ones best friend. Doctors warnings go out especially to the young, who use this feature most frequently. For one young girl, it just took about 100 short messages for her to need treatment. Other concerns/friends involved in this are irritability and mood swings. This is said to be because to many, especially the youth, a cell phone has become an essential part of their daily lives. 37 percent of them have become "cell phone addicts," says childrens group Telefono Azzurro.http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/01/24/italy.text.reut/index.html

Monday, January 24, 2005

Drug and Alcohol Usage on College Campuses

As college students, we find ourselves being introduced to more and more situations where alcohol usage and/or drug usage becomes more readily available. I mean, take for instance a college campus that serves beer to students at social events such as parties in the quad. When it comes down to it, students have no way of getting around alcohol or drug usage. Who's to say, that is, that us students aren't taking advantage of these loose laws in New Orleans. For instance, a survey was taken in 4 college campuses around the United States finding that within a year of taking the survey, 85.3% of students say they had drank and 46.5% of students had consumed marijuana (this information can be found at http://www.siu.edu/departments/coreinst/public_html/recent.html). One can see how these enormous statistics must have a large affect on the student population. For instance, 40.5% of those surveyed said they later regreted something they did while under the influence. Of those who had encountered a physical encounter while under the influence, 76% had been the recipient of forced sexual touching and 82.6% experienced unwanted sexual intercourse. Not to say that alcohol is always involved with a negative connotation, but I do believe, however, students our age need to be aware of the events that take place when people get out of control while under the influence.

Home Entertainment Statistics

In an earlier post I posted about the decline in music sales. Prof. Topoleski commented and asked where people are spending their money in terms of entertainment if they are not purchasing CD's.

I think I've found the answer. DVD/Video sales and rentals are at an all time high. Despite the fact that this website is trying to support video/DVD piracy (http://www.mpaa.org/PiracyFactSheets/PiracyFactSheetUS.pdf) the chart in the middle of the first page shows a rise each and every single year in DVD and Video sales. From 16.4 billion in 1998 to 22.2 billion in 2002. It's a pretty steady climb, only expected to go up.

This website (http://retailindustry.about.com/cs/sales_categories/l/bl_vsda071502.htm) suggests that the "video industry experienced the best year ever". These facts and figures are from 2002, but the most recent that I could find. It also says that the DVD player is one of the fastest selling consumer electronic products ever.

Also, the VSDA (http://www.vsda.org/Resource.phx/public/press/august2003/august04-03.htx) does an annual report on the home entertainment industry each year and it's results from 2003 include the following: DVD console penetration rose 58%, video consumers DOUBLED their rental spending in one year, and statistics show the VHS format is still a competitor despite the fact that people think the format is being phased out.

What accounts for this booming home entertainment business? While I haven't found movie goer statistics (I'll look into it next) high def. TV's and flat screens are at the front of the new wave of television technology. With movie ticket prices on a steady increase (http://www.natoonline.org/statisticstickets.htm) people are finding different ways to fufill their movie desires. Netflix grew as Blockbuster's biggest competitor and offered consumers the easiest and cheapest way to rent movies - delivered right to your doorstep for a certain amount each month with no limit on the amount of movies you can rent. Netflix also offers a wider selection of movies than any local Blockbuster.

Blockbuster's latest scheme to keep customers in is also 1) the offer to pay a certain amount per month and get as many movies as you want and 2) the END of late fees! Blockbuster now offers consumers a chance to order their rentals online and receive them at their doorstep.

DVD sales however is one of the top industries. There are several reasons that could account for this - DVD's have come down in price. You can now go to Wal-Mart and pick up a DVD for $5! Even Best Buy and other electronic stores are selling DVD's as cheap as $10! That's LESS than the price of a CD.

I heard on the radio the other day that DVD collections are becoming quite popular and the new wave of the future in that they will eventually take the spot of the "coffee table book." Why have a book about birds when you could proudly display your Apprentice box set?

But really? Why pay say $6-7 (sometimes even $8) to go see a movie when you can just go to the store and buy one at the same price? Or why rent a movie for $5 when you can pay a little more and just own it? Both questions that many consumers have found the answers to these days, which accounts for the steady increase in DVD sales.

Computer Virus Statistics

I was amazed as to the rising problems dealing with computer viruses in todays day and age. I found the following link to be interesting and informative: http://www.securitystats.com/virusstats.html. In 2003 alone, it was estimated that computer viruses spreading on the net cost businesses around the world over $55 Billion in damages in 2003. An interesting fact that I came across on this site was that the Sapphire/Slammer SQL worm took aproximately 10 minutes to spread across the world. During the early stages of its infection across millions of computers throughout the world, the number of hosts were doubling in size every 8.5 seconds. After only 3 minutes of its release on the net, Sapphire zipped over the net at over 55 million IP addresses per second. Over 75,000 victims were infected and many more who never even knew what was happening were being taken advantage of. Many computers were compromised, and many institutions were opened up to the public through a "backdoor" release. According to Internet Security Systems , there were 71,402 virus attacks reported in the fourth quarter of 2000 alone. After one takes the time to sit down and slowly go through all the information dealing with viruses, a scary thought slowly creeps into their minds. What if all computers suddenly crash in the world? What if you are on a plane and the computers crash? If we only could see into the future....lol

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Divorce Rates

topostat

The rate of divorce in the U.S., per capita per year, is an astounding 40%. An excerpt from the Census Bureau report states that "The National Center for Health Statistics recently released a report which found that 43% of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years. For men under age 45, it is predicted that first marriages will end in divorce and up to 52% for women in the same age group. After age 60, the percent rate of divorce for men drops to 36% and 32% for women. " In 1880, according to the historian Robert L. Griswold, one marriage in 21-fewer than 5 percent-ended in divorce." So why has the divorce rate risen in the last century? Divorces used to be difficult to obtain without good reason, including adultery, abuse, and abandonment. In the mid-1960s, the divorce rate begin to rise dramatically," fueled by ever-higher marital expectations, a vast expansion of wives moving into the work force, the rebirth of feminism, and the adoption of 'no fault' divorce." The adoption of the 'no fault' divorce is contributed with being a major factor in the rise of divorce rates. "No-fault divorce caused already-climbing divorce rates to jump further." Not all of the divorces are contributed by this 'no-fault' but a significant portion can. This website contain links to studies that suggest that there is a cause/effect relationship between making divorces easier, such as 'no-fault', and the rise in divorce rates. Divorce Reform
U. Okla Study Shows No-fault Law is what Increased Divorce
Statistics on divorce rates and litigation before the no-fault revolution
'No-fault' has made it easier for people to get divorces now.
In Europe, Italy has the lowest divorce rate. The 3-yr. waiting period is credited for the low rates. This is a link detailing the divorce rates in other countries in comparison to the U.S. Non-U.S. Divorce Rates

Some correlating factors as to why divorce rates are rising include:
Age, Religion, Occupation, Region, Race
This article was provided by Americans for Divorce Reform in their attempt change the 'no-fault' policy, thereby decreasing the percent of divorce rates.

Cingular Wireless

As of the last year in 2004, Cingular merged with AT&T wireless making it the largest wireless company in the United States with more than 46 million subscribers. With this number of subscribers, it has outranked its closest competition Verizon with 42 million subscribers. From this merge, Cingular predicts cheaper phones, better wireless services, as well as better customer services. Cingular’s campaigns and advertisement is very astonishing in luring new subscribers to its company. Its free mobile-to-mobile calls, rollover minutes, and the distribution of the new Motorola RAZR V3 camera phone have made Cingular a popular choice for most people. Yet, some analysts predicted that this merge could be a mistake. For example, there will be overlaps of position in jobs due to the merge. Many people will lose there job. Also, the prices of phones might increase due to the decrease in competitions, which is bad for the consumers. It is still too early to predict the outcome of this venture, so I guess we just have to wait and see.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Phoenix Suns Hotter Than Ever

The Phoenix Suns, no doubt about it, are the hottest team in the NBA. They started the 2004-2005 season as the 11th best team in the NBA and also acquired Steve Nash, one of the top-three point guards in the league. By third week they rose to the top spot in the power rankings because of their high scoring games and entertaining play and they have managed to stay in the top three positions ever since. They lead the league in points-per-game with 108.8. The Phoenix Suns also started the 2005 season with 31 wins and 4 loses, a 75% winning average in January. The sixth best start for a team in NBA history. Additionally 4 of the previous 5 teams went on to win the NBA championship. This other teams include the Chicago bulls led by Michael Jordan, the Lakers led by Karim Abdul-Jabbar and the Celtics led by Bill Russel. The Suns are led by Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion and Steve Nash in points, rebounds and assists respectively.
History favors the Suns but winning the NBA championship won't be easy. The West is loaded with good defense with the San Antonio Spurs and great depth in the Seattle Supersonics. The East is also making a name for itself with the arrival of Shaq to the Atlantic Conference and the return of Jermaine O'neal from his suspension after the incident with the Detroit Pistons' fans. The only things that could set the Suns back are, inexperience in the playoffs and possible injuries.
Are the Phoenix Suns going to win the NBA Championship? It is impossible to predict this early. One thing is for sure, the Suns have 31 wins already, something they didn't accomplish all last year.
I guess this shows how much good investments, even better player acquisitions and hard off-season training can do for a professional team.

Eagles vs. Falcons comparison

This Sunday at 3:00p.m. ET the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons will play to decide which team will play in the Super Bowl. The game should be a close one. Various statistics show the two teams to be pretty comparable. For example, this season both teams have averaged over 300 yards per game. Also, both quarterbacks have similar completion rates. Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb has a 60% completion rate this season, while Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has a 56.4% completion rate. However, the Eagles rank higher than the Falcons in overall offense and overall defense. The Eagles have the 9th best overall offense in the NFL, while the Atlanta Falcons have the 20th overall offense. Also, the Eagles overall defense is ranked 10th overall, and the Falcons overall defense is ranked 14th.

GO EAGLES!

Percent Distribution of the Drinking Levels of Males 18 Years of Age and Older

topostat

I found the following database to be interesting and intriguing. The chart found on this webpage depicts the percent distribution of the drinking levels of males 18 years of age and older according to selected characteristcs. This chart was updated in February of 2004 and was calculated by the Alcohol Epidemiologic Data System of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The information on this webpage is pertinent to the years 1997 through 2002. The webpage is: http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/databases/dkpat26.htm. The following sources were used to compute this chart: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics, National Health Interview Survey, 1997–2002. Data from the CDC ftp site (ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Datasets/NHIS). I was surprised while viewing this chart that in 2000, 36% of 18-24 year old males abstained, or according to the definition of the word posted on the site, had fewer than twelve drinks in there lifetime, or no drinks in the past year. In 2001, the percentage of abstainers dropped by 5.4%, and by 2002, there was a total difference of 6.6% from 2000 to 2002. This might not seem like a large jump at the present, but i would presume if the percent change continued on this path over the next ten years, a significant trend could be established. Another factor that would play a large role is how many men offered there personnel information. I understand that at least 30 respondents were interviewed, but there is no clear number posted on the website. Its also interesting that white, non hispanics had the highest percentage for heavy drinkers out of hispanics, white-non hispanics, black, non-hispanic, and other non-hispanics. Another interesting point that was clear was that the average percentage for men between the ages of 18-24 who were light drinkers for the years 1997-2002 was 40.37%. The average percentage for men between the ages of 25-34 who were light drinkers for the same years was 49.1%. In 2002, males 18-24 filled the "Light Drinker" category 39.1%. The same year, males 25-34 filled the same category with over half of all participants in this study being light drinkers, or 50.6%. In case anyone is curious about the percent distribution of the drinking levels of females 18 years of age and older, I have listed the following link: http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/databases/dkpat27.htm There are many interesting trends that can be found when one studys all the data, and anyone is welcome to post any positive comments.

Friday, January 21, 2005

Drug's effect on American Society.

 

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Music Piracy Statistics

I found this chart on music sales stats http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/pdf/2003yearEnd.pdf on the Recording Industry Association of America's website. Because it's the RIAA and the RIAA is trying to sue like every single person that has ever downloaded a song off of the internet, these statistics are used by the RIAA to try and prove that music piracy is a huge problem.

For a normal person, looking at this chart and seeing the numbers first steadily increase towards the year 2000 (which so far in the recent past looks like the most profitable year for the music industry) and then also steadily decline beginning in the year 2001 is enough to prove that online file sharing is taking away from the record industry sales. However, several other factors could contribute to this decline. 9/11 obviously had an impact on our economy and occured in the year when record sales began to decline. Perhaps the new artists emerging on the scene weren't as good in the past and people don't want to buy their music. Or maybe people think it's just absolutely ridiculous to shell out $20 for a CD. Along with peer-to-peer file sharing also came the technology to pay-per-download. Services such as iTunes offer consumers the ability to pay something like 99 cents per song to download, LEGALLY, right to their computers and iPods.

On a more personal level the RIAA is really starting to tick me off because instead of trying to use these facts and figures to prove a point they continually seem to complain about the fact that they are loosing money, and despite the previous examples I've used to account for their losses, peer-to-peer filing sharing and CD burning IS a major problem, but I just think they should do something about it. Offer people something that will make them want to shell out that money for a CD. Or reduce the prices of the music, which I think would greatly help record sales.

Texas Hold'em Craze

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but lately poker has been gaining popularity like crazy. One particular type of poker, Texas Hold'em, has been in the spotlight more so than others. For example, in St. Paul, Minnesota, the game has proved to be a challenge for the state officials. Recently officials shut down David Bischoff's bowling alley (in St. Paul, Minnesota) when they found out about his weekly Texas Hold'em tournement. Other states, such as Iowa and Wyoming, are also cutting back on these tournaments because of the risk of losing their gaming licenses. Concerns not only include the loss of gaming licenses, but also the unethical and perhaps illegal profit that bars and other facilities are making on these tournaments. Inspite of the credible arguments made by supporters of the game, Texas Hold'em is still considered a gambling affair and is, as of right now, not welcome in Minnesota.
More information on other states and their gambling laws can be found here. Louisiana's gambling laws can be found here.

SUPER BOWL XXXIX

With the last of the playoff games to be played this Sunday, many sports fans are placing their bets on the two teams to go to the Super Bowl, even more, the winner of the Super Bowl. But do they really know who is going to win? I think that they do not, however, some sportscasters really think that they have this thing figured out. Yes, I know they review the teams' offense and defense ratings over the season, but do they really take into consideration everyday obstacles? Take for example, the star quarterback having a bad day (Brett Favre in Green Bay's last game.) Would their guess change if the head coach was hospitalized and could not make the game? (I am not wishing this--I'm just saying hypothetically.) Do they take into consideration unexpected injuries- which are very likely to happen in football? What about the weather?

I think that the only way we will really know the winner of Super Bowl XXXIX is to watch the four hour-long game. But hey, the commercials are pretty interesting and maybe the there will be another surprise for the Halftime show.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

topostat

topostat

The Census for 2010 has had some changes made to it in order to give large cities a better picture of their popultations every year. The census in large cities will no longer be cross-sectional but collected in a time series.Instead of using a questionairre every ten years a survey will be sent to 250,000 households every month. This will allow for more up to date information about the demographics of a particular city. This will also take less time to compile the data making it more efficient. It should be easier to tell about different trends across the country which would help with anything from crime statistices to retail.

Work cited:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/bythenumbers/2005-01-16-census-2010_x.htm

Presidential Exit Polls

I was reading on USA today and came across something very interesting. It seems the exit polls were skewed in favor of John Kerry. This was due to a few reason. An important one being that Democratic supporters were more likely to participate in the exit polls.
This would affect the sample and would contribute to the news media's early projections of John Kerry winning the election.
Interviewers were kept at least 50 feet away from polling places, which would skew the sample. Only people entusiastic about sharing their votes would go out of their way to divulge this information.
Interviewers may have also broken rules for selecting voters to particiapte. This would not make the sample a random one.
It is intersting to see how different factors can affect the results of a poll or any other statistiacl data.



From John: This is a good post, but he forgot to include a link to the original story. Note that this is a requirement for posts (but not for comments).

Exit polls most inaccurate since 1988.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

"Super Size Me" Facts--

I heard a funny quote the other day when I told my boyfriend that I was taking Business Statistics 1: "There are three types of lies- lies, damn lies, and statistics." I find this quote to be so funny because it is so true to the nature of statistics.
I was looking on the "Super Size Me" movie website and it claims that "2 out of every three adults are overweight or obese." If every 2 out of 3 adults in America were overweight, that means that about 66% of us are overweight. This didn't seem right to me, so I went back onto google to double check these figures.
I found on a study done by the Journal of the American Medical Association that "obesity has become a nationwide epidemic that effects nearly 1 in 5 adults". This means, according to the American Medical Association that only 20% of American adults are severely overweight. After I found these figures out, I tried to locate where the people from "Super Size Me" found their statistics, but to no prevail. This really made me wonder where they got their information and the accuracy of it because after conducting my own research, it seems that their information was a little skewed in their defense....
Just from this personal research, I have discovered that statistics can be a powerful tool to defend your argument because one can easily attain the results they want by controlling the research group.





(Works Cited:
"Too Many Americans Overweight"
www.ismanet.org/pdf/overweight.pdf"Super Size Me: A Film of Epic Portions" www.supersizeme.com)

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Marijuana as a gateway drug

One of the claims made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and others who oppose relaxing our drug laws is that marijuana is a gateway drug; that is, using marijuana may lead to using harder drugs. See for example page two of this report (.pdf file), or here about the theory applied to alcohol and tobacco.

If you do a study and find that most of the people using harder drugs like cocaine and heroin started off using marijuana or alcohol, then can you conclude that the alcohol and drug use is the reason for the harder drug use? Is this enough to establish a cause and effect relationship?

Probably not, as this explanation of research from the Rand Corporation explains (which is also mentioned in a story at Reason magazine).

This example illustrates an important statistical concept of "correlation without causation". Just because one thing follows another doesn't mean that the first caused the second. It's pretty clearly true that many heroin users also use(d) cocaine, but it's quite different to say that there is a causal link. What's happening is that there is a missing factor (such as a predisposition to using drugs) that explains both behaviors. I'm sure you'll be able to find other examples of this statistical concept. One that comes to mind is whether going to a top university leads to higher salaries. Is it the going to the Prestigious U. that is the reason or are exceptionally bright people going to these schools and exceptionally bright people get higher salaries anyway, which means that "exceptional brightness" is the missing factor?

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Intro to the blog

Hey,

This blog is for you to enable discussion about current events and ideas of interest to you. The idea is to take the ideas that we learn about in the classroom and see how they work in the world around us. Don't think that you have only discuss stories about statistics and numbers. If you think about it for a little bit most stories probably have some angle that is relevent to what we're doing. I especially want to help you develop your critical thinking skills. Also, don't be afraid to make posts and comments. You might be surprised that you have something interesting to say or you might find that you'll benefit from other people's perspective on an issue that of interest to you.

In general a post should contain at least one hyperlink to material outside the class blog. Often, this is a story in a news site or a post from another blog. Include some analysis and discussion of the material, certainly pointing out the statistical aspects of it. Feel free to question the reasoning of what you read on the web and what your fellow students are saying. However, you should be respectful of your fellow classmates, so personal attacks are not appropriate. Remember, this is meant to be a discussion so calling someone or something "dumb" or "stupid" does not make a contribution.

To get an idea of some sites to visit to get ideas , I've put some links of interest on our main class site.

Your feedback is important in helping shape how we use the blog and the benefits we get from it. Feel free to send me an e-mail with your questions and comments.