Category Archives: prediction

Risk and the Price of Books

Posted on 2013-01-30 by TJ

I’m reading Alan Schom’s utterly brilliant biography of Napoleon at the moment, and noticed the price tag: about thirty bucks. Considering what I pay for other forms of entertainment, this is astonishingly low. I’ve already got dozens of hours out … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, marketing, prediction, psychology, writing | Leave a comment

More on Seasonal Markets

Posted on 2012-12-26 by TJ

Back in the spring I made some prognostications about the home price indices in the US that have turned out to be not so correct. I suggested that most of the “growth” in the Case-Shiller home price index was due … Continue reading →

Posted in bayes, economics, prediction, probability | Leave a comment

Systematic vs Statistical Error

Posted on 2012-11-11 by TJ

I’ve seen a few people ask about why the election odds at electionprojection.com, 538, et al all fell in favour of the side with a significantly greater than 50% chance of winning. After all, if you predicted 10 senate races … Continue reading →

Posted in bayes, epistemology, prediction, probability | Leave a comment

Next

Posted on 2012-09-24 by TJ

I’ve been busy lately. It turns out moving across the country is a good deal of work. That said, what’s next? I’ve got a couple of things in the works about computer modelling and global warming: one a look at … Continue reading →

Posted in life, prediction | Leave a comment

What Does “Climate Change” Mean?

Posted on 2012-08-18 by TJ

I argued in the previous entry that while it is uncontroversial that human activity has added 1 – 2 W/m***2 to the Earth’s heat budget (say 0.1 – 0.2 % of the total, equivalent to shifting Earth’s orbit by a … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, life, physics, prediction, science, thermodynamics | 2 Comments

Climate Change

Posted on 2012-08-15 by TJ

I’ve been on both sides of the climate change debate over the course of the past twenty years, and am currently more of a commentator on it than a participant, as both sides have left the realm of science far … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, prediction, science | Leave a comment

Predictions

Posted on 2012-07-27 by TJ

In 1987 a group of science fiction writers and similar people were asked to predict what the future might look like in 25 years time… which is to say, in 2012 A quarter-century is in some ways not a very … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, history, life, prediction, probability, science, technology | Leave a comment

Some Notes on Seasonal Markets

Posted on 2012-06-26 by TJ

The latest Case-Shiller home price index numbers are out and the commentary around them reminds me of sailing this weekend when one of my crew pointed out that the windmills on Wolfe Island were spinning at 7 or 8 seconds … Continue reading →

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Reality is Non-Analytic

Posted on 2012-06-22 by TJ

An analytic function is one where if you know everything about it at a point, you know everything about it everywhere, where “everything about it” means its value and the the value of all its derivatives. Putting aside the not-very-interesting … Continue reading →

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Silver Bullets

Posted on 2012-05-02 by TJ

“The Mythical Man Month” was published in the mid-70′s and most of it still rings true today: adding people to a late project makes it later, and there is no silver bullet. It probably says something about software developers that … Continue reading →

Posted in language, prediction, psychology, software, technology | Leave a comment