Statistics are like bikinis snd the Trail Blazers -Part2

I believe when the playoffs started the Blazers were a 1 in 40 odds of winning it all.  David Hollinger
had them at about the same odds with a 3.4 percent chance to make the conference finals.

My gut would have gone with that a week ago.

Then again, everything about this team goes against my gut.

 So here is my back of the envelope calculation.

I assume about an 85 percent chance of advancing against the Beard and Friends
I assume the following series a tossup. (Expect the unexpected, I will assign a  45 percent chance of winning each)

So that has us at around an 18 percent chance of going to the conference finals.

So statistcs being like a bikini. Those numbers make sense, however this team defies logic.

I have the odds of Lebron James spraining an ankle at .05. One odd event make statistics more like the Bikini islands. Exotic (I think) and way out there.
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Statistics are like bikinis snd the Trail Blazers

Okay there is the regression back to the mean. Most people have the Rockets pulling an LA Clipper and besting the Blazers handily tomorrow. In a non statistical sense you can sense they and their fan base will be desperate. This is much like the Phoenix Suns a few weeks  ago. Remember that debacle of epic proportion. Then again statistically, all things being equal, in a mostly even series take the home team.

I also heard another analogy that is more reflective when trying to search for my own non relevant blog. Statistics are like miniskirts. I am sure it masked betting on the spread more emotional.

So in this case, like a miniskirt, there is some emotion involved. The Trailblazers are more like a beautiful woman wearing a sun dress on s nudist beach. Sorry that is s misplaced metaphor.

Expect the unexpected with this years Blazers.

And still be uncomfortable up two games to zero going home.

As an aside, Batum should have a big game tomorrow.

Throw the statistics out the window.

If It Smells good It Is Good

In the most recent episode of Cosmos, The host Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the neural network in our brains which determine our sense of smell and memory, and later, he travels deep beneath the surface of the Earth to discover the most mysterious particle we know."

Our sense of smell invokes many emotions tied back to events in our life. Neil could of easily referred back to B.F. Skinner's theory on stimulus and response or the simple associative principle of Mathematics. One proven the other a theory in psychology.

In retrospect I now understand why a Beagle savors ever minute of every single walk and memories associated with it. Not sure how they wrap their minds around it.

Then there is Adam Duritz line from a classic two step ballad.

And the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.

Some how our sense of smell is more forgiving.

Hormone called Ghrelin.

So apparently there is a link to what you perceive you eat to how the body processes it.
This was a tremendous story on Morning edition this morning.
Ghrelin is a hormone secreted in the gut. People in the medical profession call it the hunger hormone. When ghrelin levels in the stomach rise, that signals the brain that it's time to seek out food.
"It also slows metabolism," Crum says, "just in case you might not find that food."

I am going to take this one step farther and link it to  the consumption of diet drinks and possibly refute the findings.  People think they are consuming zero calories. And somehow they have no weight gain. So this so called called placebo effect is quite the obvious opposite.

Or maybe the negative publicity of diet soda's have the intended one off placebo effect.

Diet soda's sales have plummeted recently.

There used to be a common perception (mis-perception) that when you consume Thai/Chinese food you would be hungry an hour later. I do not know it always filled me up fine. Probably the perception that people were eating healthy would leave them hungry an hour later.

So in this case Statistics are more like an early season one-piece.

So that sly devil Jesus may have been married. Statistics are like bikinis and here is our bikini of the day.

 

A text believed to be written on ancient Egyptian papyrus and referring to Jesus as being married is not a modern forgery as some have claimed, according to a new study.

The findings, published Thursday in the Harvard Theological Review, said the fragment's text makes direct reference to a married Jesus, supporting the argument of Harvard professor Karen L. King, according to the Boston Globe.

But now we have this statistical wisdumb (sic) that proves all studies and numbers wrong.

But if you are looking for definitive proof that Jesus did not have a wife, I think I have it. Jesus is God, so he couldn't possibly have been that stupid. -Damning evidence

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/pat-archbold/no-jesus-wasnt-married#ixzz2yWJaI18s

So there.

And which takes me back to Neil deGrasse Tyson
'The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.',

Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of 11

@Harper's Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of 11: $5,902 (Sorry Harper's this is way too low)

I will take a stab at breaking it down

Food 600.00 a year * 11. = 6600
Misc destroyed stuff        =5500 (500.00 per year)
Misc Vet trips                  = 4400 (400 per year)
Tags etc                             = 500.00
Leashes toys Etc =            =3300 (330 per year)

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So once again statistics are like Bikinis. Harper's says 5902.00 and my calculation says 19000.00
Then I drilled down in side the bikini. Darn if they were not 1984 figures. They were a svelter more lean version of the Stats and using an inflation rate of 4 percent and some liberal rounding it all adds up.

Better to Be Lucky Than Study the Statistics

Face book post from my friend.

Congratulations to my wife, who has watched only about an hour of basketball this year, for winning our yearly bracket of about 29 entries. She picked Connecticut and I laughed, now I'm crying inside. Way to go

I know Michelle knows little about basketball. Sometimes pure luck plays out over everything. What are the odds of that. I know the points are more weighted at the end so picking UConn is point builder. However the tournament has 63 or so games and she was lucky over the long run.

Statistically she has to be a closet ringer.

An Intro to Bikinis (A Mooning)

Welcome to Statistics are like Bikini's - I love numbers, however they do not tell the entire story. In the near future that is what I would like to expand on here.

I remember sitting at a picnic table in Williamsburg, Va.  many years ago and this guy we called MOT (his real name was TOM) pulled this statistic out of the air.

"86 percent of all woman go to college to find a husband." He was the only person at the table who did not attend college.

For now I have to get back to my job.

Ran a multiple regression and found there is a correlation between getting a paycheck and paying the bills.

I will leave you with this right now. The earth is not 2/3rds water.