If you’ve ever watched Major League Baseball, one of the feature points of the sport is the batting line-up that each team decides upon before each game. Traditional baseball logic tells us that speedy, reliable hitters like Trea Turner should lead the line-up of batters; slower, power hitting juggernauts like Giancarlo Stanton should make up the middle of the line-up; and the less-than-stellar, oh-god-why-is-this-person-even-trying sluggers like Bartolo Colon should fill in the back of the order. Perhaps you’ve wondered, like myself: How did we arrive at these rules of thumb? Since every batter gets several chances at the plate anyway—and it’s not like we start every inning at the top of the batting order—does batting order even matter?

Hey again lovely readers! This blog is a very special one indeed, you get to hear about our great day out at SatRdays in Cardiff recently not once, not twice, but five times, from each of our team members perspectives! I think it’s fair to say that it was a very different experience for each of us - from seasoned conference attendees like Steph and Maëlle, Amy who had never presented before, sponsorship newbie Oz and then Ellen somewhere inbetween, we all had very different (but great) take aways from the day! Read on for laughs, nerves, proud moments and a quick cuddle too!

The field of statistics is often misunderstood, but it plays an essential role in our everyday lives. Statistics, done correctly, allows us to extract knowledge from the vague, complex, and difficult real world. Wielded incorrectly, statistics can be used to harm and mislead. A clear understanding of statistics and the meanings of various statistical measures is important to distinguishing between truth and misdirection.

Front office jobs at investment banks are increasingly being taken over by intelligent machines. Many current front office employees are worried about being displaced by artificial intelligence, and their fears are not unfounded. Huy Nguyen Trieu, former head of macro structuring at Citigroup, has a positive message for traders who risk being replaced by automation: become a data facilitator.

Today I noticed an op-ed by two political scientists, Howard Lavine and Wendy Rahm, entitled, “What if Trump’s Nativism Actually Hurts Him?”:

Kaiser Fung points to this news article by David Jackson and Gary Marx:

I didn’t think this still happened in 2018 . . . I opened my email to see 50 emails, from 50 different people, all with the same meaningless subject line. (In case you’re curious, it was “Re: Clerkships team.”)

Interesting convergence of ideas, as this reminds me a lot of the (Lance) Armstrong Principle: If you push people to promise more than they can deliver, they’re motivated to cheat.

We are pleased to announce that seplyr version 0.5.8 is now available on CRAN.

Make them feel special– this is key in marketing, business, and dating.