Posts

Converting from Bookdown to Quarto

Two years ago, I converted my lecture notes to Bookdown. I have been following the development of Quarto with interest. Although Bookdown is not going away, it does seem that future developments will be based on Quarto.
Last updated on 17 Aug, 2022

A more moderate view of Excel

When I heard that the UK government had lost 16,000 covid-19 cases meaning that the contacts of infected persons were not traced and informed, I got angry. The problem was attributed to an Excel “glitch” so I posted a rather caustic tweet about how Excel should not be used for data analysis.
Last updated on 6 Oct, 2020

Converting to Accessible Lecture Notes

Why do this? In 2018, the UK government passed the The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations which requires Universities (among others) to provide all website information in an “accessible” format.
Last updated on 1 Sep, 2020

An Alternative to the OFQUAL algorithm

As anyone in the UK knows, A-level exams, taken at age 18 and mostly used to determined admission to university were cancelled this year due to the pandemic. The UK government asked OFQUAL (a semi-independent government body) to determine the A-level grades.
Last updated on 28 Aug, 2020

Experience from running R workshops in developing countries

Having run a couple of workshops introducing R in developing countries, I offer four pieces of advice: Don’t rely on the internet. The internet reaches everywhere but what may be adequate for light use by a single user quickly crumbles when large numbers try to make downloads simultaneously.
19 May, 2020

Linear Models with R translated to Python

I have translated the R code in Linear Models with R into Python. The code is available as Jupyter Notebooks. I was able to translate most of the content into Python.
27 Apr, 2018

When small data beats big data

More data is always better? No - not always. Nicole Augustin and I have published a paper entitled When Small Data beats Big Data. The main points are: Quality beats quantity.
Last updated on 17 Dec, 2020

Statisticians do not improve sports

There’s always been statistics in sports. People have kept records of achievements such as the most goals in a season or home runs in a career for many years. These statistics add extra flavour to the mere winning and losing of games and championships.
17 Nov, 2017

Formatting LaTeX for a small screen

Almost every student has a smart phone so it makes sense to format lecture notes so that they can be read on these small screen devices. But this can be difficult to achieve if you use LaTeX to produce your lecture notes or other mathematical/statistical handouts.
21 Sep, 2016

What’s wrong with University League tables

Today, the Guardian published its University Guide 2017. Let’s take a closer look at the components of these league tables. I don’t mean to pick on the Guardian table as the other tables have similar characteristics.
23 May, 2016