New Twitter to Follow

If you enjoy Flash Fiction as much as me, you definitely want to check out the Micro Flash Fiction Twitter account. Here's a taste:

"Hello! Do you have a minute to talk about Dracula?"
"No- wait, Dracula?"
"Yes!"
"You're vampires?"
"Yes. We have pamphlets."
"Vampires have missionaries?"
"Where else would new vampires come from?"
"I assumed you bit people."
"There are many hurtful stereotypes. May we come in?"

— Micro Flash Fiction (@MicroFlashFic) July 26, 2018

Someone liked this one so much, they illustrated it:

Had to illustrate @MicroFlashFic 's tweet about missionary vampires, too funny to resist! pic.twitter.com/2nmkNjayzS

— EmRyLoCu🌈 (@SillyGuySayings) July 28, 2018

Landing on Lake Shore Drive

Interesting bit of news for the day - a small place had to make an emergency landing on Lake Shore Drive:

Insert your favorite joke about being on LSD here.

No details at the moment, but word is that no one was injured.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Blogging Break

You may have noticed I haven't been blogging as much recently. Though in some aspects, I'm busier than I've been in a while, I still have had a lot of downtime, but sadly not as much inspiration to write on my blog. I've got a few stats side projects I'm working on, but nothing to a point I can blog about, and I'm having difficulty with writing some of the code on projects I've been plan on writing about. Hopefully I'll have something soon, and will get to back to posting weekly Statistics Sunday posts.

Here's what's going on with me currently:

• I had my first conference call with my company's Research Advisory Committee last night, a committee I imagine I'll inherit as my own now that I'm Director of Research
• I submitted my first novel query to an agent earlier today and received a confirmation email that she got it
• I've been reading a ton and apparently am 5 books ahead of schedule on my Goodreads reading challenging: 38 books so far this year
• The research center I used to work for was not renewed, so they'll be shutting their doors in 14 months; I'm sad for my colleagues
• Today is my work anniversary: I've been at my current job 1 year! My boss emailed me about it this morning, along with this picture:

In Remembrance of Gene

Great Demonstration of Bayes' Theorem

Bayes' theorem is an excellent tool, once you wrap your head around it. In fact, it was discovered as sort of an accident that actually horrified Bayes (and others), and was highly controversial even into the 20th century - to the point that many statisticians eschewed inverse probability and, when they used it, did so in secret.

I've blogged about  and applied it several times:

• A background on Bayes' Theorem
• Prelude to What's Bayes' Got to Do With It?
• What's Bayes' Got to Do With It?
• Bayesian Inference in a Galaxy Far Away

And I highly recommend a couple books to learn more about Bayes': The Theory that Wouldn't Die and Doing Bayesian Analysis. But this morning, I read an excellent demonstration of Bayes' theorem - what is the probability the post's author is asleep given her bedroom light is on?

I have more than 2 months of data from my Garmin Vivosmart watch showing when I fall asleep and wake up. In a previous post, I figured out the probability I am asleep at a given time using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods.

This is the probability I am asleep taking into account only the time. What if we know the time and have additional evidence? How would knowing that my bedroom light is on change the probability that I am asleep?

We will walk through applying the equation for a time of 10:30 PM if we know my light is on. First, we calculate the prior probability I am asleep using the time and get an answer of 73.90%. The prior provides a good starting point for our estimate, but we can improve it by incorporating info about my light. Knowing that my light is on, we can fill in Bayes’ Equation with the relevant numbers

The knowledge that my light is on drastically changes our estimate of the probability I am asleep from over 70% to 3.42%. This shows the power of Bayes’ Rule: we were able to update our initial estimate for the situation by incorporating more information. While we might have intuitively done this anyway, thinking about it in terms of formal equations allows us to update our beliefs in a rigorous manner.

She's shared her code for these calculations in a Jupyter Notebook, which you check out here.

Statistics Sunday: Mixed Effects Meta-Analysis

As promised, how to conduct mixed effects meta-analysis in R:

Code used in the video is available here. And I'd recommend the following posts to provide background for this video:

• What is meta-analysis?
• Introduction to effect sizes
• Variance and weights in meta-analysis
• Video on conducting fixed and random effects meta-analysis in R
• And the homepage for the metafor package

Lots Going On

So much going on right now that I haven't had much time for blogging.

• I'm almost completely transitioned from my old department, Exam Development, to my new one, Research, of which I am Director and currently the only employee. But my first direct report will be coming on soon! We also have a newly hired Director of Exam Development, and we've already started chatting about some Research-Exam Development collaborative projects.
• I'm preparing for multiple content validation studies, including one for a brand new certification we'll be offering. So I've been reviewing blueprints for similar exams, curriculum for related programs, and job descriptions from across the US to help build potential topics for the exam, to be reviewed by our expert panel.
• I've been participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, which happens in April and July, and allows you to set whatever word/page/time/etc. goals you'd like for your manuscript or project. My goal is to finish the novel I wrote for 2016 NaNoWriMo, so I'm spending most of the month editing as well as writing toward a goal of 8,000 additional words.
• Also related to my book, I got some feedback from an agent that I need to play up the mystery aspect of my book, and try to think of some comparative titles and/or authors - that is, "If you liked X, you'll like my book." So in addition to doing a lot writing, I'm doing a lot of reading, looking for some good comparative works. I've asked a few friends to read some chapters and see if they come up with something as well.
• I started recording the promised Mixed-Effects Meta-Analysis video earlier this week, but when I listened to what I recorded, you can clearly hear my neighbors shooting off fireworks in the background. So I need to re-record that part and record the rest. Hopefully this weekend.

Bonus writing-related pic, just for fun: I found a book title generator online, and this is the result I got for Mystery:

That's all for now! Hopefully back to regular blogging soon!