Publications by Francis Smart
Base R Assessment!
Test your skills with this R-powered R assessment of base R knowledge! Built using the R powered adaptive testing platform Concerto, this assessment provides a short but powerful tool at evaluating your base R understanding relative to that of your peers.Currently the assessment has over seventy items (questions) in the pool while each individua...
943 sym 2 img 1 tbl
Flip a fair coin 4x. Probability of H following H is 40%???
A recent working paper has come out arguing for the existence of Hot Hands (in basketball), a concept psychologists had dismissed decades ago. Hot hands is where a player is thought to have a higher likelihood of scoring the next basket if the last three baskets where shot successfully. (In NBA Jam, that is when you hands caught on fire).The firs...
7423 sym R (3881 sym/3 pcs) 6 img
Flip a fair coin 4x. Probability of H following H is 40%???
A recent working paper has come out arguing for the existence of Hot Hands (in basketball), a concept psychologists had dismissed decades ago. Hot hands is where a player is thought to have a higher likelihood of scoring the next basket if the last three baskets where shot successfully. (In NBA Jam, that is when you hands caught on fire).The firs...
6535 sym R (4818 sym/3 pcs) 6 img
Debunking Magical 9s – Numerology or Numerical Illiteracy?
The other day one of my friends on facebook posted this video about the mystical nature of the number 9. Being a skeptical of all things hokey, I decided to experiment with numbers to see how special 9 really is.There are four claims made in the video about the magic of nine.1. Partition a circle as many times and its digits add up to nine2. Add ...
6899 sym R (4237 sym/8 pcs)
Debunking Magical 9s – Numerology or Numerical Illiteracy?
The other day one of my friends on facebook posted this video about the mystical nature of the number 9. Being a skeptical of all think hokey, I decided to experiment with numbers to see how special 9 really is.There are four claims made in the video about the magic of nine.1. Partition a circle as many times and its digits add up to nine2. Add t...
6897 sym R (4237 sym/8 pcs)
Diagnosing the Multilevel Marketting Trap: How MLM Survives Only through New Entrants
Over the years I have been amazed by how many friends of mine who seem otherwise very intelligent have gotten involved in Multilevel Marketing (MLM).And, as most people who have been involved with these organizations, all of my friends involved in these organization have ended up after many hours and sometimes years of effort with less return for...
11684 sym 26 img
Diagnosing the Multilevel Marketting Trap: How MLM Survives Only through New Entrants
Over the years I have been amazed by how many friends of mine who seem otherwise very intelligent have gotten involved in Multilevel Marketing (MLM).And, as most people who have been involved with these organizations, all of my friends involved in these organization have ended up after many hours and sometimes years of effort with less return for...
11684 sym 26 img
The Traveling Vampire Problem
Let’s say you are a vampire and you would like to figure out the shortest route to visit the supplenecks of N maidens. But, there is only so much time in any night!You can fly from location to location, ignoring barriers.With a few maidens, the problem is trivial.However, as you entice more and more maidens you find the task of route management...
2910 sym 8 img 3 tbl
The Traveling Vampire Problem
Let’s say you are a vampire and you would like to figure out the shortest route to visit the supplenecks of N maidens. But, there is only so much time in any night!You can fly from location to location, ignoring barriers.With a few maidens, the problem is trivial.However, as you entice more and more maidens you find the task of route management...
2910 sym 8 img 3 tbl
What it means to be a US Veteran Today
Six easy graphs that tell a big story:1. You represent a much small portion of the American people than veterans in the 1980s. The different lines represent different income quantiles with the 1st being the lowest income and the 4th being the highest income. We can see that veterans formerly had the highest representation among the top quartile. ...
2394 sym 12 img