Publications by dan
Follow-up: So … daylight savings time does not minimize variance in sunrises
NOT SURE WHY DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS WHEN IT IS Last week we posted a nice theory about daylight savings time, in particular, that its dates were chosen to reduce variance in the time of sunrise. It looked plausible from the graph. We were talking to our Microsoft Research colleague Jake Hofman who suggested “why don’t you just find the opt...
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Microsoft Research NYC seeks quants and programmers for a postdoc in online social science
SEEKING MATHEMATICALLY & COMPUTATIONALLY SKILLED APPLICANTS Microsoft Research NYC seeks outstanding applicants with strong quantitative and programming skills for a postdoctoral researcher position in the area of online experimental social science. Deadline for Full Consideration: January 11, 2013 Online experimental social science involves usi...
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Even more Microsoft Postdocs
MACHINE LEARNING, COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE, ALGORITHMIC ECONOMICS, MARKET DESIGN AND MORE Last week, we let you know about the Microsoft Research Postdoc in online experimental social science. This week, we’re announcing four more postdocs! See below. Microsoft Research NYC [ http://research.microsoft.com/newyork/ ] seeks outstanding appli...
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Every NFL punt since 2002
ANALYSIS OF THE PUNTING DECISION BASED ON 11 YEARS OF PLAY-BY-PLAY DATA CLICK TO ENLARGE The site reddit told us about data on every single NFL (U.S. National Football League) play since 2002. We read it in and did an analysis of punting. The results are beautiful. North Americans metaphorically say they’re “going to punt” and people not f...
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Football geeks: your 10,705 field goals are ready
EVERY NFL FIELD GOAL SINCE 2002 Click to enlarge ADDENDUM: This Decision Science News post was covered by Bloomberg TV! We looked at NFL punts before on Decision Science News. That’s old news. Field goals are the new hotness and Super Bowl Sunday is coming up, so let’s look at a kicker’s chances. We’ve taken the same database and looke...
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Stadium / home team effects in making field goals
DOES IT MATTER WHERE IT IS KICKED? ANALYSIS OF OVER 10,000 ATTEMPTS Click to enlarge In our third of not one, not two, but three posts on kicking a football in the NFL, we take on a reader question of whether the stadium / home team matters for making a field goal. We pulled up the data on every field goal since 2002 (over 10,000) of them and pl...
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To pre-pay or not to pre-pay for gas when renting a car?
EVERYDAY RISKY CHOICE One question we get asked a lot is whether it’s worth it to pre-pay for the tank of gas when renting a car. At first, blush it seems like something you should never do. In the best case, you pay market rate for gas, and in the worst case, you pay for a tank of gas you never consume (what if your trip gets cancelled)? At s...
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1.5 percent of doctors, a quarter of malpratice reports
SOME DOCTORS GET MORE MALPRACTICE SUITS THAN OTHERS A month ago, we reported on a paper looking at complaints against doctors which found that 3% of doctors receive about half of the complaints. This prompted our friend Jim, who is a lawyer, and a good one, to email, “you want to look at real complaints, check this out, it’s got lawsuits aga...
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Which airline should you be loyal to?
LOYALTY PROGRAM CHOICE BASED ON DEPARTURE COUNT If you read Decision Science News, you’re probably a professor or grad student or researcher or policy type who flies around a lot to conferences, symposia, workshops, tutorials, summer schools, and all-hands meetings. You travel the globe to give talks and work with co-authors. All this flying a...
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Baseball: Probability of winning conditional on runs, hits, walks and errors
SIMPLY COUNTING OVER 44 YEARS OF DATA We have a father-in-law who likes baseball. Occasionally, he asks us to figure out things, which we are more than happy to do. The last request was to figure out: If a team scores X runs, what’s the probability it will win the game? Luckily, we had the data to solve this problem (as mentioned in past posts...
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