[geeks] Ok I am ready to kill this Fu**ing linux box

[Kurt Huhn]

> Simple statistics (mean, stdev, etc) can be easily skewed.  Confidence
> intervals and hypothesis tests are methods for dealing with that skewing.
> True, they too can be skewed, but my understanding is that the odds of
> it happening are pretty astronomical, unless someone is intentionally
> trying to  screw them up.
> 

That's what I mean - in highschool I was introduced to probablity and
statics as a measure of picking any given colored marble out of a bucket
of [x] marbles.  Over simplified, yes, but I was pretty good at it. One
of the few classes that got an 'A' in.  In real-life, things are rarely
that simple.

That (intentional skewing) is what I find to be normal in real life. 
Whenever statics are mentioned, it seems to me, that the person
presenting (or paying for) the statistical analysis has a vested
interest in the end result.  That's why I usually ignore them...

-- 
Kurt
kurt at k-huhn.com