Some people like to do crossword puzzles. I like to do machine learning puzzles. Lucky for me, a new contest was just posted yesterday on Kaggle. So naturally, my lazy Saturday was spent getting elbow deep into the data. The training set consists of a series of ‘skies’, each containing ... [Read more...]

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By Yanchang zhao, RDataMining.com Building prediction/classification models is one of the most widely-seen data mining tasks in business applications. To share experience on building prediction models with R, I have started a discussion at RDataMining group on LinkedIn with the … Continue reading → [Read more...]

One incredibly popular tool for the analysis of high-dimensional data is the lasso. The lasso is commonly used in cases when you have many more predictors than independent samples (the n « p) problem. It is also often used in the context of predictio... [Read more...]

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If a particular prediction comes true, how surprised should we be? The prediction The page that sparked my curiosity tells of a prediction made a year ago that the S&P 500 would beat its historic high by the end of 2011.  It says that at the point the prediction was made, ... [Read more...]

What’s a “Friday fun project”? It’s a small computing project, perfect for a Friday afternoon, which serves the dual purpose of (1) keeping your programming/data analysis skills sharp and (2) providing a mental break from the grind of your day job. Ideally, the skills learned on the project are ... [Read more...]

As Mark Twain said "the art of prophecy is very difficult, especially about the future" (well, actually I am not sure Mark Twain was the  first one to say so, but if you're interested by that sentence, you can look here). I have been rather su... [Read more...]

PROS ARE NOT GETTING BETTER AT FREE THROWS Rick Larrick recently told Decision Science News that baseball players have been getting better over the years in a couple ways. First, home runs and strikeouts have increased. The careless or clueless reader might note that this is curious, for from the ... [Read more...]

In baseball, what are the chances the winner will win again against the same opponent the very next day? [Read more...]