A headline on Yahoo! Finance reads:
American families spent 16% more on college this year
Just what does it mean?
Did all the families who spent money on college last year spend 16% more this year?
Or:
Did 16% more families spend money on college this year?
The article does mention that tuition only rose about 2%, and it does mention that some families are spending more because they can afford to.
So, the short answer is that more analysis is needed and that headline writers have to be careful of their wording. Good journalism is factual, not sensational.
Showing posts with label statistics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label statistics. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2015
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Ten years of posting
Yesterday I got a “gold star” from Google AdSense for having a web site for ten years. I have been posting to this blog for eight years. I haven’t got rich from either and I don’t have a large or medium following. I can’t even get my family to visit my blog regularly:( But it has been fun posting my thoughts and observations; and once in a while somebody tells me they liked a posting.
For various reasons, I am winding down my website, http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree. My goodness! It has been over five years since I updated the home page. One reason is that I am limited to 200 pages; another is that the tools for posting on Google Blogger are a lot simpler to use.
For the Irregular Blog, you might find some of the statistics interesting:
Total posts - 2158 with this post
Top ten posts by pageviews
235 2012-04-17 Добро пожаловать в мой русский посетителей
197 2012-12-20 Mike Peters' "Twelve Days of Christmas" puns for 2...
90 2012-08-28 Can't corporations live within their means?
84 2012-04-19 The kleptocracy of corporate boards
76 2011-12-22 For word nerds only
73 2013-01-17 A clever but off-the-mark sign
70 2012-05-24 Why facebook's stock price went down after the IPO...
60 2012-11-25 Free market and the Internet
56 2012-02-10 Extremism continues on the Unfair campaign
53 2013-04-10 Why snail research is important
What does the most viewed post mean and how come it is the most viewed? It is Russian for “Welcome to my Russian visitors” and it because I have a suspiciously large number of page views from Russia. I suspect that these are reverse spammers who hope that I will track them down and make a click on their sites. They are wasting their time and mine.
Page views since beginning
34260 Russia
32684 United States
2196 Germany
1752 France
1194 Ukraine
1072 United Kingdom
1013 China
674 Netherlands
417 Latvia
350 Turkey
and many other countries large and small.
Search keywords
125 magree.blogspot.com
69 first minority president
56 mother goose and grimm 12 days of Christmas
55 hyperbolic humor
15 facebog
14 bluestone commons duluth mn
12 corporate entitlements
12 glen post net worth
12 unfair campaign
9 bluestone commons duluth
If you got to the end of this post, thank you! If you like what you read on this blog, please tell your friends. Otherwise, thanks for visiting.
For various reasons, I am winding down my website, http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree. My goodness! It has been over five years since I updated the home page. One reason is that I am limited to 200 pages; another is that the tools for posting on Google Blogger are a lot simpler to use.
For the Irregular Blog, you might find some of the statistics interesting:
Total posts - 2158 with this post
Top ten posts by pageviews
235 2012-04-17 Добро пожаловать в мой русский посетителей
197 2012-12-20 Mike Peters' "Twelve Days of Christmas" puns for 2...
90 2012-08-28 Can't corporations live within their means?
84 2012-04-19 The kleptocracy of corporate boards
76 2011-12-22 For word nerds only
73 2013-01-17 A clever but off-the-mark sign
70 2012-05-24 Why facebook's stock price went down after the IPO...
60 2012-11-25 Free market and the Internet
56 2012-02-10 Extremism continues on the Unfair campaign
53 2013-04-10 Why snail research is important
What does the most viewed post mean and how come it is the most viewed? It is Russian for “Welcome to my Russian visitors” and it because I have a suspiciously large number of page views from Russia. I suspect that these are reverse spammers who hope that I will track them down and make a click on their sites. They are wasting their time and mine.
Page views since beginning
34260 Russia
32684 United States
2196 Germany
1752 France
1194 Ukraine
1072 United Kingdom
1013 China
674 Netherlands
417 Latvia
350 Turkey
and many other countries large and small.
Search keywords
125 magree.blogspot.com
69 first minority president
56 mother goose and grimm 12 days of Christmas
55 hyperbolic humor
15 facebog
14 bluestone commons duluth mn
12 corporate entitlements
12 glen post net worth
12 unfair campaign
9 bluestone commons duluth
If you got to the end of this post, thank you! If you like what you read on this blog, please tell your friends. Otherwise, thanks for visiting.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
If you are a live person reading this…
If you are a live person, I'd like to have you counted as a live reader rather than a reverse spammer.
To be counted as a live reader, would you please access this blog from a Google search for "magree.blogspot.com"? When you do the search, please use your local Google search, besides google.com for the US, there include
google.ru
google.cn
google.co.uk
and many others.
I just did a search for magree.blogspot.com from google.cn. Although my access was recorded as from the U.S., the reference was from google.com.hk (Hong Kong).
Thanks, Mel
To be counted as a live reader, would you please access this blog from a Google search for "magree.blogspot.com"? When you do the search, please use your local Google search, besides google.com for the US, there include
google.ru
google.cn
google.co.uk
and many others.
I just did a search for magree.blogspot.com from google.cn. Although my access was recorded as from the U.S., the reference was from google.com.hk (Hong Kong).
Thanks, Mel
Saturday, July 20, 2013
My followers increase by 25%!
I had a major increase in the followers of this blog this weekend. My followers went from four to five! Thank you to the newcomer and the other four. I hope you find something interesting here often.
Hey, Roger! Are you still a follower or was that a one-time thing as you showed off your iPhone?
This "dramatic" increase of followers reminds me of a mathematical joke another friend told. A car dealership says its sales increased 50% from the previous month. My friend then asked if that was from two cars last month to three cars this month.
Leon, do you remember telling this joke over forty years ago? If so, drop me a line.
Hey, Roger! Are you still a follower or was that a one-time thing as you showed off your iPhone?
This "dramatic" increase of followers reminds me of a mathematical joke another friend told. A car dealership says its sales increased 50% from the previous month. My friend then asked if that was from two cars last month to three cars this month.
Leon, do you remember telling this joke over forty years ago? If so, drop me a line.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Readership is dropping, this might be good
Over the last few days, the number of page views of this blog have dropped considerably.
That might be a good thing!
Possibly the majority of page views are by reverse spammers, especially from Russia. Although I have not been posting as much as I like, I would think the amount of reverse spam would not drop. However, the number of Russian page views has dropped by a half, and the page views from known reverse spammers has also dropped.
As I am working a big genealogical project and doing more reading of novels, it might be awhile before I write as frequently as before.
I do thank my real, live viewers. I may have some items soon from my long list of "Unpublished ideas".
That might be a good thing!
Possibly the majority of page views are by reverse spammers, especially from Russia. Although I have not been posting as much as I like, I would think the amount of reverse spam would not drop. However, the number of Russian page views has dropped by a half, and the page views from known reverse spammers has also dropped.
As I am working a big genealogical project and doing more reading of novels, it might be awhile before I write as frequently as before.
I do thank my real, live viewers. I may have some items soon from my long list of "Unpublished ideas".
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
The strange behavior of Google search
The statistics for this blog include search words used to find an entry. Every so often I follow up on these search words to see where Google had ranked my entries.
"why read is irregular" had nearly 19 million hits and "Why read?" is at the top!
"toast anachronism" had about of 3.5 million hits and "French toast – an anachronism in a classic of French literature" is also at the top!
Has Google changed its algorithms to be give more personal results? That is, do these show at the top because my name is in them? Or did I really have blog entries that were more appropriate to the query? I could believe this with a find of a couple of dozen, but not millions.
"why read is irregular" had nearly 19 million hits and "Why read?" is at the top!
"toast anachronism" had about of 3.5 million hits and "French toast – an anachronism in a classic of French literature" is also at the top!
Has Google changed its algorithms to be give more personal results? That is, do these show at the top because my name is in them? Or did I really have blog entries that were more appropriate to the query? I could believe this with a find of a couple of dozen, but not millions.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Merci pour votre interesse
Le rapport de Feedburner de Google pour aujourd'hui m'a dit qu'il y avait 36 vues de mon blog hier de France. Souvent la plupart de vues est des États Unies. Hier il y avait seulement quatre des États Unies.
Christian ou Birahim, c'est vous?
For those who don't read French, I intended to write:
Today's Google Feedburner report said that there were 36 views of my blog yesterday from France. Often the majority of views are from the United States. Yesterday there were only four views from the United States.
Christian ou Birahim, c'est vous?
For those who don't read French, I intended to write:
Today's Google Feedburner report said that there were 36 views of my blog yesterday from France. Often the majority of views are from the United States. Yesterday there were only four views from the United States.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
An interesting reference to this blog
Among the statistics I receive about this blog are the search words used to find it. One recent one was "tundra lingon och chili"; "och" is Swedish for "and". Whoever used it must have gone through many search items; I couldn't find this blog in the first fifty entries when I used the search terms in quotes. I tried just the words without the quotes and found it - "You really are good at foreign languages".
It's interesting that the searcher used a Russian word, a Swedish word, and a Spanish word.
It's interesting that the searcher used a Russian word, a Swedish word, and a Spanish word.
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Nuclear plants and childhood leukemia, a tenuous link
A new French study has shown that incidents of childhood leukemia are twice as high within 5 km of nuclear plants. See "Child leukemia doubles near French nuclear plants", Reuters, 2012-01-12. Hoo boy! Maybe we can get the damn things shut down!
But, wait a minute! We're still talking about some very small number of cases. Fourteen! 14! Similar studies have found no significant radiation increases near nuclear plants. Could there be another explanation?
"German study finds nuclear energy causes leukemia… or maybe not…" suggests that nuclear plants are in industrial areas, some of which have had severe pollution from other sources, like munition plants. Second, poorer people tend to live near these areas and for a variety of reasons tend to have more health issues, for example, more parents who smoke.
I checked Google for "smoking leukemia" and was given over six million items. Here's one from an "unimpeachable" source - "Kids' Leukemia Risk Tied to Dad's Smoking", Fox News, 2011-12-15 (actually from Reuters). The risk is given as 15 percent higher if the father smokes. The sample size was 400 for children with leukemia and 800 for children without.
I think these cases show that people shouldn't leap to alarmist positions nor should they be quick to dismiss indications of a problem. Unfortunately, our political climate leads to uncritical acceptance of one position or the other.
But, wait a minute! We're still talking about some very small number of cases. Fourteen! 14! Similar studies have found no significant radiation increases near nuclear plants. Could there be another explanation?
"German study finds nuclear energy causes leukemia… or maybe not…" suggests that nuclear plants are in industrial areas, some of which have had severe pollution from other sources, like munition plants. Second, poorer people tend to live near these areas and for a variety of reasons tend to have more health issues, for example, more parents who smoke.
I checked Google for "smoking leukemia" and was given over six million items. Here's one from an "unimpeachable" source - "Kids' Leukemia Risk Tied to Dad's Smoking", Fox News, 2011-12-15 (actually from Reuters). The risk is given as 15 percent higher if the father smokes. The sample size was 400 for children with leukemia and 800 for children without.
I think these cases show that people shouldn't leap to alarmist positions nor should they be quick to dismiss indications of a problem. Unfortunately, our political climate leads to uncritical acceptance of one position or the other.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Misuse of statistics?
Stephen J. Schroeder-Davis wrote a generally good article about "gifted students" being "left behind", "Federal rules leave gifted kids behind", but I have a few bones to pick.
He wrote:
"There are no provisions in NCLB to support gifted students, and these student receive less than 3 cents of every $100 in federal education dollars."
First, are federal dollars the only available money for education? I hope not.
Second, does every student need the same amount of resources to get a good education? For example, advanced students can often be given an assignment and go off by themselves to do it. I would hope that teachers would still be available to answer questions. On the other hand, "average" students would need more attention and help. "Slow" students might need one-on-one assistance.
Third, he assumes that all students should make the same amount of progress throughout their education. He cites a study that low achieving students "were progressing in reading at five times the rate of high-achieving students". Is progress in reading unlimited? If the low-achieving students move from 100 words per minute to 500 wpm, does it follow that the high-achieving students should move from 800 wpm to more than 4000 wpm? Few schools have ever been equipped to teach the techniques to read at that rate.
Fourth, we overuse the word "gifted". Advanced students may have very supportive parents who encourage them to learn. OK, good parents are a "gift". These advanced students may have worked harder earlier and have a good base to learn at faster rates later. Sort of the more you learn, the easier it is to learn more.
I do agree with the author that advanced students could be given many more opportunities to learn as much as they can. It is no fun to sit in a high-school class with people who stumble over book reports. We have cut off many classes that not only would give advanced students more opportunities for learning, but that would give many other students opportunities to expand their interests and abilities. In the interest of low taxes we have considered libraries, foreign languages, music, arts, and other creative subjects as frills. These have been touted by many as keeping young minds more active and receptive to other learning experiences.
Oh, well! I guess we get what we pay for.
He wrote:
"There are no provisions in NCLB to support gifted students, and these student receive less than 3 cents of every $100 in federal education dollars."
First, are federal dollars the only available money for education? I hope not.
Second, does every student need the same amount of resources to get a good education? For example, advanced students can often be given an assignment and go off by themselves to do it. I would hope that teachers would still be available to answer questions. On the other hand, "average" students would need more attention and help. "Slow" students might need one-on-one assistance.
Third, he assumes that all students should make the same amount of progress throughout their education. He cites a study that low achieving students "were progressing in reading at five times the rate of high-achieving students". Is progress in reading unlimited? If the low-achieving students move from 100 words per minute to 500 wpm, does it follow that the high-achieving students should move from 800 wpm to more than 4000 wpm? Few schools have ever been equipped to teach the techniques to read at that rate.
Fourth, we overuse the word "gifted". Advanced students may have very supportive parents who encourage them to learn. OK, good parents are a "gift". These advanced students may have worked harder earlier and have a good base to learn at faster rates later. Sort of the more you learn, the easier it is to learn more.
I do agree with the author that advanced students could be given many more opportunities to learn as much as they can. It is no fun to sit in a high-school class with people who stumble over book reports. We have cut off many classes that not only would give advanced students more opportunities for learning, but that would give many other students opportunities to expand their interests and abilities. In the interest of low taxes we have considered libraries, foreign languages, music, arts, and other creative subjects as frills. These have been touted by many as keeping young minds more active and receptive to other learning experiences.
Oh, well! I guess we get what we pay for.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Trying to keep up with Iranian events
I've found that even if you thought you had read an article, it may have changed since you last read it. I found this to be true with "Ahmadinejad Re-Elected: Protests Flare", New York Times, 2009-06-13 or is it 2009-06-14? The New York Times already has the URL datelined for the Sunday edition.
One of the new to me things I found in edition I read shortly after 1600 was that many moderate clerics supported Moussavi. Many of these apparently think Ahmadinejad is a disgrace to Iran.
Also as you read more, you get certain information refined. Andrew Sullivan gives a more refined chart of the "straight-line" "results" of the Iranian election. See "The Results as They Came In", The Daily Dish. The web page I mentioned in "A winning election formula - Iranian style" used only four data points. The one that Sullivan used has six data points. Still the correlation of the reported data to the formula is still way to close to one for a person to believe the results weren't manufactured. Think how vote totals swing during U.S. elections.
One of the new to me things I found in edition I read shortly after 1600 was that many moderate clerics supported Moussavi. Many of these apparently think Ahmadinejad is a disgrace to Iran.
Also as you read more, you get certain information refined. Andrew Sullivan gives a more refined chart of the "straight-line" "results" of the Iranian election. See "The Results as They Came In", The Daily Dish. The web page I mentioned in "A winning election formula - Iranian style" used only four data points. The one that Sullivan used has six data points. Still the correlation of the reported data to the formula is still way to close to one for a person to believe the results weren't manufactured. Think how vote totals swing during U.S. elections.
A winning election formula - Iranian style
Remember how we used to be glued to our radios or TVs when some major awe-inspiring event occurred. We just had to get the latest development as soon as it was broadcast. Now here I sit glued to my computer picking up minute-by-minute developments in Iran. One advantage the web has over other media is the greater variety of sources.
One of the very interesting item is that one person has determined the formula for the Iranian vote results
Mousavi = 0.5238xAhmadinejad - 742642
It's bad enough that the vote tallies matched this formula at least four different points, but Mousavi started out with a negative vote of nearly 3/4 million before Ahmadinejad had any votes!
For more details, see "Faulty Election Data", Tehran Bureau, by MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 13 June 2009
One of the very interesting item is that one person has determined the formula for the Iranian vote results
Mousavi = 0.5238xAhmadinejad - 742642
It's bad enough that the vote tallies matched this formula at least four different points, but Mousavi started out with a negative vote of nearly 3/4 million before Ahmadinejad had any votes!
For more details, see "Faulty Election Data", Tehran Bureau, by MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 13 June 2009
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