Red Wheelbarrow

Super Crunchers

April 1st, 2008

There’s a 95% chance that Super Crunchers will increase my understanding of statistical analysis by 75%. I’m just saying I had to pick one class to sleep through in school, and math was a frequent victim. This book has some great examples of predictive uses for deep stat analysis and how it almost always seems to trump intuition. It’s a step up in knowledge for those of us not so statistically astute - or who thought we were, and need some schooling in that regard.

This book also has more uses of the term “Super Crunchers” than any other written work in human history. The writing led one to keep on reading, and it’s a rapid lesson on how to make use of big piles of data, but Ian Ayres sure loves that phrase. It might be explained by the plans by General Mills for Super Crunchers breakfast cereal. The shapes inside include percentage signs, marshmallow graphs, and strawberry standard deviations.

Entry Filed under: books