A blog post is the least I could do for two child friends of mine, Constantine and Marios Magdalinos from Thassos, who formed a London based alternative rock band called Uncaused Creation. UC recently released their debut album which you can listen to on myspace. Anticipation is IMHO one of their most beautiful and touchy songs (song and lyrics below).
ANTICIPATION
I want to let you know
I’m feeling low
I’ve got to let you know
My patience started to break
Behind your easy words
You built a wall
Before you’ll ever think
You’ll find yourself in a cage
Alone you stand here and wait
For life will turn out your way but,
You pray inside for a change
I’ve got to let you know
I see you fall
Soon it will be too late
To take those weights off your head
Inside your little world
Your hear a voice
Someone is telling you
That you’ll be the king of your race
Alone you anticipate
For life will turn out your way but,
You pray inside for a change
Back from a short visit to Barcelona where I’ve been for a “Correspondence Analysis in R” workshop with Michael Greenacre and Oleg Nenadić. Even though we’ve been busy with R programming and stuff, we still managed to see some of the city and visit Gaudi’s Park Güell, Casa Milà and Sagrada Família.
Ευχαριστώ πολύ Michael for your kind invitation and your hospitality.
Guitarras Nocturnas is a street group born in Buenos Aires and Barcelona, improvising around charming melodies.
The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics asked its employees to craft poems to celebrate an anniversary [via Reuters Blogs]. Particularly liked these lines by Yu Jiao:
In the Sea of Numbers
No beautiful languages
But endless calls day after day
No flowers or applause
But doubts and suspicion from others
No melting sceneries
But a bunch of dry numbers flowing
…
Statistical Poetry can be amusing and fun, yet thoughtful. I recall the feeling of joy I got at listening Michael Greenacre’sSummertime (mp3):
Summertime
It’s summertime,
Statistical modelling is easy,
Data are fitting,
Explained variance is high.
Your data are rich,
And your model’s good-looking,
So hush, statisticians, don’t you cry
With a little google search it’s easy to discover that there’s a good tradition of Statistical Songs. Take, for example, Brad Carlin’s, Mark Glickman’s and Johannes Schult’s compositions and parodies. Some of these songs convey messages as well, such as the faith of their composers in a particular theory. Come take a taste of the Bayesian Believer:
Bayesian Believer
(The Monkees – I’m a Believer)
I thought inference was just a fairy tale,
Confused by stats and probability,
Frequentist approaches (doo-doot doo-doot)
made no sense to me (doo-doot doo-doot)
Summarizing evidence by p!
Then I saw Tom Bayes — Now I’m a believer,
Without a trace — of doubt in my mind,
[I'm a] Bayesian (ooooh) — Oh, I’m a believer –
I couldn’t p now if I tried!
…
