By Ian Morton. Ian worked in credit risk for big banks for a number of years. He learnt about how to (and how not to) build “good” statistical models in the form of scorecards using the SAS Language.

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If you look at the picture below (Pleiades constellation), you will see - with the naked eye - that many star systems appear to be binary: that is, involving two (or more) stars orbiting around each other.

Is this a coincidence, or can we prove that from a statistical point of view, based on the theory of stochastic point…

By anti-scam, I mean a scam where the victim makes more money by participating in the scam.

This scam works as follows:

• You send money to the data scientist - AKA the scammer - and he purchases lottery tickets with…

Read the original KDNuggets' report on data science graduate programs. The text below is an extract.…

When your grocery store bill is based on your profile...or another way for retail companies to optimize ROI via customized pricing (something all consultants, merchants and sales people have been doing for thousands of years, so it's not really new stuff)

 …

Eight members of…

R is now used by over 50% of data miners. R, Python, and SQL were the most popular programming languages. Python, Lisp/Clojure, and Unix tools showest…

To determine your premium. They check if you regularly purchase cheese burgers, cigarettes, alcohol etc.…

This chart was published in the Forbes magazine by Jon Bruner, and the data comes from the IRS tax stats tables.

Chart:…

Yet another article about the same issue (lack of talent) that has been dicussed at lengths over the last months, see http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304723304577365700368073674.html

Here's my…

Two university professors let the public take their artificial intelligence course online, for free. Then 160,000 students sihned up. Now the plan is to changer higher learning forever.…

I lived in California a while back, and have experienced a few instances where large companies headquartered e.g. in Minneapolis, were selling products in all their stores nationwide as if everybody in US had the same weather, seasons and body size.

In particular, some stores (maybe Target - I don't remember) that sell garden tables did not have any product available in late February, although late February in much of California is a great time to remodel your garden.

Also,…

ROME (AP) – Seven scientists and other experts have gone on trial on manslaughter charges for allegedly failing to sufficiently warn residents before a devastating 2009 earthquake that killed more than 300 people in central Italy.

The case is being closely watched by seismologists around the globe who insist it's impossible to predict earthquakes and dangerous to suggest otherwise, since seismologists will be discouraged from issuing any advice at all if they fear…

Opera Solutions, not to be confused with browser maker Opera Software, has raised a whopping $84 million in its very first round of outside equity funding. According to the Wall Street Journal, the round values the…

(Image via CrunchBase)

Global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. is transforming its use of analytics from a theoretical exercise into a real-time execution engine powered in part by tablet PCs and click-stream data  but primarily by the urgency of shifting business models for Lipitor and other products.

In a …

At least this is IEEE's viewpoint, if you read their recent article (front page) published in IEEE spectrum, September 2011. In a nutshell, they claim that hardware technology using Intel chips is better than software architecture to generate / simulate random numbers. See one of their prior articles at  …

With government killing business by requiring mandatory health care, mandatory sick days, and many other perks for employees (maybe salary indexation in the future), what do you think of a candidate who would say, during a job interview:

• I have never taken a sick day over the last 10 years. If I feel I could be contagious, I will call my manager and work from home - I was never sick to the point that I could not work efficiently. I will cost you $0 in sick days.
• I will…