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US Economic Outlook 2025
With the 2024 election in the rear view mirror, we have a better picture of what policy for the next few years is going to look like. As such, we have a better idea on what to expect from the US economy over the next few years. That has largely colored my analysis this year.…
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The Central Limit Theorem
The central limit theorem is probably the most important result in all of statistical theory. In fact, the central limit theorem makes statistics possible. It is one of those mathematical results that seem counter intuitive. Yet, if you understand it in a deep way, it kind of seems so obvious. What does the central limit…
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5 Ways to Spot a Toxic Data Culture
There are tons of ways that your organization’s data culture could turn toxic. This is a list of that won’t tell you the ways that your organization’s culture could go off the wagon, rather it is a list of the big things to watch out for. You can tell this in an interview, or you…
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Empirical Bayes By Hand And In Python
So I’m writing this little post about Empirical Bayes and how you can use it to build risk scores in python. This is a topic that is very useful for a number of disciplines. I tend to use it to look for abnormalities with incentive programs at a financial institution, but you can apply it…
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Maximum Likelihood Estimation in Python
This post is really about how maximum likelihood works. Most of statistics works on this principle including ARIMA models that I describe here. What is Maximum Likelihood Estimation? So your first thought is probably, what is maximum likelihood estimation? Well, that is a good question, and if I am honest, even though I took plenty…
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Value at Risk (VaR) to Determine Emergency Fund Size
The idea here is that by doing good bookkeeping you have good data that you can use to analyze your financial life. Specifically, we look at how big your emergency fund ought to be.
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Why I’m Not Going To Take the Corona Virus Vaccine And You Shouldn’t Either!
As it is still 2020, and the COVID-19 Pandemic is still raging as I type this I wanted to write an article, there is much talk about looking for a vaccine. Let me put my click-baity title to rest right off the bat. I think that we should develop a vaccine, and that I, personally,…
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Double-Entry Accrual Accounting for Personal Finance
So I started to put together my family’s finances recently. I thought about using some fintech solution. Ultimately, in my data nerdliness, I landed on using double-entry accrual accounting principles to look at my finances through. At first, I thought to myself, “I should use some fintech account aggregator”; but then I thought, “Wait, they…
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The 7 Most Common Discrete Probability Distributions
Anyone who has taken a slightly rigorous statistics class will have bumped into these probability distributions before. What I want to focus on is giving an overview of each of these probability distributions, when they are useful, and what you can do with them with some real life examples. This post is meant to be…
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4 Data Strategies for Companies in a Post-Covid World
Covid-19 has really shaped our world in ways that I wouldn’t have expected just 6 months ago, which feels like a lifetime ago. I personally have been hiding out my garage for the past few months. Time seems to have both sped up and slowed down simultaneously. Covid-19 has changed the landscape for data professionals…
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3 Changes due to Corona Virus For Data Professionals
I love being a data professional. I mean, my job is to literally look at the data and figure stuff out. I’m supposed to come up with cool insights. I also get to tell the story of how a business functions. It is a very awesome job, with awesome things to do. But corona virus…
