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Continuing my mystery streak, I just read Devil in a Blue Dress which was very good for what it is (noir), longer review here.
I also read The Lady Tasting Tea, a history of the way statistics has affected society and vice versa. It was an interesting topic not quite as well written about as I would have liked: the author is a statistician, which means he has a personal connection with and understands his story, but it was a bit clunky and unclear in parts. I would have preferred either less wordy explanations or more maths, as it was he gave just enough information that I felt like I should understand what he was saying on a deeper level, but not enough that I actually could (there was not one single equation. Yes, that is a bad thing! To me, anyway :)). I may have to go and read an actual stats textbook now(*).
(*)Further evidence of what a bad influence![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sanguinity is on me.
I also read The Lady Tasting Tea, a history of the way statistics has affected society and vice versa. It was an interesting topic not quite as well written about as I would have liked: the author is a statistician, which means he has a personal connection with and understands his story, but it was a bit clunky and unclear in parts. I would have preferred either less wordy explanations or more maths, as it was he gave just enough information that I felt like I should understand what he was saying on a deeper level, but not enough that I actually could (there was not one single equation. Yes, that is a bad thing! To me, anyway :)). I may have to go and read an actual stats textbook now(*).
(*)Further evidence of what a bad influence
sanguinity is on me.
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What do you think of Devil in a Blue Dress for people who aren't primarily mystery readers? I thought your review was interesting, but I'm not generally a mystery sort of person myself.
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So, has my recs-credibility net gone up or down, now that you've read the recs?
Re the lack of equations, etc. -- yeah, I can see that. I read it after having had a year of mathematical stats (as opposed to applied stats) under my belt, and so I might very well have misjudged how accessible it was. "Oo, that's a good summary of that idea!" was the sort of thing I thought, which is nice if you know the idea, but doesn't say how useful it's going to be if you don't know it.
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Exactly! I could have been..uh..writing fanfic! Or gardening!
Your recs-cred is pretty high. I'm currently reading "Stuffed and Starved" which is slow going just because I keep stopping to think about it.
I think the problem was that I'm used to more advanced pure maths with lots of equations while simultaneously knowing very little about stats in particular :)
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What do you think of Devil in a Blue Dress for people who aren't primarily mystery readers? I thought your review was interesting, but I'm not generally a mystery sort of person myself.
no subject
So, has my recs-credibility net gone up or down, now that you've read the recs?
Re the lack of equations, etc. -- yeah, I can see that. I read it after having had a year of mathematical stats (as opposed to applied stats) under my belt, and so I might very well have misjudged how accessible it was. "Oo, that's a good summary of that idea!" was the sort of thing I thought, which is nice if you know the idea, but doesn't say how useful it's going to be if you don't know it.
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Exactly! I could have been..uh..writing fanfic! Or gardening!
Your recs-cred is pretty high. I'm currently reading "Stuffed and Starved" which is slow going just because I keep stopping to think about it.
I think the problem was that I'm used to more advanced pure maths with lots of equations while simultaneously knowing very little about stats in particular :)