It's a numbers game

Today, I spent the longest consecutive number of hours thus far on campus. I may in all likelihood break that record at some point, but for now, 11 hours sits atop the perch. As a result, you'd be wise for betting that what I learned today had something to do with my course content.

So often, I've heard people complain about the ball-ache that is any statistics-related subject they're required to complete during the course of a university degree. Whether it comes from a lack of natural aptitude for maths and numbers, or whether it's just that the nature of how the study of stats specifically approaches numbers is the cause of such disdain I can only speculate.

For me, I love numbers. They don't lie. Provided, that is, you're using them correctly, and where stats are concerned, there's a lot that goes into understanding what to do with your numbers. Being a sports-nut, I've also always enjoyed statistics, and just what it is that numbers can tell you about a particular sport, match, team or player. See previous posts about Moneyball or the Science of Sport if you needed any further proof. Even though my own particular stats relating to my golf came are the root cause for much of my depression, I still love that they exist. For example, did you know that so far in 2019, I've made 79 double-bogeys or worse, compared to only 17 birdies? I know - fuck me, right? But I digress...

Today, we explored probabilities, and how to calculate them given different available data. At first, I really had to ignore the NHL game streaming on my laptop to make heads-or-tails of the numbers in front of me. Fortunately, Columbus were dishing out a much-needed beating on Vancouver, so it wasn't hard to divert my attention, albeit temporarily.

I'm pretty fried right now, probably due to the aforementioned 11-hour immersion in statistics, so I don't quite have the capacity to elaborate or give an impromptu tutorial on exactly how you calculate the probability of A given B, so just be happy for me that I learned it. How does that sound?

Goodnight.