Jean-Thomas Baillargeon

7 minutes read

This is probably going to sound cliché and trivial but I just realized that I learned how to use a computer before learning to use a pen. I launched my favourite game on a MS/DOS terminal a few years before writing my name on paper.

Stein's paradox and batting averages

A simple explanation of Stein's paradox through the famous baseball example of Efron and Morris

Samuel Perreault

9 minutes read

There is nothing from my first stats course that I remember more clearly than Prof. Asgharian repeating “I have seen what I should have seen” to describe the idea behind maximum likelihood theory. Given a family of models, maximum likelihood estimation consists of finding which values of the parameters maximize the probability of observing the dataset we have observed. This idea, popularized in part by Sir Ronald A. Fisher, profoundly changed the field of statistics at a time when…


8 minutes read

For any die-hard hockey fan, September 13th will be remembered as the day Erik Karlsson was traded by the Sens, and not without controversy, as it seems Ottawa got less for Karlsson than they gave to acquire Duchene earlier this year. It turns out that the 4th Annual Ottawa International Hockey Analytics Conference (OTTHAC18), again held at Carleton University, was scheduled on the following weekend (September 14th and 15th, 2018). We couldn’t get there for the workshop and activities of…

The grammar of graphics

The art of communicating with graphics

Stéphane Caron

10 minutes read

Data science is a growing field that regroups talented and passionate people who generally show remarkable technical skills and outstanding ease to solve problems. However, from my personnal experience, one particular skill is often undervalued: Communication. In data science, as in many other fields, graphical vizualisation is an important tool that helps to simplify and clearly communicate results to others. For that reason, it’s crucial to master this set of skills. Just like any other…