Book 2 - Episode 10: "Ballpark Figures Part II"

10/23/20 • 123 min

A Million Little Gods

Continuing the theme from Episode 9, we closely examine:

how machine learning works,
how our subconsciouses—both individual and collective—learn from the past, making ad hoc categories based on contingencies,
how those categories are the origin of basically all of the things that populate the world,
how technologies that use augmented versions of our own rational capacities are quickly altering baseball, and rendering it nearly unrecognizable in the process!

Our guests are:

Ben Lindbergh, staff writer at The Ringer, co-host of both Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast and the Ringer MLB Podcast
Prof. Dr. Heiko Becher, director of the Institute of Medical Biometry and Epidemiology, Medical Faculty, University of Hamburg
Adam Darowski, creator of the Hall of Stats, a website dedicated to repopulating the Hall of Fame using a statistical formula

Here is a link to Ben Shaver's intuitive medium.com article on MCMC methods which we reference in the episode.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amillionlittlethoughts.substack.com

Continuing the theme from Episode 9, we closely examine:

how machine learning works,
how our subconsciouses—both individual and collective—learn from the past, making ad hoc categories based on contingencies,
how those categories are the origin of basically all of the things that populate the world,
how technologies that use augmented versions of our own rational capacities are quickly altering baseball, and rendering it nearly unrecognizable in the process!

Our guests are:

Ben Lindbergh, staff writer at The Ringer, co-host of both Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast and the Ringer MLB Podcast
Prof. Dr. Heiko Becher, director of the Institute of Medical Biometry and Epidemiology, Medical Faculty, University of Hamburg
Adam Darowski, creator of the Hall of Stats, a website dedicated to repopulating the Hall of Fame using a statistical formula

Here is a link to Ben Shaver's intuitive medium.com article on MCMC methods which we reference in the episode.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amillionlittlethoughts.substack.com

Previous Episode

Book 2 - Episode 9: "Ballpark Figures Part I"

We flip to the B-Side of Season 2, as we enter a section of the season devoted to statistics and mathematical modeling. In this episode we examine the life and career of baseball great Ted Williams and consider how adding new variables to a model can change what the model shows, for better or worse.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amillionlittlethoughts.substack.com

Next Episode

Special Episode - Polling: We're Determined (But Nothing Else Is)

Is the margin of error the same thing as the percentage of certainty you can have in that margin of error? Can a prediction ever happen in a vacuum without affecting the thing it's making a prediction about? Can we even distinguish between a deterministic universe and one in which we have free will? Does that have anything to do with time? Can two dudes drinking beer under bed comforters at home answer these questions? Let's find out!

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amillionlittlethoughts.substack.com