World Statistics Day!

October 20, 2010 10:45 AM

20.10.2010 is World Statistics Day, so help yourself to a metric (haha sorry) ton of publicly available data at UNdata, ICSPR (registration required to download data sets), and data.gov (previously). You can also explore, visualize and animate a variety of publicly available data sets with Google Labs' Public Data Explorer.
posted by cog_nate (14 comments total)

I really wish that (in the US) there was more emphasis on things like media education, statistics, healthy eating, etc.

Still, pretty cool stuff. Thanks for the post.
posted by rosswald at 10:59 AM on October 20, 2010

Yeah world statistics day! Good post, but you are missing a lot of good, free statistical tools:

ManyEyes is a great data visualization tool from IBM
Gapminder is a good visualizer as well.
R is good if you are serious about analyzing data (and you don't want to buy my favorite, STATA)

This free ebook is a good intro to statistical inference. Which is a skill most people should learn.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:04 AM on October 20, 2010 [2 favorites]

For a tear in the eye and a catch in the throat, the Papua New Guinean World Statistics Day Anthem.

I listened to it 3.21 times, if anyone is.. you know.
posted by Erasmouse at 11:22 AM on October 20, 2010 [2 favorites]

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
And by "world" you mean some, not all?
posted by Old'n'Busted at 11:26 AM on October 20, 2010

Kent: Mr. Simpson, how do you respond to the charges that petty vandalism such as graffiti is down eighty percent, while heavy sack-beatings are up a shocking nine hundred percent?
Homer: Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that.
Kent: I see. Well, what do you say to the accusation that your group has been causing more crimes than it's been preventing?
Homer: [amused] Oh, Kent, I'd be lying if I said my men weren't committing crimes.
Kent: [pause] Well, touche'.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:30 AM on October 20, 2010

Also today, UNFPA State of World Population is out. From Conflict and Crisis to Renewal: Generations of Change
posted by sswiller at 11:31 AM on October 20, 2010

World Statistics Day should put its date in a format that's sortable: 2010-10-20. Doing it in the reverse of that order is just confusing, even for non-Americans. I assume.
posted by Plutor at 11:47 AM on October 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, to "celebrate" World Statistics Day, here's an interview with the creators of Swivel: The Rise And Fall of Swivel.
posted by Plutor at 11:49 AM on October 20, 2010

I've tried modeling the holiday in both a pooled and paneled aproach, but "happy" still isn't showing any significance in my model. We'll be throwing out this event before the final presentation, if we're lucky it will make the appendix. It would also help if we had 36 months worth of data to seasonally adjust things...

Back to some SAS and EViews code for the next few hours.
posted by Nanukthedog at 11:56 AM on October 20, 2010

But what day is 10.20.2010? Eh? Huh?
posted by mmrtnt at 12:05 PM on October 20, 2010

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This post will generate four fifteenths of the discussion volume found in the average MetaFilter thread, but sixteen fifteenths of the average favorite volume.
The number of flags assigned to this post will be statistically insignificant.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 1:43 PM on October 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

World Statistics Day should put its date in a format that's sortable: 2010-10-20. Doing it in the reverse of that order is just confusing, even for non-Americans. I assume.

You assume wrongly. Only confusing part is that this was yesterday.
posted by onya at 1:53 PM on October 20, 2010

Wouldn't 10/10/10 have been a bit neater?
posted by idiomatika at 3:31 PM on October 20, 2010

In honor of world statistics day, I am watching baseball and drinking beer. ("Student"'s t-test was invented by Gosset when he worked at Guinness.)

and I forgot to mention this in my intro stat class this morning! Oh well, it's too late now.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:32 PM on October 20, 2010