Customer Reviews

Statistics Hacks: Tips & Tools for Measuring the World and Beating the Odds

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In a previous academic life, I was a marketing major. One of the things marketers have to learn is statistics - the art/science of describing the world in terms of numbers and proportions. So I have a background in statistics, however basic, and that helped me in reading this book.

The first two sections in Statistics Hacks aren't really hacks; they serve as a basic statistics textbook. If your eyes glaze over at terms like "standard deviation," "correlation coefficient," "Z-scores," etc., you will have a tough time getting through the first 100 pages or so. But don't skip them - they are the foundation that the rest of the book is built on. You won't understand why a lot of the hacks later on in the book work unless you read the first 100 pages, and understanding why is a key to hacking anything, whether it's a computer network, an RC car, or the laws of mathematics and probability. Even if you've got a rudimentary understanding of probability, you will be well-advised to read the first hundred pages, as a refresher course if nothing else.

Chapter 3 is where the application begins. Frey teaches us how to understand percentile scores in standardized tests, and how to use a "normal curve" (think bell curve) to predict the future. The normal curve is vital to the rest of the book, so pay close attention to Hack # 25. Frey also teaches us how to establish the reliability of a certain test, how to establish its validity, and what the difference actually is between reliable and valid. We get a hint of the goodies to come in Hack # 33 (Predicting the Length of a Lifetime) and # 34 (Make Wise Medical Decisions).

Chapter 4 and 5 will be the most popular chapters in the book, Beating the Odds and Playing Games. Texas Hold 'Em is covered in Hacks # 36 and 37, but Frey also covers roulette (#39) and blackjack (#40). You can even design your own bar bets using principles of statistics. But I think that the most useful hack in the book is Spotting Fake Data (#64). Frey goes into a lot of detail here, and invokes Benford's law quite a bit, but I think that with the amount of statistics that we're confronted with daily, we need to be able to spot fake data, and be able to show why it's fake.

Statistics Hacks is not an easy book to read. As I mentioned, if you've got an aversion to math you might want to skip this one. But statistics aren't that hard to understand, and there is a lot of valuable (and potentially profitable) information in this book. Frey set out to make the concepts behind statistical analysis accessible to the average reader, and for the most part I think he has succeeded.

I'll let you know more after I win the lottery (Hack #41).

I'm not a statistics expert, but in the first 10 pages of this book I've already found two significant errors, the latter of which is particularly horrendous. Either the author is clueless about statistics -- a frightening thought since he supposedly teaches statistics as a professor -- or the editing of this book by statistics-clueful people was basically nonexistent. I'll assume the latter, but either way, this book is a blot on O'Reilly's record.

Page 5:
"The mean will be close to some scores and far away from some others, but if you add up those distances, you get a total that is as small as possible."

Wrong. The mean minimizes the sum of SQUARED distances; the MEDIAN minimizes the sum of the distances. Hand-waving on the next page apologizing for how complicated the formula for the standard deviation is because "there are some mathematical complications with summing distances" would suggest to me that the omission of "squared" on page 5 was not a mere typo or a misguided attempt at simplification.

OK, sure, one error like that isn't worth trashing a book over, particularly a book for lay people (albeit those with a technical bent). But check out this howler on page 10:

"Additive rule: the probability of any one of several independent events occuring is the *sum* of each event's probability." [Emphasis on "sum" is the book's, not mine.]

This isn't just plain wrong; it's cringe-inducingly, forehead-slappingly wrong. The additive rule is for any one of several mutually exclusive events occuring, and independent pretty much implies *not* mutually exclusive (the annoying corner cases being those where some events under consideration are completely impossible anyhow). The rule for one of several independent events occuring is more complicated; for example, the probability of a fair coin coming up "heads" on either its first or second flip is obviously not 1, as the author's statement would ridiculously imply, but rather 3/4.

In order to do anything with statistics at all, you absolutely MUST understand the basic concepts of "independent" and "mutually exclusive", or you're doomed from the get-go. The fact that this book is for lay people who might not already be clear on these concepts only makes having such an error in it that much less excusable.

If the author can't be bothered to stamp out obvious errors like this in the first 10 pages -- particularly the latter -- I can't be bothered to read the rest of it. Maybe the second edition will be worth glancing at, but I'm not holding my breath. (For one thing, the overall writing style in that first 10 pages wasn't particularly lucid either.)

I've read many books on statistics, but none were as readable as this. For each concept it teaches, it gives a real-world example of how to use it. This last feature makes it vastly superior to most college-level statistics textbooks. In addition to these examples, it is very well written and an "easy read", even if you are not a math expert (although it is conceptually sequential - if you are unfamiliar with math, the book is easier to read start to finish than hopping to the middle).

From a gambler's perspective, this information is mandatory. If you aspire to be a serious gambler and haven't put in the time to master statistics, $30 is well spent on this book.

Most people really hate statistics, although I'm not sure why. In college, I enjoyed the subject so much, that I earned an advanced degree in it. With that begin said, I'm always a bit leery of non-academic statistics books. Those that I have seen in the past generally have poor science or are more boring than a Ph.D. candidate's dissertation. Imagine my surprise when I read this book and found it both fun to read and scientifically correct!

This book is laid out like a typical O'Reilly "hacks" book. Each section is a "hack" or tip related to the overall subject of the book. However, I was really pleased with the organization of the hacks in this book. The hacks really closely follow the same order of concepts that students cover in an introductory statistics course. The author begins with discussing the basics of statistics (mean, median, standard deviation), and from there, works up to graphing, and predicting. However, these concepts are discussed in a way that makes it fun to read and seem really applicable to the real world.

While the first half of the book covers the basics of statistics, the last half shows how to apply these concepts to the real world. The author shows through example after example that probability really works, how it works, and why it's fun to understand. In some examples, he shows how knowing the probabilities of casino blackjack can dramatically increase your chances of winning. Other fun probability exercises include how to win at Monopoly (or at least increase your chances of winning), checking how "honest" your iPod's random feature is, and how to predict the winners of sporting events.

This is a really fun book to read and is based on solid statistical methodologies. This book is an absolute must if you need to understand the basics of statistical techniques, methologies, and theory. If more students used this book as their introductory statistics text, we'd likely have a lot more statisticians.

Math is one of those subjects that I *really* had to work at in school. Didn't come intuitively, and I "endured" more than "enjoyed". Statistics Hacks - Tips & Tools for Measuring the World and Beating the Odds by Bruce Frey is probably as close as I'm going to come to reading a "math"-related book these days, but I actually enjoyed this one...

Contents: The Basics; Discovering Relationships; Measuring the World; Beating the Odds; Playing Games; Thinking Smart; Index

The book contains 75 statistical "hacks" that take you from the fundamental concepts to real-life applications. Even better, Frey and his contributors have a great sense of humor in their writing, and this may be the only statistics book that you'll chuckle at during your reading. The first two sections, Basics and Relationships, are a bit more intense than the later portions, as they get into the mathematics behind the core elements of statistics. Many of the basic theorems are covered here, along with the normal vocabulary like mean, media, mode, standard deviation, etc. While you may not grasp all the math behind it, you'll get an idea as to what's going on. For me, the book got very interesting once the Odds and Games chapters arrived. His application of statistics to Texas Hold'em opened my eyes to a few strategies I hadn't understood before. Roulette and blackjack also make an appearance here, as they should in all practical statistical books. I *really* enjoyed the Thinking Smart section, especially the hack about how to analyze writing styles to tell whether a paper was written or plagiarized.

While probably not everyone's forte, Statistics Hacks is an enjoyable read with practical applications. It may take a bit of time to grow on you, but it may also help you decide whether that "all in" call is a good idea or not...

Very few things create the visualization of dozens of students sleeping in class like mentioning the subject of statistics. But, statistics can be interesting, fun, and useful as Bruce Frey demonstrates in this very approachable introduction to the subject. The first three chapters cover the necessary introduction to statistics with a discussion of sample size, distributions, standard deviation, correlations, chi-square, and random sampling. Starting with the fourth chapter the author moves from the theoretical to application in a chapter on beating the odds in cards, dice, and various gambling devices. With chapter five he moves into the area of games like the now infamous Monty Hall question (do you switch doors if offered a chance to), tic-tac-toe, and even sports games. The final chapter is using statistics to think smarter by spotting faked data, explaining things that appear to be a coincidence, and other common situations. While Statistics Hacks is not for everyone, everyone will find some portion that is interesting to them, even if it is just how to play the currently popular Texas hold-em while taking advantage of probability to improve your odds of winning. Statistics Hacks is a recommended read for those interested not only in statistics but how to use them immediately in the real world.

It's not very easy to use the words "entertaining" and "statistics" in the same sentence, but you can if you're talking about this book. Bruce Frey's collection of tips and tools makes the subject interesting, fun-- even funny-- and most importantly, approachable.

It's important to understand that this book is not intended to be a statistics textbook, review, or reference manual. Rather, it is a collection of bite-sized hacks that relate statistical principles to the "real" world. Every hack is illustrated with some example, including many relating to gambling, games, and bar bets. Which properties should you buy in Monopoly? The answer is here, along with an explanation. How many people have to be in a room with you before you can be pretty sure that at least one of them shares your birthday? That's here, too, along with the explanation. Is there a way to predict the winner of a baseball game by listening to about twenty minutes of the middle of it? Yep.

If you're looking for an authoritative, comprehensive, serious statistics text, keep shopping. If you're looking for a light but nonetheless very useful explanation/review of how and why statistics work in a real-world context, buy this book.

I'm glad I bought it, and I'd do it again. I got more than enough entertainment and utility out of it to justify the expense.

This is one of the funniest books I've read in a while, certainly the funniest non-fiction book I've read in a long while.

And in 20 minutes of reading it over lunch, it explained more to me about basic statistics terminology than I got in the whole semester of statistics I took at Berkeley a couple of decades ago.

I disagree with the reviewer who said the first 100 pages would make your eyes glaze over. For years I've been wondering what people really mean by stuff like "standard deviation" and at last, here is an explanation in plain English. Anyhow, as the author says in the book, you do NOT need to start with the first 100 pages. Just dip in wherever you like -- these are independent hacks.

To be quite honest, I haven't even gotten to the main hacks yet, but I already feel like I got my money's worth. For the math-geek and absurdist humor alone. But just wait till I get through the Texas Hold-Em chapter by next poker night ...

75 four-page sections on topics in statistics and probability, some textbook and some "popular science" and some nicely different. Brisk user-friendly style. Provides a useful view of a big picture of statistics for someone who's taken a dull statistics course in college. But this potentially great book is spoiled by too many misleading statements (almost everything we measure in the natural world [follows] the normal curve (#25); the more instances you can get [in a multiple regression analysis] the more accurate your eventual predictions will be (#55)). Wikipedia entries on the topics will probably be better written and more accurate.

The purpose of this book is not so much to teach probability and statistics - there are many good books on those subjects. Instead, consider this a supplement that brings the theory to life by showing you how to discover hidden relationships in data. That data could be anything from a deck of cards to the contents of a parking lot. After learning some more about the subtle tools of the statistician, we see how to beat the odds at various games of so-called chance as well as skill. There's even a template for producing your own bets which on the surface appears to be some kind of trick. Demystifying coincidences means you can deliberately create false ones that seem like miracles. You can even control the random thoughts of others through hack number 67, "Control Random Thoughts".

This is not an easy read, and you should be a person who is comfortable with math and already knows the basics of probability and statistics, even though chapter one provides a fast paced review. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to put their knowledge of statistics to work with some truly fascinating tricks and hacks. Also, for teachers,this book is a great way to keep your students awake and even interested in mathematics in general and combinatorics specifically. I highly recommend it.