[Interview] SPUNKY IN YOUR FACE

[spunky]

I'm assuming you're only counting TS Contributors. Because we've had some quite young users in the past

true... but they don't stick around so they don't count, lol.

Questions:

1) Have you experienced both Taco Bell and Taco John's? Which do you prefer.

only taco bell.... i'm not sure we ahve taco john's in canada. maybe i need to hang around to places closer to the border?

2) If you were a muffin - what type of muffin would you be?

chocolate muffin... with chocolate ganache on top... with yes, you guessed, chocolate ice-cream on the side!

3) Do you have any statistical annoyances? Maybe a procedure that some people use that you just can't stand? Or a misconception that drives you crazy when it comes up?

oh PLENTY!
god, where to begin?


- the claim that the distributional assumptions of regression must be present in all the variables and not just in the residuals

- learning how to implement methods by rote memory instead of THINKING about what they're doing and then claiming that they're experts on such and such methods (whenver i hear stuff like this i feel compelled to expose said people)

- outliers... because the truth of the matter is that EVERYONE throws them out, even if people say they don't

- having this crazily complicated research questions and thinking that ANOVA/regression can solve them all

- thinking that the p-value is somehow a measure of whether results are "very significant" or "borderline significant"

- people who think Bayesian estimation is "subjective" while conveniently ignoring the subjectivity that's also present in frequentist statistics

- partial least squares solutions to address structural equation models

- the fact that so many interesting distributions do not have closed-form PDFs


..... and the list could go on and on and on...

4) If you had the chance to redo all of your schooling would you take the same academic path? If not what would you change?

i was never formally trained in statistics. i did my undergraduate degree in a small, rural college in British Columbia and their statistics department (and faculty) was so small that they were subsumed under the mathematics dept. they didn't have statistics courses beyond 2nd year probability and there were so few people studying mathematics that whenever they tried to open a 3rd year level course in statistics, they pretty much always ended up closing it down people not enough people registered. it was usually just me so i got an undergraduate degree in math (and psychology) even though what i really, really wanted was an undergraduate degree in statistics. i had to do a lot of self teaching to learn the statistics i know now, but i feel like i would have benefited a lot from taking formal classes there because i do really well in traditional, structured classroom environments.


what about you?

 

[spunky]

Note: It's difficult being a Chair of a department these days - categorically different from being faculty, and it's a huge time suck.

can't you let your minions (aka grad students) take care of the administrative stuff?

 

[Dragan]

can't you let your minions (aka grad students) take care of the administrative stuff?

Yep, I just lowered the hammer on the Dean yesterday.

 

[Dason]

How accurate is this:

and a url since that probably doesn't fit on all monitors:
http://i.imgur.com/rbS7YS2.jpg

 

[spunky]

omg it's so true!!! particularly cuz here in british columbia is snob & hippie capital of canada! and quebec people do have a knack for protesting...well... EVERYTHING!

 

[spunky]

well, since this is my thread after all i just wanted to share w/ everyone pictures from my apt's window of the lovely Sunday we're having here.... hope everyone's having a lovely one as well!

 

[victorxstc]

The view is just Awesome. me = jealous! Thanks for sharing. Do you mind sharing some pics of yourself too?

 

[trinker]

In light of Dason's infographic I felt the need to share:

 

[spunky]

In light of Dason's infographic I felt the need to share:

i saw that one someone's T-shirt when i was in arizona once... the weird thing is that this person was himself canadian... HA!

 

[spunky]

Do you mind sharing some pics of yourself too?

there're in the Postify your Face thread! i'm on the 1st page, lol

 

[trinker]

It pleases me that you are pleased. But one day you will need to let go of the training wheels though trink

I was just thinking one day TE will give up his antiquated methods much the same way the telegraph, horse and buggy and typewriters have given way to modern and sophisticated technology.

 

[trinker]

@Spunky, being Canadian (at the moment) has you experienced Tim Hortons? If so can you share your thoughts on Timmy Hos?

 

[spunky]

@Spunky, being Canadian (at the moment) has you experienced Tim Hortons? If so can you share your thoughts on Timmy Hos?

i actually enjoy their coffee A LOT (I'll have a double-double please!) but i do have to say most of thier pastires taste pretty stale. kripsy kreme is, in my eyes, still the best of the best when it comes to doughnuts!

 

[spunky]

i ended up going to bed at like 3am for watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwmI6ZB3cno


YOU SEE BG?! AT 21:40 IT SAYS MOST MATHEMATICIANS ARE CLOSETED PLATONISTS! (i certainly am )

 

[victorxstc]

there're in the Postify your Face thread! i'm on the 1st page, lol

I know I know. I just thought more photos of you perhaps? Or your pics with your husband? or within your beautiful apartment? Or any other photos you want to share with the whole world.

Some other questions, if you don't mind. I am going to ask questions which might be perhaps more delicious to someone keen on psychoanalysis and Jung. Please ignore anyone you didn't like.

1. Which color(s) do you love the most? Which ones do you dislike the most?
2. Which part of "A Beautiful Mind" attracted you the most?
3. Can you see hallucinations or illusions like John Nash did (if I remember his name correctly)? Like the ones in which he used to see "behind-the-scenes" of ongoing events.
4. How you describe your personality on extroverted/introverted continuum?
5. Do you like dreaming?
6. Which dreams are your favorites? Which ones the worst ones?

 

[trinker]

I suspect Victor is actually a psychologist hired by Quark to analyze instability in TS members

 

[TheEcologist]

I was just thinking one day TE will give up his antiquated methods much the same way the telegraph, horse and buggy and typewriters have given way to modern and sophisticated technology.

Plot twist: TE is Hadley Wickham trolling trinker.

 

[trinker]

@TE stop grandstanding in Spunky's limelight

 

[Lazar]

Did anyone ask how you met you husband? If not how did you meet your husband?

 

[spunky]

I know I know. I just thought more photos of you perhaps? Or your pics with your husband? or within your beautiful apartment? Or any other photos you want to share with the wholeworld.

well... here are some pictures, lol (oh gosh, this is so awkward). thing is i rarely take pictures of myself unless i'm travelling so most of the pictures i have of me are somewhere else. well, so there's the default picture of me (in case the one in Postify your Face wasn't enough, lol) and then there're pictures of me in Malaysia, Latvia, Alaska, a Disney Caribbean Cruise i did last year and Denmark. i don't quite find my apartment to be particularly intersesting or different from any other apartment, but thank you for the compliment. the only special feautre is that it is VERY (as in 56-story VERY) high up above the city. but anyway, there it is. i'm NOT showing you pictures of my room cuz it's a mess and i'm too lazy to clean it up, lol. i can't really show you any pictures of my husband though. he is a very private person and somewhat well-known in his area so we tend to keep our relationship a private matter. we're just out to very close few friends. plus he has expressively asked me not to upload anything where he can be recognised

Some other questions, if you don't mind. I am going to ask questions which might be perhaps more delicious to someone keen on psychoanalysis and Jung. Please ignore anyone you didn't like

i like psychoanalysis and used to believe in it a lot but now i think it's more like a pastime heh. but anyway, let's all dwelve on my unconscious!

1. Which color(s) do you love the most? Which ones do you dislike the most?

my favourite colour has been (and this is probably since i was a child) purple. more specifically royal purple which tends more towards a dark blue. i don't think i have "least favourite" colours but for some reason i've always found yellow annoying (besides it's ANNOYINGLY difficult to match with clothes without looking like a clown)

2. Which part of "A Beautiful Mind" attracted you the most?

there are two very specific scenes that made me fell in love with this movie.

1) this scene is THE ONE that made me dump psychology and pursue mathematics. if i ever need to explain the single most important moment of my academic career is probably when i watched this part of the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzpu-P2eRuI


2) i love this scene because it helps to remind me about how resilient the human mind is against adversity... and the vindication that comes from it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U68B0MW4GIA

3. Can you see hallucinations or illusions like John Nash did (if I remember his name correctly)? Like the ones in which he used to see "behind-the-scenes" of ongoing events.

hehe... i don't think i'm THAT crazy yet to hallucinate but here's a little story of my childhood that may help shed some light on the issue.

when i was like 5 or 6 my mother took me to a child psychiatrist because she was concerned i might have some degree of psychosis. i said i was 'seeing' horrible, demonic faces on doors and on the floor and wouldn't get near them. it got so bad that there were certain doors (including the one in my room) or certain rooms i couldn't just get near to and would scream and cry hysterically because of "the faces". i was on anti psychotics for a while but my mother grew very worried about the negative effect (flat affect mostly) that they had on me and decided to look for a 2nd opinion. this time we went to a psychologist and she asked me to do all kinds of funs games and puzzles until she was able to figure out what was going on: i'm a very good visual thinker and i'm VERY GOOD at recognising patterns. the "faces" i was seeing WERE REALLY THERE, but what i was doing was joining all the creases and different colours of the wood (there was a lot of woodwork in the house i grew up in) and, in my mind, recognizing the faces. when my mom took me to each door so i could identify the faces (something that was NOT easy but was part of the therapy) everyone was amazed at how well i could join seemingly disconnected bits and parts to create shapes.

i think that's why i like beautiful mind so much. i see a lot of me there

4. How you describe your personality on extroverted/introverted continuum?

EXTREMELY introverted. you should have seen how much of an epic fiasco i was last April's AERA when trying to present my paper .if you're into that myers-briggs stuff i'm an INTJ. i honestly think that my brief affair with anti psychotics at such a young age left me somewhere within the spectrum of Asperger's. i have a very hard time interacting with other people, i'm usually painfully shy which is why i prefer to talk to people through computers.

5. Do you like dreaming?

who doesnt!

6. Which dreams are your favorites? Which ones the worst ones?

i sometimes dream music and i like it. not very often (maybe once every few years?) but the music stays in my head and i enjoy it.
i guess nightmares are the worst ones? i love zombie movies but they always give me nightmares about... well... yes! zombies chasing me!