amazonly associated thanks (& warnin’)

Following a now well-established pattern, let me (re)warn (the few) unwary ‘Og readers that the links to Amazon.com and to Amazon.fr found on this blog are actually susceptible to earn me a monetary gain [from 4% to 8% on the sales] if a purchase is made by the reader in the 24 hours following the entry on Amazon through this link, thanks to the “Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com/fr“. Unlike the pattern of last year, and of the year before last, the mostly purchased item through the links happens to be related to a blog post, since it is Andrew’s book, with 318 copies of its third edition sold through the ‘Og last month! Here are some of the most exotic purchases:

• A Melon for extasy
• Simply Napkins
• Yummy earth lollipops (Mark, is it you?!)
• Cliff ojo peanut butter pretzel (peanut butter AND pretzels?!)
• Sharps container biohazard needle disposal
• Swissmar borner V power mandoline
• Ricochet robots

As usual the books I actually reviewed along the past months, positively or negatively, were among the top purchases… Like two dozen copies of The BUGS book. And a dozen of R for dummies. And even a few of The Cartoon Introduction to Statistics. (Despite a most critical review.) Thanks to all of you using those links (for feeding further my book addiction, books that now eventually end up in the math common room in Dauphine or Warwick, once I have read them)!

Amazon associates links (warnin’)

As in previous years, let me warn unwary readers that the links to Amazon.com and Amazon.fr found on this blog are actually susceptible to earn me a monetary gain [from 4% to 7%] if a purchase is made in the 24 hours following the entry on Amazon through this link, thanks to the “Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com/fr“. As with last year, most of the items purchased through the links and contributing to my bookoholic addiction are rather unrelated with the purpose of the ‘Og, but, as already mentioned , anything can happen within 24 hours! Here are the weirdest ones:

• Toy Vault 12″ Cthulhu Plush Toy and Pokemon Pillow
• Stewart’s Pro-Treat 21 ounce Tub Freeze Dried Dog Treats, Beef Liver
• ten copies of Hp Compaq Evo N610v Ac Adapter 0mAh
• Philosophy Purity Made Simple One-Step Facial Cleanser
• Nile Spice Lentil Soup
• ten copies of Donald in Mathmagic Land

plus of course the books I actually reviewed along the past months, positively or negatively… Like seven copies of Error and Inference. And a dozen of R for dummies. And many other books on Bayesian statistics and R programming. Thanks!

R for dummies

Just saw this nice review of R for dummies. And thought after this afternoon class that my students in the simulation course at Paris-Dauphine could clearly benefit from reading it! They in fact had a terrible time simulating a truncated normal distribution by accept-reject. As they could not get the notion of normalising constants… (Yes, indeed, this very truncated normal distribution!) Even the validity of simulating a normal variate until the truncation is satisfied was not obvious to them and they took forever to program the corresponding code. Anyway, I will certainly order the book to check for myself (after receiving Genetics for dummies to make sure I use the right vocabulary, even though it is a bit too light in the end…)! And write a review for CHANCE if it generates enough interest in doing so…