Via Letters Of Note Back in 2006, a group of students at Xavier High School in New York City (one of whom, “JT,” submitted this letter) were given an assignment by their English teacher, Ms. Lockwood, that was to test their persuasive writing skills: they were asked to write to their favourite author and ask him or her to visit the school. Five of those pupils chose Kurt Vonnegut. His thoughtful reply, seen below, was the only response the class received.

Via The Rise of Machines There is another interesting difference that is worth pondering. Consider the problem of estimating a mixture of Gaussians. In Statistics we think of this as a solved problem. You use, for example, maximum likelihood which is implemented by the EM algorithm. But the EM algorithm does not solve the problem. There is no guarantee that the EM algorithm will actually find the MLE; it’s a shot in the dark.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk9S3RTAl38?rel=0]

“We work to become, not to acquire.” - Elbert Hubbard

Here is a detailed book summary Takeaway : I think this book needs to be read after having some understanding of BUGS software and also having some R/S programming skills. That familiarity can help you simulate and check for yourself the various results and graphs, the author uses to illustrate Bayesian concepts. The book starts by explaining the essence of any econometric model and the way in which an econometrician has to put in assumptions to obtain posterior distribution of various parameters.