by Joseph L. Fleiss (1937 - 2003)
The was a statistician from Needham,
Who was so bright, his clients would heed him.
Yet his embarrassed confession
Was that, in linear regression,
He'd never subtract an extra degree of freedom.
Complete the activities below!
by Sabrina Little
The slick pen glides across paper
precisely scraping the ruler’s edge
marking a line beside many lonesome dots
a line of best fit as snug as a sweater.
The slope is a mere fraction, but the line it fabricated would stretch on,
encompassing an infinite amount of graph paper.
As the line traveled, it would pass by many data points
and the wispy voices of the outliers would be heard on the wind
calling to the line from worlds away, asking it to contort
to come and gather the lonely dots, and hold them shaking in its tepid arms
but the line never does.
Instead, it continues on without a sideways glance
forever the same slope
forever the same straight line.
by Lawrence Mark Lesser
When any x you try
Yields the same y,
That’s still a function.
The dysfunction
Is the constant
Perseveration:
Daily seeking
New outcomes
(In work or love)
From plugging more values
Into that parent function
Now that you know,
Or trying to fit
A line
Falling flat.
I tried to fit a line to estimate how many people fall per banana peel, but it was a slippery slope.
Larry Lesser and Dennis Pearl