Talks
Ted Talk presentations
A collection of short presentations I've given at work. These are casual "Ted Talk"-style explorations of topics I find interesting.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
How statistics can mislead, from sampling bias to survivorship bias to Simpson's paradox.
Big Mac Index
The Economist's Big Mac Index — using burger prices to explore purchasing power parity and global economics.
Game Theory for Engineers
Practical game theory concepts applied to everyday decision-making and engineering trade-offs.
Dictator for a Day
A thought experiment: if I had absolute power for one year, what economic policies would I enact on day one?
The Math of English
The mathematical patterns hiding inside the English language from letter frequencies to Zipf's law.
Time is a Social Construct
How humans invented time zones, calendars, and the surprisingly arbitrary way we measure time.
A Brief History of Tattoos
5,000 years of tattoo culture from Ötzi the Iceman to modern ink.
A Brief History of Ultrarunning
The origins and evolution of ultramarathon running.
A Brief History of Pet Domestication
How wolves became dogs, wildcats became house cats, and other animals joined the household.