It's not the mid-week hump! I'm offsetting the regular schedule by a day to account for seasonal activities. (Sweden celebrates a highly secular Christmas on December 24th, and there are a lot of preparations on the 23rd.)

New articles

Military Standard on Software Control Levels

Advancements in language models and computer vision have made it possible to use software in more systems than before. We have to be aware what kinds of systems they are and how dangerous the software becomes.

Full article (0–1 minute read): Military Standard on Software Control Levels

Go in 9×9 is Awesome

As a child, I didn't have time to play games during most of the year and the summers were full of outdoor activities, but for a couple of weeks of winter, I played games. Here's a seasonally-appropriate article celebrating go!

Full article (10–45 minute read): Go in 9×9 is Awesome

Flashcard of the week

This is out of Huck's Statistical Misconceptions:

What implication can one draw from a Cronbach's alpha value?

This is a misconception I've had, and apparently a very common one. Cronbach's alpha is often said to be a measure of internal consistency. The way people use it is by computing Cronbach's alpha for multiple measurements (e.g. different survey questions), and if it is high, they conclude that the measurements measure the same thing (i.e. the survey questions, while different, all revolve around the same underlying concept).

This is wrong because it's affirming the consequent – a logical fallacy.

Internally consistent measurements will have a high Cronbach's alpha, and a low Cronbach's alpha is evidence of inconsistency. But note that this does NOT mean a high Cronbach's alpha implies internally consistent measurements!

In other words, Cronbach's alpha can only be used to disprove consistency, not show its presence.

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