3 HN users recommended this talk3 months2015–2025score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN recommends it as an excellent programmer-friendly explanation of p-values and statistical thinking.
John Rauser's Strata 2014 keynote argues that programmers can learn statistics quickly by simulating random processes and shuffling data. He explains p-values through resampling rather than formulas.
“This is an excellent talk I attended a while ago that explains it very well from a programmer's perspective” (HN, 2015)
I have a talk in which I argue that if you can program, you have a huge advantage in learning statistics because you can simulate random processes and tinker with them to get an intuitive sense of the statistics involved. At Data Driven NYC: [link] Keynote at Strata+Hadoop World 2014: [this video]
Programmers can learn statistics by simulating random processes
>Being able to apply statistics is like having a secret superpower. I totally with this sentence. BUT If you ask for my opinion, merely knowing a list of statistical formulas is not very helpful. Most of the time, people don’t remember the underlying assumptions, so there is a fair chance they will use them in inappropriate situations. I recommend watching these two YouTube videos. The presenters advocate using simulation/bootstrapping/shuffling methods instead of memorizing formulas. Jake Vanderplas - Statistics for Hackers [link] John Rauser - Statistics Without the Agonizing Pain [this video]
Advocates simulation and shuffling over memorizing formulas
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
4 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes