---
product_id: 14976513
title: "Statistics Hacks: Tips & Tools for Measuring the World and Beating the Odds"
price: "€ 15.22"
currency: EUR
in_stock: false
reviews_count: 6
url: https://www.desertcart.at/products/14976513-statistics-hacks-tips-and-tools-for-measuring-the-world-beating
store_origin: AT
region: Austria
---

# Statistics Hacks: Tips & Tools for Measuring the World and Beating the Odds

**Price:** € 15.22
**Availability:** ❌ Out of Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Statistics Hacks: Tips & Tools for Measuring the World and Beating the Odds
- **How much does it cost?** € 15.22 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Currently out of stock
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.at](https://www.desertcart.at/products/14976513-statistics-hacks-tips-and-tools-for-measuring-the-world-beating)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

desertcart.com: Statistics Hacks: Tips & Tools for Measuring the World and Beating the Odds: 9780596101640: Frey, Bruce: Books

Review: An entertaining and useful book - It's not very easy to use the words "entertaining" and "statistics" in the same sentence, but you can if you're talking about this book. Bruce Frey's collection of tips and tools makes the subject interesting, fun-- even funny-- and most importantly, approachable. It's important to understand that this book is not intended to be a statistics textbook, review, or reference manual. Rather, it is a collection of bite-sized hacks that relate statistical principles to the "real" world. Every hack is illustrated with some example, including many relating to gambling, games, and bar bets. Which properties should you buy in Monopoly? The answer is here, along with an explanation. How many people have to be in a room with you before you can be pretty sure that at least one of them shares your birthday? That's here, too, along with the explanation. Is there a way to predict the winner of a baseball game by listening to about twenty minutes of the middle of it? Yep. If you're looking for an authoritative, comprehensive, serious statistics text, keep shopping. If you're looking for a light but nonetheless very useful explanation/review of how and why statistics work in a real-world context, buy this book. I'm glad I bought it, and I'd do it again. I got more than enough entertainment and utility out of it to justify the expense.
Review: Apparently they couldn't be bothered to edit it - I'm not a statistics expert, but in the first 10 pages of this book I've already found two significant errors, the latter of which is particularly horrendous. Either the author is clueless about statistics -- a frightening thought since he supposedly teaches statistics as a professor -- or the editing of this book by statistics-clueful people was basically nonexistent. I'll assume the latter, but either way, this book is a blot on O'Reilly's record. Page 5: "The mean will be close to some scores and far away from some others, but if you add up those distances, you get a total that is as small as possible." Wrong. The mean minimizes the sum of SQUARED distances; the MEDIAN minimizes the sum of the distances. Hand-waving on the next page apologizing for how complicated the formula for the standard deviation is because "there are some mathematical complications with summing distances" would suggest to me that the omission of "squared" on page 5 was not a mere typo or a misguided attempt at simplification. OK, sure, one error like that isn't worth trashing a book over, particularly a book for lay people (albeit those with a technical bent). But check out this howler on page 10: "Additive rule: the probability of any one of several independent events occuring is the *sum* of each event's probability." [Emphasis on "sum" is the book's, not mine.] This isn't just plain wrong; it's cringe-inducingly, forehead-slappingly wrong. The additive rule is for any one of several mutually exclusive events occuring, and independent pretty much implies *not* mutually exclusive (the annoying corner cases being those where some events under consideration are completely impossible anyhow). The rule for one of several independent events occuring is more complicated; for example, the probability of a fair coin coming up "heads" on either its first or second flip is obviously not 1, as the author's statement would ridiculously imply, but rather 3/4. In order to do anything with statistics at all, you absolutely MUST understand the basic concepts of "independent" and "mutually exclusive", or you're doomed from the get-go. The fact that this book is for lay people who might not already be clear on these concepts only makes having such an error in it that much less excusable. If the author can't be bothered to stamp out obvious errors like this in the first 10 pages -- particularly the latter -- I can't be bothered to read the rest of it. Maybe the second edition will be worth glancing at, but I'm not holding my breath. (For one thing, the overall writing style in that first 10 pages wasn't particularly lucid either.)

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #2,662,163 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #461 in Mathematical & Statistical Software #1,076 in Computer Hacking #1,393 in Statistics (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars (30) |
| Dimensions  | 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches |
| Edition  | 1st |
| ISBN-10  | 0596101643 |
| ISBN-13  | 978-0596101640 |
| Item Weight  | 2.31 pounds |
| Language  | English |
| Part of series  | Hacks |
| Print length  | 356 pages |
| Publication date  | June 13, 2006 |
| Publisher  | O'Reilly Media |

## Images

![Statistics Hacks: Tips & Tools for Measuring the World and Beating the Odds - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/819VKGhkg8L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An entertaining and useful book
*by L***H on November 20, 2007*

It's not very easy to use the words "entertaining" and "statistics" in the same sentence, but you can if you're talking about this book. Bruce Frey's collection of tips and tools makes the subject interesting, fun-- even funny-- and most importantly, approachable. It's important to understand that this book is not intended to be a statistics textbook, review, or reference manual. Rather, it is a collection of bite-sized hacks that relate statistical principles to the "real" world. Every hack is illustrated with some example, including many relating to gambling, games, and bar bets. Which properties should you buy in Monopoly? The answer is here, along with an explanation. How many people have to be in a room with you before you can be pretty sure that at least one of them shares your birthday? That's here, too, along with the explanation. Is there a way to predict the winner of a baseball game by listening to about twenty minutes of the middle of it? Yep. If you're looking for an authoritative, comprehensive, serious statistics text, keep shopping. If you're looking for a light but nonetheless very useful explanation/review of how and why statistics work in a real-world context, buy this book. I'm glad I bought it, and I'd do it again. I got more than enough entertainment and utility out of it to justify the expense.

### ⭐ Apparently they couldn't be bothered to edit it
*by S***S on October 28, 2006*

I'm not a statistics expert, but in the first 10 pages of this book I've already found two significant errors, the latter of which is particularly horrendous. Either the author is clueless about statistics -- a frightening thought since he supposedly teaches statistics as a professor -- or the editing of this book by statistics-clueful people was basically nonexistent. I'll assume the latter, but either way, this book is a blot on O'Reilly's record. Page 5: "The mean will be close to some scores and far away from some others, but if you add up those distances, you get a total that is as small as possible." Wrong. The mean minimizes the sum of SQUARED distances; the MEDIAN minimizes the sum of the distances. Hand-waving on the next page apologizing for how complicated the formula for the standard deviation is because "there are some mathematical complications with summing distances" would suggest to me that the omission of "squared" on page 5 was not a mere typo or a misguided attempt at simplification. OK, sure, one error like that isn't worth trashing a book over, particularly a book for lay people (albeit those with a technical bent). But check out this howler on page 10: "Additive rule: the probability of any one of several independent events occuring is the *sum* of each event's probability." [Emphasis on "sum" is the book's, not mine.] This isn't just plain wrong; it's cringe-inducingly, forehead-slappingly wrong. The additive rule is for any one of several mutually exclusive events occuring, and independent pretty much implies *not* mutually exclusive (the annoying corner cases being those where some events under consideration are completely impossible anyhow). The rule for one of several independent events occuring is more complicated; for example, the probability of a fair coin coming up "heads" on either its first or second flip is obviously not 1, as the author's statement would ridiculously imply, but rather 3/4. In order to do anything with statistics at all, you absolutely MUST understand the basic concepts of "independent" and "mutually exclusive", or you're doomed from the get-go. The fact that this book is for lay people who might not already be clear on these concepts only makes having such an error in it that much less excusable. If the author can't be bothered to stamp out obvious errors like this in the first 10 pages -- particularly the latter -- I can't be bothered to read the rest of it. Maybe the second edition will be worth glancing at, but I'm not holding my breath. (For one thing, the overall writing style in that first 10 pages wasn't particularly lucid either.)

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Five Stars
*by D***E on June 28, 2015*

my favorite stats book

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.at/products/14976513-statistics-hacks-tips-and-tools-for-measuring-the-world-beating](https://www.desertcart.at/products/14976513-statistics-hacks-tips-and-tools-for-measuring-the-world-beating)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Austria*
*Store origin: AT*
*Last updated: 2026-04-23*