Showing results by author "Gary Smith" in All Categories

As Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase once cynically observed, "If you torture data long enough, it will confess." Lying with statistics is a time-honored con. In Standard Deviations, economics professor Gary Smith walks us through the various tricks and traps that people use to back up their own crackpot theories. Sometimes, the unscrupulous deliberately try to mislead us. Other times, the well-intentioned are blissfully unaware of the mischief they are committing.

We live in an incredible period in history. The computer revolution may be even more life-changing than the Industrial Revolution. We can do things with computers that could never be done before, and computers can do things for us that could never be done before. But our love of computers should not cloud our thinking about their limitations. The AI Delusion explains why we should not be intimidated into thinking that computers are infallible, that data-mining is knowledge discovery, and that black boxes should be trusted.

In book eight of the award-winning Warren Steelgrave series, Warren is concerned about the growing distance between himself and Cindy O’Brian, the love of his life. Warren decides to go to Italy without her, hoping the separation will benefit them. Once in Italy, the FBI is waiting for him. The FBI is looking for Warren’s good friend, Jack Sullivan. They know Jack is finishing a new book involving stock market manipulation and the death of stockbroker George Daily. Jack has the information the FBI needs and is concerned for his safety. They ask Warren to find him.

Freakonomics showed how economic calculations can explain seemingly counterintuitive decision-making. Thinking, Fast and Slow helped listeners identify a host of small cognitive errors that can lead to miscalculations and irrational thought. In What the Luck?, statistician and author Gary Smith sets himself a similar goal, and explains - in clear, understandable, and witty prose - how a statistical understanding of luck can change the way we see just about every aspect of our lives.

There's no reason your money should be sitting in a bank account. By learning value investing, you can reap the rewards of consistent, reliable gains that can make you a millionaire by the time you retire. Don't just work for your money - put your money to work for you and retire in style.

A swamp warrior who served five tours in Vietnam tells it like it was in Death in the Jungle.

Kimberly Johnson is a decorated detective in the Dayton, Nebraska, and a serial killer. She believes most people have unhappy lives because of being domesticated. From our birth, parents, teachers, ministers, and society in whole domesticate us to what they feel is best for us and society. There is no pattern to the killings of an undomesticated. Typical serial killers are somewhere between domesticated and undomesticated; their patterns and signatures allow them to be profiled and caught. Kimberly is undomesticated and therefore has no pattern to her killings.

Daily Strength, a year-long devotional, walks Christian men through Scripture passages that speak to their most pressing issues. Each daily devotion features a short summary of a Bible passage with a thought-provoking message from one of more than forty contributors.

At the age of 65, a retired Warren Steelgrave is getting bored with life. He decides that unlike his friends his age, he is not going to sit around playing golf, waiting to die. He is going to Italy to start the last chapter of his life and find adventure. Be careful what you wish for - adventure is what he finds. He falls in love with Cindy O'Brian, a singer/songwriter in his Italian language class in Florence Italy. Little did they realize the chain of events that would engulf them. Someone was watching, but who and why?

This is an audiobook of short stories of everyday human emotional experiences. Stories of profound loss, of great friendships, of growing old with a dog, of going to war, and of course, stories of deep romantic love. I hope the stories encourage the listener to do some introspection on what it means to be human. I believe the poems, like all art, will mean more to some than to others.

The son of an Italian crime family goes missing, and Warren Steelgrave is thrust into a terrorist plot that threatens not only America but the life of the woman he still loves. He must broker a deal between the local Mafia boss and the FBI to foil the insidious plan of an extremist cell that has no regard for the lives of innocent people or even for their own lives. Warren is at first perceived by the terrorists as a mere pebble in their path of Jihad, but they soon realize that he too is willing to sacrifice everything to stop them.

This audiobook is a journey I am on: a journey many others have joined me on, and one I will happily take you on. The journey is firstly about becoming conscious of how we tend to live, believing that we need to be able to make life happen for us and ours. Although this may seem a responsible way to live, it actually exposes us to all sorts of unbearable pressures as we attempt to gain control over the circumstances of our everyday lives. Once we become conscious of this, the journey then walks us out of the captivity and heaviness of having to make life happen.

Churchill was far from transparent about his religious beliefs and never regularly attended church services as an adult, even considering himself “not a pillar of the church but a buttress”, in the sense that he supported it “from the outside”. But Gary Scott Smith assembles pieces of Churchill’s life and words to convey the profound sense of duty and destiny, partly inspired by his religious convictions, that undergirded his outlook.

Tasked with finding common ground and building friendships between the world's two largest countries and arctic neighbors, a young Canadian diplomat finds himself on his first overseas assignment in Moscow, the Soviet capital. It's the early 1970s and a Cold War between communism and capitalism, the west and the east, is simmering-while the ice rink is just starting to heat up. Smith opts for sports diplomacy, throwing off his embassy black tie dress codes and donning the blue and white sweater of the Moscow Maple Leafs.

There is no doubt science is currently suffering from a credibility crisis. This thought-provoking book argues that, ironically, science’s credibility is being undermined by tools created by scientists themselves. Scientific disinformation and damaging conspiracy theories are rife because of the Internet that science created, the scientific demand for empirical evidence and statistical significance leads to data torturing and confirmation bias, and data mining is fuelled by the technological advances in Big Data and the development of ever-increasingly powerful computers.

In this latest novel by author Gary Smith, Warren has been pulled away from the quiet, contemplative evenings on the veranda and writing. He is compelled to investigate a suspicious young art dealer on behalf of Catherine Ricci who is Warren’s friend and ex-lover.

Follow Steelgrave carefully as he uses courage and skill to uncover a murderous scheme of international proportion. Travel down the dark alleyways of intrigue through Italy and the United States. Will there be justice and light at the end of this literary journey, or will the last chapter be Warren's obituary?

From humble beginnings on a council estate in Manchester UK, The Message Trust has become one of the fastest growing youth mission organisations on the planet. Its combination of outreach to young people in schools, counter-cultural mission in tough urban areas, and pioneering prison and ex-offender ministry offers a radical template for effective 21st century mission. In this punchy and powerful audiobook, Andy Hawthorne (Founder and CEO), Carl Beech (Deputy CEO), and key members of the Message team share some of the crucial lessons learned over 25 years on the front line.

Some 100,000 soldiers fought in the April 1862 battle of Shiloh, and nearly 20,000 men were killed or wounded; more Americans died on that Tennessee battlefield than had died in all the nation's previous wars combined. In the first book in his new series, Steven E. Woodworth has brought together a group of superb historians to reassess this significant battle and provide in-depth analyses of key aspects of the campaign and its aftermath.

"Google? or God? Where is Your Trust?" addresses this modern dilemma head-on, highlighting the importance of relying on God's Word, especially in times of crisis. Author Gary Smith explores the profound impact of instant information access on our faith and spiritual resilience. While it's convenient to Google a Bible verse in a moment of need, true strength and endurance comes from a deeper connection with Scripture. The book offers a compelling argument for returning to the roots of our faith and rediscovering the power of God's Word.