I’ve been away on holiday (Kuala Lumpur, lovely and warm!) for a week. Here are a few interesting articles that caught my eye while I was away.
The Morpeth Flood model – Morpeth is a town in the UK that was flooded very badly in 2008. They’ve proposed a new model of flood insurance, which is interestingly quite similar to one of the proposals from the National Disaster Insurance Review (report here in pdf) for a reinsurance pool which could be topped up by the government if necessary. Ironically, Morpeth in NSW was flooded in 2007 – I wonder if they talk to each other.
A cyclist who has moved to New York from London reflects on the way in which the design of roads and other infrastructure changes cyclist and driver behaviour – you need the right balance of rules and common sense to fit the local culture.
A post from Felix Salmon on how economists get tripped up by statistics (I imagine many actuaries could fall into similar error) – if they are given a distribution as an equation, they are much more likely to misinterpret it than if they look at a graph of it.
Smart technology enhances workplace flexibility – a study shows that 73% of employers are relaxed about employees coming in late, as they assume they will be checking their emails on the way to the office.
And finally, the data speaks – it is more correct to say the data is right, than the data are right – the Economist, (whose style guide asks for “the data are right”) rounds up the evidence, which suggests data is, increasingly, a plural word.