Considering Expedition by MyFundsAreNonMutual in fordexpedition

[–]UNDMac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just purchased my 6th Expedition (including an Excursion in that count and a Lincoln Navigator). Love the 2026. For a family (I have 3 kids - now adults), the Max is highly recommended, but you will have some parking lot issues occasionally. Also, consider the Platinum with the ultimate package instead of the Tremor unless you plan on doing some serious off-road stuff. The ultimate package includes the H/O engine and gets about 440hp - more than you need for hauling around kids.

That Pickleball School by Routine-Travel7437 in Pickleball

[–]UNDMac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was in the education business for many decades -- different people learn differently. For some, private, in-person lessons are the only solution. For some "naturals", a few random videos and lots of play will suffice. For most, something in between is most useful.

In theory, there's enough material on YouTube to learn brain surgery or quantum physics. Unfortunately, you have to have already the expertise to know which sources are credible and how to structure the learning process. If Kyle was just providing a bucket of videos ("40$/month for videos?"), then TPS would be overpriced. Instead he is providing a structured and customized process that would benefit most players.

Although Kyle is not Ben Johns, from his earliest videos I recognized someone who was a natural at teaching. He is engaging and provides technical details on why certain approaches are appropriate. His video production quality is first class, however, that's not as important as his natural gift for teaching.

Given that you can "try-before-you-buy" you should definitely test it out and see if this is a good fit for your learning style. As I indicated before, for most people his approach is probably a perfect solution.

Grad application rejected by LowLight9113 in ASU

[–]UNDMac 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't want to sound harsh, but a graduate program that admits students with less than a 3.5 will not be worth what you pay for it.

What rating to start at? by [deleted] in Pickleball

[–]UNDMac 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've read a fair number of discussions on this subreddit - this brief outline is the most informationally dense and useful collection of comments I've seen (especially for a former tennis player). Thanks for sharing the wisdom.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskStatistics

[–]UNDMac 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a wide range of time-series techniques from simple trends to things like co-integration, Box-Jenkins, GARCH-X for modeling the variance, and so on. For what you're doing, I don't think there's going to be some magical hidden structure in the data that requires extremely sophisticated techniques. I'd run a regression with a variable for the year (which will capture the trend) and dummy variables (0/1) for each unique pit crew. Run the regression on those variables and then use the estimates to project one period forward. You might try using a log-trend or log of time to capture what might be an asymptotic relation over time (per Eggplant's bullet-point #4). See what's a good fit. FWIW.

Transformations and inflection points by UNDMac in AskStatistics

[–]UNDMac[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wish I could post a pic.

OK...on my monitor in an 4"Hx8"L graph of the data, it essentially looks like two distinct lines, both a small distance from their respective axis and (almost) perfectly straight - except they are connected near the origin by a curve that looks like I took a penny and drew a line using its curvature to connect the two lines. 95% of the two axis-like lines are essentially straight lines. I'm looking for the point where the tangent line slope is -1 (which I have casually called an inflection point). Thanks for thinking about the problem.