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MC Monte Carlo - Gridding It Up In the Likeli-Hood


At the end of the term in my Ay117 Astrostats course, the students gave 15-minute oral presentations or poster presentations describing their final projects. The morning of presentations was organized like a Keck Science Meeting, so that students not only learned the primary course material, but also gained valuable practice in giving scientific presentations.

Of the many highlights from this year's session was Scott Barenfeld's performance of his latest single from his upcoming Astrostats hip hop album. It was most certainly the best rap performance of the day.

Griddin' it up in the Likeli-hood
From the upcoming debut album 
Straight Outta Inverse Compton

Scott Barenfeld (CIT 1st year)
March 19, 2013

They call me MC Monte Carlo
Be runnin' my code 'till tomorrow
I take the random walk
So don't sit there and squawk
If you need my routines, you can borrow.
I doin' my Bayesian stat stu ff
Comin' up with posteriors off the cu ff
It's Bayes' Theorem yo
You frequentists can go
No root n error bars, son, I had enough.
Findin' your $\mu$ and $\sigma$
Don't have to be such an enigma
Just get the likelihood
You really really should
Then Aaron and John will dig ya!

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