A Statistical Analysis of the Work of Bob Ross

[peterw]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-statistical-analysis-of-the-work-of-bob-ross/

Bob Ross was a consummate teacher. He guided fans along as he painted “happy trees,” “almighty mountains” and “fluffy clouds” over the course of his 11-year television career on his PBS show, “The Joy of Painting.” In total, Ross painted 381 works on the show, relying on a distinct set of elements, scenes and themes, and thereby providing thousands of data points. I decided to use that data to teach something myself: the important statistical concepts of conditional probability and clustering, as well as a lesson on the limitations of data.

So let’s perm out our hair and get ready to create some happy spreadsheets!

Great analysis and numbers of Bob Ross paintings.

 

[blergh]

And this is exactly why i love the internet, useless facts presented in an interesting fashion.

 

[tchen]

It's educational to boot.  Hopefully it'll inspire the next generation of statisticians, so they can have their happy little friends

 

[drmike]

AWESOME!

I can't believe Bob Ross has been gone for so long.  He died way back in 1995.

For this of you unfamiliar with Ross, he had a show on and often was a fixture on PBS television in the United States.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ross

Happy little remix PBS did in Mr. Ross' memory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLO7tCdBVrA

 

[MannDude]

Bob Ross raised me as a child. Well, not literally. But I remember sitting down and watching him paint each week. I've even considered recently getting some art supplies and dow... acquiring his series so that I can work on a new hobby away from the glowing screen of PCs.

 

[drmike]

Those screens stop glowing if you apply some oil paint  You just want a 'fro like Mr. Ross.