https://nathancantafio.com/ Writing by Nathan Cantafio on probability, statistics, and mathematics. en https://nathancantafio.com/blog/on-experimental-design.html https://nathancantafio.com/blog/on-experimental-design.html Mon, 04 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT What does experimental design buy you? If the model is correct, only precision. If it is misspecified, design decides what OLS estimates. https://nathancantafio.com/blog/pokemon-team-opt.html https://nathancantafio.com/blog/pokemon-team-opt.html Sat, 20 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT A population-based optimization framework for Pokémon team building, using simulated battles to evaluate noisy black-box objectives over large combinatorial spaces. https://nathancantafio.com/blog/mle-is-not-intuitive.html https://nathancantafio.com/blog/mle-is-not-intuitive.html Sat, 13 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT The justification for using MLE estimates seems fairly intuitive, but this post makes an argument for why it isn’t.