inference talk

I thought about my IAS talk tomorrow; I am giving a talk I have never given before, about modeling the data, and the power that gives you. After our Brown Bag seminar (by Gabadadze, on the cosmological constant problem), I chatted with my various students about the possibility that we could re-reduce the WMAP data. With what I learned at Leiden, I am certain that it is possible to make a higher signal-to-noise map than the official map, and get better parameters. But that is a huge job I am not willing to take on. I also tried to talk Kazin (NYU) and Blanton into some homogeneity tests, with little effect. A scattered day, but there are lots of good ideas floating around. One issue I might mention tomorrow: There is no proper probabilistic approach (I know) for measuring two-point functions. Readers: Do you know anything?