Who likes Math?
 

Neeew, that was the painful lesson that taught me NOT to do what people said I ought to. How's that tune go.... "Wish that I knew what I know now..." Fuck it. Wtare under the bridge. Live and learn.

Who likes Math?
 

I know what you said. It just didn't make any fucking sense. By doing the opposite of what you are told people in your situation "statistically" do, (although I have to admit no one has ever talked to me that way, probably because anybody who uses statistics to try to predict human behaviors is an idiot), aren't you giving statistics as much sway as those who rely on them to make decisions? You're relying on the same statistics, you're just being a contrarian about it.

Do what your gut tells you to. I've found that this usually works well.

Who likes Math?
 

Someone explain this to me.

TM

Who likes Math?
 

Statiscally, most people with your problems would choose to stick a tube on the tailpipe of their cars, close the garage door and turn the key.

Who likes Math?
 

I still don't get it either. For those too lazy to click over, here is the explanation:

"To analyze this problem we represent this senario as a random variable on a roulette wheel. The roulette wheel on the left simulates the Let's Make a Deal game. The inner wheel represents the number of the door that the car is behind, the middle wheel represents the door that is selected by the contestant, and the outer wheel represents the door Monty Hall can show. Spinning this roulette wheel once is equivalent to playing the game once. The outer wheel also tells you what your strategy should be to win. The red means that in order to win the contestant needs to switch doors, and the blue means that the contestant should not switch. Notice that there are twice as many red sections as blue. In other words, you are twice as likely to win if you switch than if you don't switch! What this wheel makes evident is that with probability 1/3 the contestant selects the correct door in which case it would be better not to switch. In the other 2/3 of the cases, Monty Hall is telling the contestant where the car is!"

http://math.ucsd.edu/~crypto/Monty/images/wheel.jpg

How is this an explanation?: "Notice that there are twice as many red sections as blue. In other words, you are twice as likely to win if you switch than if you don't switch!"

Anyone? Anyone?

TM

The new Lindsey
 

Sebby, if you ever are up for some extramarital action, I'm thinking you'd be a good candidate to lower my purity score.

Toodles,

Bunny

Who likes Math?
 

Statistically, most people are not contrarians. I am the sort of person who will occasionally cut off his nose just to say "fuck off" to somebody who tells me what I "ought" to do.

Who likes Math?
 

Come on. Are you really having this conversation with the guy who said, "I'm sure everyone mainly agrees that I am mostly correct..."?

TM

Who likes Math?
 

No. I'm busting his huge balls. I would expect you, of all people, (statistically speaking, that is) to know the difference.

Who likes Math?
 

So much for economics.

Who likes Math?
 

Is that how you blew up your car?

Who likes Math?
 

I haven't yet seen them. If you remember, the hole is still only one inch in diameter. The probability of his huge, itchy balls revealing themselves (even if he knows which one has the best chance of popping out) is still very low.

(And I wasn't really asking you. I just wanted to use Sebby's quote on him while he's going on about statistics.)

TM

Who likes Math?
 

I've read this before and disagree with it. And decided that Marilyn vos Savant is a skanky whore.

As I read the explanation, the odds don't change if there is no interference -- i.e., if you pick one of three doors, and I eliminate a wrong door, the odds of you getting the right door by switching are 50/50.

The statistics change if Monty Hall is telling you to switch. And I think that this is not a matter of probability, but a matter of statistics -- the two are different and the difference is important; probability is math, statistics is history.

The problem immediately gets into an area where statistics becomes useless -- Monty knows where the car is. What if he doesn't like you? Is constipated and cranky that day? Had a booze-and-hooker filled night and makes a mistake?

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Who likes Math?
 

Yes. :( remember, You should put the tube in your car window

Who likes Math?
 

There was a big story in NYT a few Sundays back. Contrarians, the kind of people who eliminate from their wine choices what the waiter recommends, are a pretty big group. So your not following the crowd, is simply following the group.

Who likes Math?
 

It's about time. Economics lies at the crossroads of bad math, bad science, and bad history.

Around 1999, I read what was the common wisdom among economists at the time -- that "the effects of the information revolution can be seen everywhere, except in the productivity statistics." It was the sort of bon mot that would get economists nodding their big woolly heads, and thinking mockingly about all the silly little people who think computers make a difference.

The problem is, only an economist could read that statement -- that "the effects of the information revolution can be seen everywhere, except in the productivity statistics" -- and come to a conclusion other than "wow, the productivity statistics must be really fucked up."

Who likes Math?
 

http://www.stat.sc.edu/~west/javahtm...MakeaDeal.html

this lets you prove it to yourself....

Who likes Math?
 

When throwing out the bathwater, be careful with the baby.

Who likes Math?
 

I still don't get it.

Who likes Math?
 

Which leaves me yet another opening to tell my favorite economist joke:

Three people are stranded on a desert island. One is a physicist, one is a chemist, and one is an economist. They have no food or drinkable water except for cases of canned tuna fish. But they have no can-opener with which to open the cans.

The physicist says, "I have an idea. Let's climb this cliff and drop a can onto the rocks below." The physicist tries the experiment. A can did explode on impact, but the tuna fish sprays in all directions leaving nothing edible from the can.

The chemist says: "I have an idea. Let's soak a can in the ocean water and see if the salts and minerals in the seawater will pore a hole into the can." The chemist drops a can into a pool of seawater, but nothing happens.

The physicist and the chemist are depressed. But the economist triumphantly pronounces: "I have the answer! Let's assume that we have a can-opener!"

Who likes Math?
 

I still don't get it.

Who likes Math?
 

I actually did better not switching.

Who likes Math?
 

Hank told me you were the dumbest.

Who likes Math?
 

Screw the experiment. The page you found has a better explanation:

"The probability of picking the wrong door in the initial stage of the game is 2/3. If the contestant picks the wrong door initially, the host must reveal the remaining empty door in the second stage of the game. Thus, if the contestant switches after picking the wrong door initially, the contestant will win the prize. The probability of winning by switching then reduces to the probability of picking the wrong door in the initial stage which is clearly 2/3."

TM

Who likes Math?
 

Actually, that's the fatal flaw of economics: the assumption that people make rational decisions.

Who likes Math?
 

I'm not a contrarian all the time, which I guess makes me a contrarian in regard to the average contrarian ethos. My thinking is that you're just as likely to be safe following your gut, as spooky suggested, as you are following volumes of studies. Say that to a person who believes in statistics and you're decreid a heretic.

Re epidemiology, a family member who is an oncologist scoffs at the idea of predicting anything unless the predictor being used is genetic heritage. He showed me that govt stats on what you're "supposed" to get if you do "[insert behavior]." If these stats were at all even close to accurate, we'd have all died of STDs, liver disease, cancer and heart attacks years ago. As this particular person said once, "Other than the genetic thing, we have as much clue about what causes disease now as we did in 1950. Its a crapshoot - a variety of circumstances all hitting at the right place at the right time which probably causes disease, so trying to find a single cause is pretty futile" (paraphrased). I think the same applies to most economic studies. Too many intervenin circumstances IRL.

Who likes Math?
 

False use of language. Once one door has been opened, you are faced with a new choice, not merely a continuation of the original. At that point, to stay or to change - both are .5 choices.

Who likes Math?
 

Thanks!

Who likes Math?
 

That's what I said!

This is what I'm starting to try to come to terms with: "The probability of winning by switching then reduces to the probability of picking the wrong door in the initial stage which is clearly 2/3."

I'm going to have to do this experiment on my own time with actual doors, cars and donkeys. (Yeah, I'm leaving myself open, I want to see what you suckers got.)

TM

Who likes Math?
 

You didn't read Irrational Exuberance? I heard Steven Leavitt's recent book debunking most statistical sacred cows is pretty funny...

Who likes Math?
 

I'm not going to bite. Statistics show that the majority of people on this board will.

Who likes Math?
 

I so want to follow you around for a day to witness your conversations IRL. Fly on a wall or whatever. I never get called (and especially not decried as) a heretic. It must be so exciting.

Who likes Math?
 

I do not think that means what they think it means.

Who likes Math?
 

I get bored with regular words.

AI Predictions
 

Statistically speaking, Bo is the obvious frontrunner. I retract what I said yesterday about Carrie's movement. Shaking her equinivore 17 yo hips on the last number gets her to the final. I reserve the right to switch my pick between them next week in order to improve my chances of winning.

Paula criticizes nothing but song choice for everybody all season and then she picks Satisfaction for Bo? Is that the only "rocker" song she knows?

Who likes Math?
 

More anatomically correct, too, unless you walk backwards a lot.

Who likes Britney?
 

Fine. I Tivoed and watched Chaotic last night. I was sort of hoping that it might be some sort of unintentionally funny trainwreck. I was only half right. She's an idiot, alright. But she is a ridiculously boring, way too sure she's funny and deep idiot. Neither intentionally nor unintenionally funny. Just stupid and pathetic.

How did Madonna let this thing get on the air? I thought she had Britney's back.

Who likes Math?
 

If you are so contrarian, why do you persist in insisting you went on strike when the union said you should?

The new Lindsey
 

Some people have thin body types -- like Paris. Some do not -- like Lindsay. This is why Paris is not touted as anorexic (she is just how she is, and there is nothing "wrong" with that) but Lindsay is being gossiped about for her weight (and in my opinion, she is anorexic, though of course I base this on nothing but her appearance).

I have a Lindsay body type and when I was anorexic I looked like how she looks now -- it is not that she doesn't weigh enough in general, it is that she weighs far less than her body is meant to weigh. Looking at pictures of me "before" (Lindsay and Nicole's "after") makes me feel really sick and sad for them. I bet they think they look great and would argue "but I weigh the same as so and so and no one says anything about HER being anorexic!"

Who likes Math?
 

I cannot explain this, but I have read enough of Parade -- I could say I read it just for Walter Scott's Personality Parade, but who would believe me? -- to know that Marilyn Vos Savant (the world's smartest person (tm)) (not her real name, I'm thinking) can explain this up and down. I would ask your secretary to run down her explanation. Or, have her look here:

http://www.marilynvossavant.com/images/mvs3.jpg

Or, if you don't want to ask her to do this, just look at this.

STP, no doubt. I'm sure someone beat me to the Walter Scott thing.