Welcoming the Spring

March 20, 2007

So it has been a while since I posted.  I was pretty good about doing it at first, but things got busy and I got distracted.  I heard on the radio that Spring officially starts at 7:07PM today, and I am quite pleased.  It looks like the weather will be good enough to take the bike for the rest of the week, which is the first time I'll be taking it to work since all the work.  I had a local shop check it out and they said it looks good, though, so I'm confident.

To welcome Spring, I'll share some random musings.

"It's always darkest just before the dawn" - No it's not.  That's stupid.  <<pause for effect>>  Just before the dawn, the sky is almost as bright as it is just after the dawn.  Have you actually seen the sun come up?  The sky starts to brighten long before you actually see the sun peeking up.  Unless, of course, you mean that the dawn is any time when the sky is getting brighter, but I doubt you'll claim that the dawn is a 5 hour process starting at about 2am.  Can you imagine if it actually were darkest just before the dawn?  You'd be out there trying to find the handle on your car or trying to put that worm on the stupid hook in pitch blackness, and suddenly BAM!  Lights on.  It'd be like stumbling into a bathroom in the middle of the night and flipping the light on.  I have a problem with taking something popular like "Patience is a virtue" or "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" (notice they are in contradiction) and throwing it out there as proof that your point of view is correct.  It's even worse, though, when the saying is ridiculous in the first place.  I'm gonna go around saying thing like "A bird in the hand is a rock if you smell it" and "A blue box is worth three eggs, but the Indians only lick Fritos."

Broken Link

February 24, 2007

Try this link instead.

The artist is Little Big Town

Song: Bring it On Home (track 4)

The 11 seconds I referred to was valid with the media player version.  I'm not sure about realplayer.

I'm not Crazy!!

February 24, 2007Ok, so I keep hearing this song on the radio, but I swear there is something wrong.  At the end of the first line of the chorus, the group hits a chord.  In the background, I always here a high-pitch squeal that is just flat of the note.  The song is in G, and the squeal sound is just flat of a G.  I've tried letting others hear it, but NO ONE else can hear anything.  Please listen to it here and tell me if you hear it.  It occurs 11 seconds into the track.  My mom thinks she can hear an instrument or something, but no one hears something really high pitched and flat.  Please please please listen to this.  I'm hoping someone out there can hear it.

Needing Math Geeks

January 08, 2007

I have a statistics problem I've been contemplating for a while, and I thought I'd share it.  I haven't figured out the "answer" yet, so I'm very interested to see what you all say.

Imagine that you are walking down the street and see a man on the sidewalk with a table set up.  He tells you that he has an offer for you.  If you give him a dollar, you can roll his standard, 6-sided die.  If you roll any number besides a number you pick, you get 2 dollars.  In fact, any amount you give him will be returned to you double if you win.  If you roll the number you picked, you lose your wager.  As an additional note, he says that you can play as many times as you want, but you must wager all of your earnings to continue.

Let's look at the math.  If you're satisfied that the man is honest and that the die is not tampered with, then you know you have a 5/6 chance to win.  That's awfully good odds considering that he's gonna double your money.  If you could play the game 6 times with just 1 dollar each time, you'd expect to walk away with 10 dollars (5 wins, 1 loss).  Unfortunately, you don't get that option.

Let's pretend you take the bet.  You choose number 1, and to your delight, you roll a 4.  He hands you 2 dollars and tells you to have a nice day.  Then you think, "I still have 5/6 odds to win, right?  I think I'll roll one more time." 
As is required for the game, you wager your 2 dollar earnings.  Sure enough, you pick 1 again and roll a 2.  You've now made 3 additional dollars on top of your 1 original.  You play again and increase to 8.  Again to 16.  Again, and you lose.  The guy keeps your money (15 in earnings and the 1 dollar you originally paid), and invites you to play again from the beginning.  What do you do?

Every time you walk up to the table, it makes statistical sense to take the bet.  5/6 odds are great for a double your money situation.  When you look at the game one set at a time, it always looks like a good idea, because you always have 5/6 chance to win.  But when you lose, you know you're gonna lose all your earnings.  And you also know that if you play long enough, you will lose.  No matter how well you are doing, you can't win forever.

Another look at the math - You have a 5/6 (83%) chance to win the first round.  If you want to calculate the chance of winning both the first and second rounds, though, it's 5/6 * 5/6 or 69.4%.  Three rounds in a row have only a 57.9% chance.  Here's the kicker.  If you just finished round tww, do you have a 57.9% chance to win the next round?  No.  You have an 83% chance to win.  Although you can foresee only 57.9% chance for three sucessive rounds, the closer you get to that third round, the more likely it will be that you're gonna make it, which makes sense as you already completed several rounds.  Here's a chart of your foreseeable chances to win to complete the round.

Round 1: 83.3%
Round 2: 69.4%
Round 3: 57.9%
Round 4: 48.2%
Round 5: 40.2%
Round 6: 33.5%
Round 7: 27.9%
Round 8: 23.3%
Round 9: 19.4%
Round 10: 16.2%

Okay.  Here are my 3 questions:

1 - Would you play this game if it were offered to you, and if so, how much would you initially wager?

2 - If you would play, how many rounds would you play, remembering that you must include all of your original wager and earnings with each new round?

3 - Who do you think would make more money?  The man at the table or the passers-by?

Here are some other considerations.  Say, for example, that you would play 3 rounds and wager 20 dollars.  This, of course, would give you a 57.9% chance of walking away with $80 after 3 rounds of play.  If, instead, you wanted to start with 5 dollars, you'd have to play 5 rounds, and you'd only have a 40.2% chance to walk away with $80.  What happens when you get to $80?  You still have an 83% chance to make it $160.  You were willing to hope for 57.9% odds.  Are you really going to pass up 83%?  Here the major problem I see: when you look several rounds into the future, you know you are likely to lose.  When you look at the next round, though, you know you are likely to win.  Would you resist going "just one more round"??  If you started with a nickel and managed to win 10 times in a row (a feat only accomplished by 16.2% of those that attempt it) and made 51 dollars, would you pass up that 83% chance to break 100?

Answer my questions and/or tell me what the math says to  you.  Do you think people should play until the chance drops below 50%?  Why can't they just mentally start over saying to themselves, "I've already won 4 rounds, but I still have a 69.4% chance of winning 2 more in a row"?  Shouldn't you look at each choice as it comes?  Of having an 83% chance?  But won't that ultimately lead to a loss?   :)

Saddam Execution

January 03, 2007

I just watched the Saddam execution video, and read a large number of comments on a certain site.

Have I really kept my head in a hole my entire life?  The sentiments I read expressed were absolutely horrifying.  I have never seen or heard such pure hatred and disgust.  Like the executioners, many took real delight in the video, lamenting only that the video was of poor quality.  Some said they wished the rope had been shorter so he would have suffocated instead of having his neck broken.  Some said he should have been burned.  He should have been buried alive.  He should have been dipped in a boiling vat of oil.  He should have been tortured for days by having his finger nails pulled out and spikes driven into him.

Reading it gave me shivers.  Is this what people have in their hearts?  Something they keep buried until they take advantage of the anonymity of the internet?  And it isn't all directed at Saddam.  It also burns between posters.  One hates all Iraqis, proclaiming their stupidity and the superiority of America.  Another hates Bush, saying he and Blair should be strung up next to Saddam.  Another spouts off the number of Americans killed in 9/11.  Another retorts with the number of Americans killed in the Iraq war.  There is no civility.  There is no understanding.

Americans enjoy a fantastic amount of freedom, including the right to believe whatever they choose.  This right is precious to all of us.  Somehow, I thought that we as individuals were more mature than this.  Are we really so far away?  Do we still assign value to a person based on their national heritage?  Their skin color?  Their net worth?  What about their crimes?  Does a person carry less intrinsic value once they have stolen a pack of gum?  What about a car?  And if they've murdered?  At what point does the killing of anyone for any reason become an occasion worth celebrating?  I support justice, and I support the safety of the Iraqi people.  I believe Saddam was a terrible man, by whom many great injustices were inflicted upon his people.  Should he have been executed?  Perhaps.  Should he have been executed while being mocked by the Iraqis assigned to the task, wearing ski masks and praising their prophet for the chance to kill him?  Absolutely not.  Should we find elation in a video of a man being humiliated and executed.  Absolutely not.

In a war such as we now find ourselves, there is no doubt in my mind that people have strong emotions tied to the various schools of thought.  I know many people hate the war.  I know that passion can burn much hotter than reason.  I naively thought that people would choose to be objective.  I honestly did not know how much misunderstanding and evil is within people.

My major upset is not that people desired the death of Saddam.  Many feel that death was the only form of justice befitting a mass murderer, and I am in no position to debate the ethics of a death penalty.  My upset is why they desired this execution.  It's not the security of our nation.  It's not the democratization of Iraq.  It's not even justice.  It's hatred.  An execution for justice yields a sense of propriety and stability, not one of bliss.  It's hatred.  Hate is man's best catalyst and his worst compass.  It produces an unimaginable compulsion to act and no protection from making the act destructive.

The manner in which this execution was carried out is now being called a sectarian lynch.  I am repulsed most, however, by the reaction I have seen among our fellow Americans.  This reaction has been a result, not of empathy for a people, but of hatred for a man.  More than a dictator has been put to death.