Re: Wherez my flying car? MarkB, give it to me damn you!

In article <marek1-6448F6.19502409022008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
marek1@xxxxxxx says...
In article <MPG.2217a621ecf776f49897a5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mark Borgerson <mborgerson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <marek1-C451D8.14255109022008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
marek1@xxxxxxx says...
In article <MPG.22169f76f94c2d559897a1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mark Borgerson <mborgerson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <MPG.22169b4416072cf29897a0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
mborgerson@xxxxxxxxxxx says...
In article <marek1-49019D.18563508022008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
marek1@xxxxxxx says...
<<SNIP>>

Statistics lesson: The odds of something happening over a lifetime
doesn't change no matter how many times you engage in the event. If
you play blackjack for 1 hand or for a million, the odds STAY THE
SAME. There's a saying in Vegas: "Cards have no memory."

You must not be aware of the problems Las Vegas casinos have
had with card counters. The problem is that the odds of
the player winning DO NOT stay the same with each hand. They
can vary significantly from hand to hand based on the cards
from the deck that have already been played. The cards don't
have a memmory---but the players do! If you can keep track
of the cards played and adjust your bets without getting
caught, you can win money at BlackJack.

Not me, necessarily, but the saying was coined back before card
counting. It refers to losing streaks where someone may put in more
money hoping that the odds favor a winning hand to even out the odds.

If you're going to play blackjack like that, it should be for
entertainment value only!

I love the disclaimers at the end of the state lottery TV Ads
"Lottery games should not be considered an investment and should
be played for entertainment value only"

The lottery especially is rigged with more than 3/4's of the monies that
go into it being retained by the government. 1/2 of the monies are paid
out, then 1/2 of that is spread over 30 years (unless the winner opts
for a payout) and then finally they're taxed at the maximum rate on the
winnings.
Yeah---that becomes apparent when, if you elect to take a lump-sum
payout, you get 1/2 the 20-year payout.

Oh, and yes, I am aware of the problems Las Vegas casinos have with card
counters. That's why they use multiple decks to mitigate this factor.
I used to work for one of the first card counters, Jeff Yass, who used
the money he won in Vegas to start a trading company in Philadephia.
Your use of the wording "must" is therefore mistaken but then again, you
do have a point that blackjack is a poor example for this statistical
law.

I agree that "Must" was the wrong wording. It should have been
"You don't demonstrate any awareness of the problems..."

No harm done on my end. I am not interested in using quibbling to
obfuscate communication in an effort to rationalize my beliefs. I knew
what you meant and I'm honest with myself about it.

You should have picked the Roulette wheel for your example. In that
case the odds of a particular number stay the same from spin to
spin.

Yes, but that game doesn't involve cards hence wouldn't apply to the
saying. Nonetheless, quibbling over the example I used does not change
the statistical law I cited.

OK, you can quit quibbling over my responses to your examples at
any time.

Not just yet. I was quibbling in response to your quibbling because
that's the language you were using. Before I cut you loose, I've got to
go for the semantic kill. You understand. (And if you don't, then I
have more work to do. :-)

Communication courses emphasize to identify where someone is coming from
more than so what they are actually saying literally.

"emphasize to identify where someone is coming form..." Could you try
that again? I don't think it would get past any editor to whom I've
ever submitted anything.

I just had a similar business experience yesterday. I went to another
division to propose bringing in a vendor to demo (oops, I mean
demonstrate!) (Ok, you said you were through with that so enough
already, but I was having so much fun... :-)

Ok, to continue: I just suggested a very innocent event and they gave me
a whole lot of heat throwing everything but the kitchen sink at my
proposal including ad-hominem attacks. I hit them back using their own
language THEN followed up with a focused statement that I was help them
and a full disclosure of my interests.

"that I was help them "??? Which word is missing there? (is it
"there"?) ;-)

That's when communication became possible.

If you know they were giving you a whole lot of heat---there was
communication before you explained yourself. You just didn't like
the message.

It's funny because even as I achieved all my communication objectives
(which I had mapped out beforehand) I really didn't listen to their
balderdash at a conscious level. Quite frankly, I don't really listen
to yours either (don't tell anyone!) That's why I appear so sloppy.
I'm listening for HOW people are speaking, not about WHAT. If I follow
the "what", that's kind of like me acting like my cat who chases after
the dot made by the laserpointer.

Ah, so content is less important to you than how people are speaking.
OK. Don't let yourself get confused by facts as long as the tone
is interesting. If you ignore WHAT people are saying to concentrate
on HOW they are saying it, you just might miss a significant part
of the information content.

Oh, why am I telling you all this? Because it's in my best interests
to. All communication works based upon honesty. I consider it a waste
of time to bother using dishonest communication to protect bad ideas
(unless I've actually done something wrong. But that doesn't apply
here.)

I'm admittantly sloppy about details and
look to bigger ideas unlike some people who are good at sweating the
small stuff to defend their personal beliefs. Some people's minds work
the other way around and you may be one of them. That may be why you
drew the wrong conclusion about what I "must" be thinking.

I prefer to get the details right when those details are part of
rigorously proven scientific or mathematical knowledge.

I think the first 7 words are 100% true based upon your skillset.
You're a details person and that's what you do. We use the tools we're
good at.

Yep. If I wasn't concerned about the details in computer programming
and hardware design, I might have to get a job at Microsoft! ;-)



The second part of your sentence is your BELIEF. Are you telling me you
only care about details when they're part of [upper crust accent here]
"rigorously proven scientific or mathematical knowledge?" Of course,
you didn't say "only", granted, but you added that phrase to give your
details oriented mind a greater credibility. "It's all about the
science, ol' chap."

Your interpretation may not be complete. I might also prefer to
get the details right when they are simply a matter of looking up
a word in the dictionary.

Yeah... right.

Like the blog author's spelling was a matter of "scientific and
mathematical" interest.
No, but his statistically inaccurate hypothis about cars and divorces
was a matter of mathematical interest. That was statistical ignorance.
I think the poor spelling is a simple matter of laziness.

Details and even scientific jargon and language can be used by anyone.
Monks and other historically religious figures for thousands of years
were good at spelling and details and daresay, were quite educated and
intelligent to boot. In the states we tend to associate religious
figures with being primitive thinking and poorly educated but this has
to do with certain sects that tended to be comprised of farmers and
other manual laborers and were used to scapegoat all religious people.


I'm "in the states" and I don't think that way. Where did you get
this impression? I think a lot of people in the US understand that
religious figures quite often have better than average educations.
A lot of significant writing in the fields of philosopy and science
has been done by 'religious figures'. Have you forgotten Gregor Mendel?

Religious people devised an incredible mechanism to seperate their
religious dogma and beliefs from reason. It's called faith. Once the
word "faith" is used, all bets are off and so is the pressure. It's
"faith" that explains the universe being created, in place, 10,000 years
ago along with all the evidence otherwise. Sure, it's unscientific as
hell but by scientific reasoning, it can't be disproven either.

For those without a concept of faith in their lives, EVERY belief is one
whether they admit it or not. ESPECIALLY if they don't admit it.

You've totall lost me here.

Beliefs
that don't require detailed support are a lot like faith. You
can say anything you want without the requirement to provide
detailed evidence or data.

A belief supported by cherry picked evidence and arguments is a mere
rationalization. It's the same thing as faith, but just pretentious.
You know, that term, "pretentious", describes something...

Just because they're cherries doesn't mean they're not fruit!
If "cherry picked evidence" means presenting the evidence that
best supports your argument, that would seem to be a valid
debating technique.

Remember the Greeks? Those guys rocked and were ahead of their time.
"Ahead of their time"??? I thought they defined their time and set
a good standard for all that followed.
But they believed in a lot of wacky stuff. The saying goes: Garbage In,
Garbage Out. A whole bunch of details and facts based upon a false
assumption, no matter how well done on the surface, is still trash.

IMO, this is why our civilization has come to a bit of a halt. At the
turn of the 19th/20th centuries, there were scientists and engineers who
kicked ass. They pioneered electricity, light, air travel, wireless
communications, automobiles, automation to name just a few. Most of
what's gone on since then has been purely derivative (although I will
acknowledge that their work is also, if we quibble, derivative but look
at what the logical leaps they achieved in such a short time.)

I would put the understanding of solid-state electronics up in the
same pioneering scale. The theory of relativity, and such gems
as "E=MC^2" are up there also. I think there has been a lot
of very original work in math (string theory, multi-dimensional
geometry, etc.) and astrophysics that developed after new investigative
tools became available in the 50' and 60s.

Oh, wait, then we had to serve the Gods of Marxism and "women's
equality". Time to make the facts fit our beliefs. Warp that science
baby!


Oddly enough, there was some pretty good work done in physics and
math in Marxist countries. Even Marx's work in economics was pretty
innovative---if not a great plan for political and social action.
But that does go back to the turn of the 20th century.
Wherez the friggin' flying car I was promised in Popular Mechanics?

Paul Moller was working on that at my alma mater--UC Davis.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20535980



I'm reminded of Galileo's conclusion about a heliocentric solar system
versus a geocentric one. It turns out that he was right but had errors
in his scientific proof and was rejected by the academic consensus of
the day. No nobel prize for him! :-) (Of course, there were no nobel
prizes in those days if you feel urged to point that out.) :-)

I guess that example shows that people who don't get the details
right are not likely to convince others to believe in them.

Yeah, that's why we all believe that the sun revolves around the Earth
today! :-)

Well, you are the one who said Gallileo had errors in his scientific
proof. I guess he, and others managed to correct the errors.

Galileo made a typo and reasoned minds were able to see past it. What
this example proves is that people who don't get the details right, and
only use details, are not likely to convince others to discard their
faith and strong prejudices. But then again, even if Galileo had gotten
all his details right that's no guarantee the Vatican would have changed
it's mind right away. The church just got around to admitting his
position was correct:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo
"On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the
Galileo affair was handled, and officially conceded that the Earth was
not stationary, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical
Council for Culture.[77][78]"

Wow---it only took the Catholic church 360 years to correct that
mistake. I guess some organizations move more slowly than others. ;-)


MarkB, you may not be aware of this, but the new firefox browser has a
history feature that allows one to view FUTURE stored hyperlinks. It's
simply amazing. You need to get version 3.0beta and run it on Linux
though. (You don't think something this awesome would run on Windows,
do you?) Anyways:

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeowCat (Put through a Polish to English
translator with English language no longer available)
"On 12 October 2407, the Nobel prize committee acknowledged that it's
peace prize award to Al Gore was based upon irrational thinking inspired
by consensus marxist dogma rather than science or reason. "After 390
years of global cooling caused by the solar cycle, we've finally come to
realize that maybe the world isn't coming to an end due to global
warming after all." said Meow Cat's translator. Meow Cat, an
affirmative action President of the committee, was placed into office by
quota by the lobby of cat servants (also known as humans).

[WikiUpdate]
It's uncertain whether Meow Cat will finish his term since the great
debacle of him spewing up hair balls on the Siamese President of Japan
in 2391.

That is
exactly my point about the original web site.

No it wasn't. I don't think you really cared about what the guy wrote
at all, really. You just wanted to put on a display of plumage by
meaningless nitpicking at the guy's work. It's clearly quite important
to you to feel, well, important and intelligent and superior to him.


OK. What you think I thought is different from what I think I thought.
No surprise there. I thought he made a silly comparison.

Which is ok. Most healthy people need to put on such displays from time
to time.

The problem with such emotionally driven displays is that you didn't pay
attention to all the details of what the guy said and your own analysis.
Two can play at that game...

Two----just two???? Are we now excluding everyone else! ;-)

BTW, A lot of scientists have their ideas rejected when the first
publish because the tools they used to collect their supporting data
weren't sensitive enough. That happened as recently as the 1920's
when many geologists rejected Wegener's theory of continental drift.
The theory was gradually accepted, and now we have instruments sensitive
enough to actually measure the relative movement of continental plates.

Mark Borgerson

Non-sequitur. Instruments not being sensitive enough is not the same as
making a mistake on a detail (whether it's relevent or not.)

True----but scientist rejected Wegener well before the instruments were
available to confirm his theory.

That's honestly not a quibble on my part. Scientists in the above case
had a legitimate reason to not adopt a proposal that lacked valid
experimental data. If they tossed out a valid theory because the cover
page had a spelling error, history would hold that against them.

Yeah---about 390 years later! ;-)


Mark Borgerson


.

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