[conspire] (forw) Re: Correction

[Texx]

UGH...
You lecture me about "click bait"
WHY did I watch that?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 5:12 PM Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Quoting Texx (texxgadget at gmail.com):
>
> [pond puzzle:]
>
> > Putting on sysadmin hat, the question should be asked WHY do they get
> this
> > problem wrong?
>
> The most common hypothesis is that people are so accustomed to _linear_
> trends that they picture those even where you stress that this is
> something dramatically different.
>
> To elaborate on that, human intuition was shaped pretty well be natural
> selection to avoid getting eaten on the savannah, but consistently
> misleads people in a more-complex world.
>
> Here's another puzzle to make the point:  In a pre-SARS-CoV-2 scenario,
> you have a room where a random assortment of people gather.  How many
> people must enter the room before there is a > 50% likelihood of at
> least two of those people sharing the same birthday?  Take a guess based
> on intuition, and then I'll be glad to explain why your intuition on
> this puzzle (_and mine too, and everyone else's_) is wildly wrong.
>
> For simplicity, and to avoid getting all wound up in (uninteresting!)
> edge cases, assume 365 days in the year (e.g., let's not get hung up on
> Frederic from 'Pirates of Penzance' having been born on Feb. 29 and
> apprenticed to pirates until his 21st birthday), and let's assume rates
> of human birth are randomly distributed around the days of the year.
>
> If you want to cheat, look up 'Birthday Paradox' -- or, if you're a
> tedious math wonk, you can just calculate the answer.  But doing either
> of those does an end-run around my point, which is how very wrong
> everyone's intuitive guess is, and why that happens.  (Which I'll
> explain later.)
>
> Hint for the math wonks:  The easy way to calculate the answer involves
> inverting the question.
>
>
> > If its doubling every day then going back a day its halving.
> > That known, its quite easy to find 50% 25% 12.5% .625% etc.
>
> Be careful:  Like the epidemial concept of R-zero, the basic
> reproduction number, doubling rate is _completely_ context-dependent.
> It is not an inherent, fixed property of a disease organism, but rather
> a value observed specific to a time and place that depends on local
> conditions (including population density, part of the reason NYC is in
> such trouble).
>
>
>
> > Everyone NEEDS a LOG!
>
> I'm not sure it did much for Margaret Lanterman.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BloTVTziM6c
>
>
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-- 

R "Texx" Woodworth
Sysadmin, E-Postmaster, IT Molewhacker
"Face down, 9 edge 1st, roadkill on the information superdata highway..."
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