Author: fca
Date: 10:58:37 08/18/98
Go up one level in this thread
On August 18, 1998 at 12:09:39, Dan Homan wrote: >On August 18, 1998 at 10:49:09, fca wrote: Thanks for accepting that the overlapping trials was a chess-relevant point... more on it at the bottom. >>>Dan, not Don - You have repeated this mistype intermittently in this >>>thread and it seems deliberate - I find it rather rude. >>Sorry, Dan. I cannot see any rudeness, though, and certainly none was intended. >>Dann is also part of this thread. Possibly contributing to my mistake. The CCC >>format does not permit me to back up and then down a different subthread (which >>was necessary here, and still is, where one is quoting from someone in a >>non-preceding post) while preserving a partly written answer. Hence I was >>working from memory... >I think I had too little sleep last night. Ditto. Too much work at present. > I was getting paranoid. >The overall tone of your remarks (corrective, mysterious, aloof, >yet parentally supportive) Perhaps giving a clue as to one or more of my past / present occupations? ;-) > I found to be an odd mix and coupled with the >multiple, but intermittent mis-spellings of my name, to be rather >patronizing. Clearly I have overjudged here, I apologize. Accepted 100%. No problemos! >>(0) Nothing patronising intended. The point is "Stats are hard". To me too. >>(1) I have not made any comment or criticism re Dann's answers. >>(2) I found one mathematical error in your answer (^10 instead of ^20). Perhaps >>you feel I should not have corrected it. Sorry anyway. btw I made a not >>dissimilar mistake too, which I also corrected. >I think that the correction of errors, whether mathematical or >typographical (it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference) is always >in order. Agreed. The context showed you clearly were applying the right principle, so I assumed it was a typo. It was interesting I made almost the same one too elsewhere but in different context - writing 2^10 instead of 2^20... >>(3) Your reply to Q(4) was in the *hundreds of thousands*. Bruce's reply was >>*1*. Is it surprising I should explore the reason why? The reason being that >>Bruce actually IMO answered the exact question asked (which was IMO partly a bad >>question). You (Dan) perhaps answered what *should* have been asked. Exactly >>illustrating the statistical tightrope that has already been highlighted by >>others, and which is (as Bruce pointed out) chess relevant. >>(4) All the answers Bruce gave were correct IMO (given the ambiguity in >>questions). He did not reply to the definitely *bad* Q(3), and I believe you >>(Dan) also (rightly IMO) chose to reply to another (unasked) question rather >>than Q3. Which is not to say that Q(3) does not have an answer, but that I >>question what possible use the answer could be. (like with the 1/3 BG answer). >> >>As you related two mathematician/physicist jokes/anecdotes in your last post, >>and had made humorous references to there being a catch and rising to the bait, >>I am perhaps to be forgiven for assuming I was not about to be flamed! > >Sorry, again. Accepted 100%. No problemos! >I get a bit defensive when I feel someone is trying to >yank my chain :) Understandable, but I wasn't, and now you see it, so: No problemos! > I know now that this is simply the way you communicate All of us do not communicate via English with the same facility, so please make allowances for me. >and no harm was intended. The key point. Thanks. :-) >I hope you will accept my apology. Accepted 100%. No problemos! >we are dying to know what *your* answers are to the questions >you posed. Please do not be dying! Note I have already stated that *with the assumptions bruce implicitly made (i.e. trials consecutive non-overlapping, "in a row" meant "heads in a row"), all 3 of his answers were correct. And with the assumptions Dan made (i.e. trials consecutive non-overlapping), Dan's first two were correct, his third (wisely IMO) refused to answer a bad question (Dan and I have 'spoken' on this off-CCC, and he accepts my "bad question" theory now I understand) instead giving a useful probability, and his fourth correctly answered a "better" question than the one I asked. So it is only a matter of filling a few holes... (c) is ok, with the right question. Elsewhere, BIG problemos ;-) Now I *could* say that if I knew how to solve them I would not have asked the questions. I shall not say that, though. ;-) What I will say is that the overlapping trials could be a right pig to solve... But I'll look at it. Maybe Dann will post complete solutions on return from holiday so it would be inhospitable for me to be premature... ;-) I will pursue Bruce's posts on the what-if-the-other-guy-can-terminate-a-game-series-when-most-favourable-to-him idea first, though... much to explore there. Maybe later since I just saw Ferret being checkmated by a player graded c400 lower, and imagine this is a bad time.... ;-)) btw, I promise that I enjoy mistakes in my own logic being pointed out just as much as I enjoy pointing out mistakes in the logic used by anyone else. I do my *very best* to minimise the cause of the first type of enjoyment, though, and may not be doing the same for minimising the cause of the second... ;-) Kind regards fca PS: I apologise if my writing style seems at all patronising. It is not intended to be so: I am just interested in what is correct, and how problems are solved.
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