The 'rejection of free money' is from a test where A is given $100 and has to offer a proportion to B. If B rejects, neither A nor B get anything. The ultimatum game.
The test is supposed to measure irrationality. Since the game is only played once, economists say whatever the offer made by A, if it is more than zero, then B should accept. According to their limited reasoning powers, A should offer B $1 and B should accept. In real life, A typically offers much more than that, and B typically rejects an offers of less than around 40%.
Far from demonstrating the irrationality of the participants the test nicely demonstrates two forms of stupidity particuarly prevelant in economists.
The first form of stupidity is thinking that if something is impossible to measure in monetary terms, then it has no value. They think that by rejecting the offer B gets nothing. Actually, B gets the satisfaction of punishing someone for being stingy. Suppose we were playing with $100 and A offered me $1. I would certainly reject the offer as the satisfaction of seeing A get nothing for being a dick would be worth more than $1.
The second form of stupidity here is the belief that if something cannot be modelled, then its not real. This situation has elements of paradox which makes it hard to model. If we ignore the fact that non-monetary things can have value, there's still something interesting going on here. The fact the B might behave 'irrationally' by rejecting A's offer means that in practise, B ends up making more money than he otherwise would. A knows that B will reject an offer he deams too low, and so A offers much more than he would if he knew that B would take anything he offered. If we stick strictly to money, after the offer has been made B should always take it.. its supposedly 'irrational' not to. However, without the fear of irrationality A would always take $99 and B would get $1. Actually B typically gets much more than that so the 'irrational' behaviour is actually smarter.
Right, that's what we should be afraid of because the government is much more likely to try and screw us than Mark Zuckerberg who would never try to screw anybody. Or consider selling the info to anybody who would screw us. In other breaking news, unexpected rain could mean the Titanic is danger of getting wet.
I think its a lot worse than outsourcing. At least with outsourcing people are still paid to work, they're just paid less (which they can live with as they live somewhere where things are a lot cheaper). With this model, 95% + of the people who work on a project are guaranteed to get nothing for it. Its totally exploitative. Eventually things will even out as nobody would even try to become a graphic designer if this was the dominant model and those with any options at all will refuse to work by this model so the quality of submissions will diminish over time until enough people go back to traditional mechanisms.
> The similarities in code flow, layout, variable names, filenames, etc. are conclusive.
I did look at the code on the linked site and what I saw looked entirely like a clean room implementation to me. The similarities were superficial and much less impressive than similarities I have seen in code that I know was written independently (because I wrote it). Two programmers working on the same problem can easily come up with strikingly similar looking solutions which a non-programmer (or an inexperienced programmer) would never believe was independent. I was astounded at how pathetic the supposed similarities were.
If the statement is ambiguous, then the fucking answer is ambiguous too ("consistency is key" after all) . If one took the statement to mean 'exactly one' instead of 'at least one' the answer comes out to 12/27 not 13/27. Its a probability question so should I have to consider the probability the question meant one thing and weigh that against the probability it meant the other thing.. fine... are we supposed to give an answer of c. 12.3/27 ?
This problem is interesting enough without the unnecessary ambiguity which does nothing but invalidate the answer so the statement should be stated unambiguously by just saying 'at least one' .
> By the same standards, stating that one child was born on a tuesday also implies the other child was not born on a tuesday, regardless of gender.
Yes, it would *imply* it, but that's not what it states. It states "one of which is a boy born on a tuesday". In common english the "one" would you usually be taken to refer to the number of "boys born on tuesday" within the set. I'm not claiming it is unambiguous, but the thing is this is a maths question where a precise answer is given (13/27). If the statement is ambiguous, then the fucking answer is ambiguous too ("consistency is key" after all) . If one took the statement to mean 'exactly one' instead of 'at least one' the answer comes out to 12/27.
A lot of these types of questions are about as worthwhile as "a man lives on the 25th floor, and he always takes elevator to ground floor when leaving, but gets out on 22nd floor and walks the rest when returning. Why ?" You're supposed to give the answer he is too short to reach the 25th button, and are deemed *wrong* if you say "he fancies a girl who lives on 20 and wants to bump into her" - but the real answer is fucking ludicrous, the poor dwarf would carry a stick or something.
This problem is interesting enough without the unnecessary ambiguity which does nothing but invalidate the answer so the statement should be stated unambiguously by just saying 'at least one' .
The correct analogy is: "I have several pieces of fruit, one of which is a banana grown in Ecuador."
Sure, you could also have a banana grown in Honduras, but going on from that if you amongst your fruit you had 2 "bananas grown in Ecuador" then your original statement was deliberately misleading.
Furthermore, I don't see how they can possibly have it both ways. The original statement was: "I have two children, one of whom is a boy born on a Tuesday. What's the probability that my other child is a boy?"
So, one could equally well argue that there is nothing in the statement that specifies that the parent has exactly two children. He says he has two children, but what if he has two children and some additional children that he hasn't mentioned yet.
Shouting, and the use of terms like 'Period.' doesn't make you right, it only emphasises your personality type: arrogant (and wrong). For this reason, one should always mistrust someone who ends with an emphatic "Period." It alerts you to someone so sure of themselves they refuse to put mental effort into considering things which makes their conclusions less trustworthy.
Actually, twins case is not irrelevant for completely different reason: the possibility of identical twins increases the chances that a sibling is a boy if one knows that one of them is a boy.
Shit: I meant possibility of identical twins. Fraternals are irrelevant but since identical twins occur 1/250 births then having one boy makes it more likely other is a boy.
Yeah, I have encountered this more than enough. Its particularly galling that maths questions assume logical OR when real English implies exclusive OR. However, claiming "this english does not follow normal rules because this is a maths problem" is too weak. Besides, if you're going to allow the possibility of there being two boys on a tuesday, I demand you include fact that possibility of fraternal twins means that chance of another boy is higher than it would otherwise be. (By about 1/250)
Such a construction would be deliberately misleading. She would only say it like that to emphasise the surprise by first implying that only "one" was born on a tuesday. A less annoying person would simply have stated "both were born on a tuesday"
> What if I say: "I have two pieces of fruit. This one is a banana". Do you feel this statement implies anything about the other piece of fruit? Can't that also be a banana?
Yes sure.. the other piece can be a banana. But it is different to say "one of them is a banana" than "this one is a banana", because in the first case the number "one" applies to the subset of the fruits which are bananas while in the second it applies to the subset of the single chosen fruit.
For this reason the answer given in TFA is wrong. The correct answer is 12/27.
I hadnt read original post properly. And having done so I realise that they hadn't included this. So, this reasoning implies the correct answer is actually 12/27 not 13/27.
These kind of problems require competence in both English and Maths which is why so few people get them right.
The number "one" applies to the clause (boy born on tuesday) so the day of the week is relevant.
If you say to someone I have several pieces of fruit and one of them is a banana, when in fact two of them are bananas, most people would call that lying. One could argue that strictly speaking the statement was true: you did have one banana, you just also had an additional banana, but that level of honesty is only tolerated in politicians. If you had said "at least one of which is a banana" that would be fine, otherwise the statement is deliberately misleading.
Normal English strongly implies it does. If you say to someone I have several pieces of fruit and one of them is a banana, when in fact two of them are bananas, most people would call that lying. One could argue that strictly speaking the statement was true: you did have one banana, you just also had an additional banana, but that level of honesty is only tolerated in politicians. If you had said "at least one of which is a banana" that would be fine, otherwise the statement is deliberately misleading.
> when an error is repeated enough, it's no longer an error
Some errors need to be fought against, this is one. Where would you propose placing the discontinuity in this case.. 10% higher is unambiguous, 100% higher means double.. but in this scheme, so would 200%.. fuck it, people get sufficiently confused with maths anyway. Percentages are a concept in common use amongst the numerically challenged so misuse is common but that does not mean we allow it else those on the cusp of understanding will get more confused than ever. We make maths as simple as possible, no simpler.
That makes perfect sense to me, what I'm unclear on is how to keep the social life and professional facing world separated. Once on facebook as oneself, my actual friends would friend me, they post photos of events, I might be in those photos.. etc etc. As a non-user of FB, who has played with it a little via friends' accounts, it seems to suck people in and in no time at all other people are revealing all sorts of stuff that one might wish to keep private. How do you manage it ?
/. does not exist on April 1st, it is replaced by a lame joke site. How about some surprising but true articles and maybe one hoax next year just to shake things up a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
Motorcycles, trucks... hmm, your analogy is nearly there, but there's something missing, I can't quite put my finger on it..
The 'rejection of free money' is from a test where A is given $100 and has to offer a proportion to B. If B rejects, neither A nor B get anything. The ultimatum game.
The test is supposed to measure irrationality. Since the game is only played once, economists say whatever the offer made by A, if it is more than zero, then B should accept. According to their limited reasoning powers, A should offer B $1 and B should accept. In real life, A typically offers much more than that, and B typically rejects an offers of less than around 40%.
Far from demonstrating the irrationality of the participants the test nicely demonstrates two forms of stupidity particuarly prevelant in economists.
The first form of stupidity is thinking that if something is impossible to measure in monetary terms, then it has no value. They think that by rejecting the offer B gets nothing. Actually, B gets the satisfaction of punishing someone for being stingy. Suppose we were playing with $100 and A offered me $1. I would certainly reject the offer as the satisfaction of seeing A get nothing for being a dick would be worth more than $1.
The second form of stupidity here is the belief that if something cannot be modelled, then its not real. This situation has elements of paradox which makes it hard to model. If we ignore the fact that non-monetary things can have value, there's still something interesting going on here. The fact the B might behave 'irrationally' by rejecting A's offer means that in practise, B ends up making more money than he otherwise would. A knows that B will reject an offer he deams too low, and so A offers much more than he would if he knew that B would take anything he offered. If we stick strictly to money, after the offer has been made B should always take it.. its supposedly 'irrational' not to. However, without the fear of irrationality A would always take $99 and B would get $1. Actually B typically gets much more than that so the 'irrational' behaviour is actually smarter.
Sharks with lasers can overcome the inverse square problem. The sharks are optional.
Right, that's what we should be afraid of because the government is much more likely to try and screw us than Mark Zuckerberg who would never try to screw anybody. Or consider selling the info to anybody who would screw us. In other breaking news, unexpected rain could mean the Titanic is danger of getting wet.
I think its a lot worse than outsourcing. At least with outsourcing people are still paid to work, they're just paid less (which they can live with as they live somewhere where things are a lot cheaper). With this model, 95% + of the people who work on a project are guaranteed to get nothing for it. Its totally exploitative. Eventually things will even out as nobody would even try to become a graphic designer if this was the dominant model and those with any options at all will refuse to work by this model so the quality of submissions will diminish over time until enough people go back to traditional mechanisms.
> The similarities in code flow, layout, variable names, filenames, etc. are conclusive.
I did look at the code on the linked site and what I saw looked entirely like a clean room implementation to me. The similarities were superficial and much less impressive than similarities I have seen in code that I know was written independently (because I wrote it). Two programmers working on the same problem can easily come up with strikingly similar looking solutions which a non-programmer (or an inexperienced programmer) would never believe was independent. I was astounded at how pathetic the supposed similarities were.
If the statement is ambiguous, then the fucking answer is ambiguous too ("consistency is key" after all) . If one took the statement to mean 'exactly one' instead of 'at least one' the answer comes out to 12/27 not 13/27. Its a probability question so should I have to consider the probability the question meant one thing and weigh that against the probability it meant the other thing.. fine... are we supposed to give an answer of c. 12.3/27 ?
This problem is interesting enough without the unnecessary ambiguity which does nothing but invalidate the answer so the statement should be stated unambiguously by just saying 'at least one' .
> By the same standards, stating that one child was born on a tuesday also implies the other child was not born on a tuesday, regardless of gender.
Yes, it would *imply* it, but that's not what it states. It states "one of which is a boy born on a tuesday". In common english the "one" would you usually be taken to refer to the number of "boys born on tuesday" within the set. I'm not claiming it is unambiguous, but the thing is this is a maths question where a precise answer is given (13/27). If the statement is ambiguous, then the fucking answer is ambiguous too ("consistency is key" after all) . If one took the statement to mean 'exactly one' instead of 'at least one' the answer comes out to 12/27.
A lot of these types of questions are about as worthwhile as "a man lives on the 25th floor, and he always takes elevator to ground floor when leaving, but gets out on 22nd floor and walks the rest when returning. Why ?" You're supposed to give the answer he is too short to reach the 25th button, and are deemed *wrong* if you say "he fancies a girl who lives on 20 and wants to bump into her" - but the real answer is fucking ludicrous, the poor dwarf would carry a stick or something.
This problem is interesting enough without the unnecessary ambiguity which does nothing but invalidate the answer so the statement should be stated unambiguously by just saying 'at least one' .
The correct analogy is: "I have several pieces of fruit, one of which is a banana grown in Ecuador."
Sure, you could also have a banana grown in Honduras, but going on from that if you amongst your fruit you had 2 "bananas grown in Ecuador" then your original statement was deliberately misleading.
Furthermore, I don't see how they can possibly have it both ways. The original statement was:
"I have two children, one of whom is a boy born on a Tuesday. What's the probability that my other child is a boy?"
So, one could equally well argue that there is nothing in the statement that specifies that the parent has exactly two children. He says he has two children, but what if he has two children and some additional children that he hasn't mentioned yet.
Shouting, and the use of terms like 'Period.' doesn't make you right, it only emphasises your personality type: arrogant (and wrong). For this reason, one should always mistrust someone who ends with an emphatic "Period." It alerts you to someone so sure of themselves they refuse to put mental effort into considering things which makes their conclusions less trustworthy.
Actually, twins case is not irrelevant for completely different reason: the possibility of identical twins increases the chances that a sibling is a boy if one knows that one of them is a boy.
Shit: I meant possibility of identical twins. Fraternals are irrelevant but since identical twins occur 1/250 births then having one boy makes it more likely other is a boy.
Yeah, I have encountered this more than enough. Its particularly galling that maths questions assume logical OR when real English implies exclusive OR. However, claiming "this english does not follow normal rules because this is a maths problem" is too weak. Besides, if you're going to allow the possibility of there being two boys on a tuesday, I demand you include fact that possibility of fraternal twins means that chance of another boy is higher than it would otherwise be. (By about 1/250)
Such a construction would be deliberately misleading. She would only say it like that to emphasise the surprise by first implying that only "one" was born on a tuesday. A less annoying person would simply have stated "both were born on a tuesday"
> What if I say: "I have two pieces of fruit. This one is a banana". Do you feel this statement implies anything about the other piece of fruit? Can't that also be a banana?
Yes sure.. the other piece can be a banana. But it is different to say "one of them is a banana" than "this one is a banana", because in the first case the number "one" applies to the subset of the fruits which are bananas while in the second it applies to the subset of the single chosen fruit.
For this reason the answer given in TFA is wrong. The correct answer is 12/27.
I hadnt read original post properly. And having done so I realise that they hadn't included this. So, this reasoning implies the correct answer is actually 12/27 not 13/27.
These kind of problems require competence in both English and Maths which is why so few people get them right.
The number "one" applies to the clause (boy born on tuesday) so the day of the week is relevant.
If you say to someone I have several pieces of fruit and one of them is a banana, when in fact two of them are bananas, most people would call that lying. One could argue that strictly speaking the statement was true: you did have one banana, you just also had an additional banana, but that level of honesty is only tolerated in politicians. If you had said "at least one of which is a banana" that would be fine, otherwise the statement is deliberately misleading.
Normal English strongly implies it does. If you say to someone I have several pieces of fruit and one of them is a banana, when in fact two of them are bananas, most people would call that lying. One could argue that strictly speaking the statement was true: you did have one banana, you just also had an additional banana, but that level of honesty is only tolerated in politicians. If you had said "at least one of which is a banana" that would be fine, otherwise the statement is deliberately misleading.
Are you claiming to be too dumb to think of one for yourself or are you just feeling argumentative ?
How about: talking to a potential new employer. Its not immoral but its definitely not something you want your existing employer to know about.
> when an error is repeated enough, it's no longer an error
Some errors need to be fought against, this is one. Where would you propose placing the discontinuity in this case.. 10% higher is unambiguous, 100% higher means double.. but in this scheme, so would 200%.. fuck it, people get sufficiently confused with maths anyway. Percentages are a concept in common use amongst the numerically challenged so misuse is common but that does not mean we allow it else those on the cusp of understanding will get more confused than ever. We make maths as simple as possible, no simpler.
> At first it will be a bit strange to speak to a lamppost and hear it reply in your friend's voice.
I've been doing it for years. It's one of the wonders of ciderspace.
How is 300 2-3 times more than 250 ?
And discretion on behalf of everyone else.
That makes perfect sense to me, what I'm unclear on is how to keep the social life and professional facing world separated. Once on facebook as oneself, my actual friends would friend me, they post photos of events, I might be in those photos.. etc etc. As a non-user of FB, who has played with it a little via friends' accounts, it seems to suck people in and in no time at all other people are revealing all sorts of stuff that one might wish to keep private. How do you manage it ?
/. does not exist on April 1st, it is replaced by a lame joke site. How about some surprising but true articles and maybe one hoax next year just to shake things up a bit.