If the probability is 1:1,000,000, then in one million experiments there is a finite probability (1:1,000,000) that you may see the event once, and a lesser finite probability you would see it more than once.
Who ever moded this mathematically ignorant fool insightful?? It's ok if you are engineers, programmers and nerds, but people, we are talking about elementary statistics here...
Let the probability of an event be p=10^-6 . And let's do 10^6 independent repetitions of the experiment.
First, the probability that you'll see the event _once_, is
(10^6 choose 1)*(10^-6)^1*(1-10^-6)^(10^6-1),
which is about e^-1 , which is about 0.3679 . Which is of course far greater than 10^-6 .
Second, the probability that you'll see the event _more than once_, can be easily calculated via binomial theorem, or just plain common sense, to be
1-(above)-(1-10^-6)^10^6,
which is about 1-2/e , which is about 0.2642 .
I hope that clarifies some things.
Well, the post I was replying to compared it to other _webmails_, so I thought I should clarify that comparison.
Of course, many of us still use a single machine with a single mail client to access our e-mail.
I'm happy for you, but I can't afford that. I need access to my email from my home, from campus where I live, from my office at the faculty, from various laptops and computers of my friends, even from Net caffes. And I think the number of people like me (that don't use single machine) is increasing.
My Thunderbird box can do just about everything you mentioned
Well, some things are still missing. And some things are just natural in big systems with large userbase... spam filtering and phishing detection work fantastic when just a tiny proportion of users need to report something as spam, and it's immediately recognized as spam for everybody else... much like the moderation system here on Slashdot, just that everybody has mod points.:-)
with fewer limitations
What limitations do you mean? I never saw a system that gave you more freedom. Almost any way you want to access your mail, you can.
and less risk.
Risk? I don't understand you.
I think it is much more probable that your hard drive dies, and your backups are not up to last second complete, so you lose some emails, than the possibility that Google loses some of your email. I know people that would gladly _pay_ somebody like Google, just to backup their emails (or files of any kind -- i suppose you've heard of gmailfs?).
Hmmm, if everyone who wants an account has one, why do they have the 'invite' system? Why not just let everyone sign up and take it out of 'beta'?
IMO, it works better then captchas for ensuring _humans_ open accounts.
I personally can't get an account,
Just email me (or anybody else with a gmail account), and you'll get an invite. You don't have to use it forever, just try it.
and by the sounds of things I don't want one, I don't like the idea of some corporation spying on my entire e-mail history.
Really?
Corporation you work for?
Other webmail providers you've maybe used?
Carnivore? (yes, it's not a corporation, but does it really matter?)
...
The list is long. Google is no different, it is just honest about it.
Also it doesn't really seem to offer anything over the other webmail systems.
What other _free_ webmail system you've seen that offers:
1GiB of space
sending of attachments up to 10MiB
unlimited filters and categorizing options for your mail
no image ads
automatic phishing detection and disabling links in phishing emails
speed almost of local application (on my computer, usually even faster)
Domain Key Signing support
unlimited POP access
really useful search that actually works, and works fast (it's Google after all)
autocompletion of recipient fields from addressbook
email address plussing
at least 32 variations on your username by default, _besides_ plussing
feedback system that reacts within minutes, and fixes your problems within hours
spam filter with >95% accuracy (atleast for me)
clean and well designed UI
giving you three months of inactivity before it puts your account to sleep
ability to put any information you want in addressbook, and search through it all
labels instead of folders, so you can have orthogonal categories without extra effort
reliability better than most commercial solutions
full Unicode (UTF8) support
and so on... I surely think it's much more advanced than any other webmail around.
Slashdot Mirror
- Corporation you work for?
- Other webmail providers you've maybe used?
- Carnivore? (yes, it's not a corporation, but does it really matter?)
- ...
The list is long. Google is no different, it is just honest about it. What other _free_ webmail system you've seen that offers:- 1GiB of space
- sending of attachments up to 10MiB
- unlimited filters and categorizing options for your mail
- no image ads
- automatic phishing detection and disabling links in phishing emails
- speed almost of local application (on my computer, usually even faster)
- Domain Key Signing support
- unlimited POP access
- really useful search that actually works, and works fast (it's Google after all)
- autocompletion of recipient fields from addressbook
- email address plussing
- at least 32 variations on your username by default, _besides_ plussing
- feedback system that reacts within minutes, and fixes your problems within hours
- spam filter with >95% accuracy (atleast for me)
- clean and well designed UI
- giving you three months of inactivity before it puts your account to sleep
- ability to put any information you want in addressbook, and search through it all
- labels instead of folders, so you can have orthogonal categories without extra effort
- reliability better than most commercial solutions
- full Unicode (UTF8) support
and so on... I surely think it's much more advanced than any other webmail around.