thepossum

I was getting a little anxious about this thing for a while. I actually vaguely knew what Reddit was but had hardly ever used it. So I joined the group. My anxiety subsided very quickly The dominant style of post seemed to be along the lines of "tell the whole world what you plan to be buying tomorrow" etc

Hand 10 - I thought about 6H, 4NT but possibly just pass - vulnerable 4H to me means 8 tricks (EDIT - equal vul = 7 tricks, but possibly 7 losers) plus my 4 (EDIT 3?) tricks possibly equals (EDIT possible) slam but a lot of losers (EDIT so probably pass but if feeling brave bid 5H and see what happens - Pass!!) hand 18 - I have no idea what kind of double it is - maybe negative meaning they don't have hearts or diamonds but rebid hearts No idea really and I am certainly not the person to advise giving up Bridge

I've just tracked down some interesting literature (Zmigrod etc) on models of extremism, authoritarianism, flexibility and rigidity. Despite the way the world has been going recently with some on the authoritarian (oops so-called progressive liberal) left being so flexible to shut down all alternative points of view the literature suggests there are problems of rigidity and extremism on both sides - both historically and psychologically in the individual As always there are (according to Zmigrod) conflicting models - one the right-rigidity model and the other the more general extreme-rigiditiy model :) I'm adding this to my learnings (I swore never to use this word) from last year on issues of authoritarianism and whether the much debated authoritarian left exists or not :)

I know some of the very top schools/universities/colleges etc have schemes to support students to access the best quality degrees and give access without compromising their standards (hopefully) Sadly dumbing down and reducing standards seems to have been a global phenomenon. As you say requiring top research degrees for low grade jobs devalues the degree and also pushes out many other candidates It can also be politically very dangerous under certain circumstances - such as a global event such as Covid with all the fallout EDIT I also read recently of an increasing trend towards outsourcing/centralising of delivery of pre-produced academic content. Who knows what that will do to schools, quality - if it becomes a winner takes all competitive online market. If you look at what happens in other markets I see risks. Not everyone will be able to afford (perhaps?) the top quality course, maybe one course will win because it is pop/cool without being any good - that kind of world. I understand boring stuff doesnt do well under any model but hopefully not compromising education too much for the entertainment and associated advertising dollar like everything else

Playing with GiB on occasions I've found it important to actually check which suit GiB thought had been agreed (in case of Blackwood) and found it difficult to maneuver to a quantitative 4NT on occasions with many 4NT being taken as Blackwood in situations when clearly no suit had been agreed

No idea really. 2NT

I'm not really interested in the problem or the answer at all. And certainly not in a lesson or being patronised and singled out. I don't know if your a teacher for example but I am not a child in your class Singling an individual out in this way as has happened regularly on this forum is a way of undermining and disempowering an individual. I certainly need no lessons here I regard the way some people talk to others on here as very rude and insulting and for some reason I seem to be one of the chosen recipients of such behaviour It feels as if people are cruising around looking for someone to give an unwanted lesson to. The thread was not singling out individuals. But seemingly I needed to be singled out EDIT I'm out of here again for a while before anyone else weighs in. Its like a subtle form of trolling (maybe unintentional). I wish I had never even commented on the thread. I certainly should not have bitten the first time and certainly not the second time. I even came back to delete my first bite but was too late. See you later everyone, especially before any of the more usual suspects show up and weigh in I will say finally that kind of language used (to single out and patronise), whether intentional or not has the effect of an ad hominem attack or troll to cause a response

Hi Peter I dont need a lesson in anything but thanks for posting it for other readers You mistook a certain lack of interest, motivation or carelessness in my response - basically not giving a *** - as indicative of not understanding something Can I ask (you and others) did you actually understand some of the considerations I mentioned :) Of course we all know there is a very simple way of looking at it using sample theory and the CLT. But I was trying to think around the problem a bit and ended up answering the wrong question :) I was trying to get an estimate on the distribution of the mean from a particular package I was using but couldn't actually script it up or even think about it in the few minutes I allocated. I ended up with a much simpler problem :) The one thing I do find interesting is trying to think about the different approaches to conceptualising Bridge statistics and distributions. The chance of an individual picking up 25 hands in a row with that average is a very challenging distribution to think about. It depends on thinking about the individuals involved. For most of the world the probability is zero etc I was thinking about the original poster and looking at it this way. Whats the chance of it happening twice. Very small. Since its already happened once the chance of it happening again is therefore very small But more seriously I actually read the problem as getting that exact mean/sum HCPs in 25 hands, not less than or equal which is what most people calculated Also I'm curious that you have .0078 as one of your coefficients. I couldnt for the life of me work out where I had that number from. I had a number approximately .007 from somewhere but wasnt sure what it was I do like thinking about the number of possible Bridge hands and how often we try to estimate things/differences in often extremely small probabilities, often without the precision to do so

I'm sure I did. I don't even know if I can calculate what I want simply with the tools I have available :) -rephrasing I could but I'm trying to do it with minimum effort and not sure I can - my coding days are many years ago - I need to do stuff with simple tools these days or I get bored very easily :( back to reading reports on mental health and substance use - strangely boredom is mentioned a fair bit

Rather concerning. Certain parallels between the huge growing Covid modelling industry and how the Climate Modelling industry has been going for decades Hopefully some people will remember that we are dealing with a global health and social and economic crisis - affecting billions of people - not an opportunity to sit around comparing models and other technologies forever and a day. I know I am risking disrespect but does nobody else have any concerns about how IPCC and the massive associated industries and technologies dominate everything (whether good or not) - same is happening with Covid Tech regarding IPCC most predictions and knowledge can be based on very simple models and physics - they were known decades ago. How many complex models of everything are needed to try to verify what happens - before anyone picks me up I mean easily simplified, conceptualised and explained. And in relation to the conflicted interests of those benefitting from the Climate industry and those who claim to have all the expertise and be able to challenge and silence misinformation I fear the same for some in the new Covid industry. And believe you me, much of the worst misinformation comes from interests having or at least claiming authority When technology, profits and other interest conflict with various types of ethical professions there can be problems - even if not intended Not to mention politics. We are often talking about difficult political and social and economic justice issues which most prefer to put in the too hard basket and go for a nice tech solution. Well looking through history technology has often benefitted the oppressors I know many of us on here are from various maths/science/engineering/tech/modeling type backgrounds. But maybe sometimes I think the world has become obsessed with the tiny technical details and precision at the risk of overfitting highly complex systems, wasting huge resources striving for a tiny bit of variance - its an overfit for those who understand the term What has sadly taken over the world is the kind of precision required for precision machinery being used on humans. Think of an example I actually know a fair bit about - predictive models in psychology where even tiny effects or relatively small amounts of explained variance are regarded with some excitement, I imagine similarly in many health/human/biological/natural systems models. I am all for precision in terms of trying to deal with an individual - I wanted to be a clinician after all but that takes human on human precision - not a model and a machine approach Quick question on Covid tech - whats happening to the mountains of PPE often being used unnecessarily/incorrectly by members of communities. Is it clogging up all our waste systems yet and polluting the planet. Much like the wonderful Lithium industry allegedly clean and green where as far as I know most lithium batteries end up in land fill - not recycled as the industry would have us believe etc etc. Some of us out here actually know enough about enough things and are smart enough to spot BS without being experts. Efficient use of resources taking account of externalities - one for the often maligned economists perhaps Where is the oversight on everything. Its problematic when the same people needed to do oversight are needed elsewhere. It may seem strange to have the same concerns as with the climate industry but since health is now so technological, so engineering and manufacturing focussed, etc etc surely we have a right to have concerns We live in a world that now has fully industrialised and profits from the destruction of a planet and people's lives as well as making massive profits from technology to allegedly fix it up

I've been on the receiving end of incredible rudeness at Bridge tables. Sometimes playing opposite an incompetent beginner such as I used to be would be extremely frustrating but there is never any excuse for pointing it out cruelly. I hardly ever play with strangers anymore. Occasionally I will drop into a table for a hand or too, hope I dont have a difficult declare. If I end up declaring my mind goes blank, I play as quickly as I can and leave before anyone can say anything :) I did alright with that approach - made a few difficult contracts One time mid-declare on quite a difficult game contract a partner called me an idiot after one play. I left the table, I believe the bot completed it and made a tough game PS Before anyone gets the wrong idea I believe that rudeness and having a go at partners is part and parcel of Bridge culture :) - even opps sometimes if they do the wrong thing but usually its partners who cop it all.

I feel people are over-simplifying this issue Firstly can we clarify are we discussing the probability of the OP getting this outcome in any particular set of 25 hands. How many sets of 25 does the OP intend to play etc Are we talking about someone like me who may never play 25 hands in one session? What kind of person are we talking about. Do we have to work out the distribution for all players over 1 year, over their lives, over all players over a finite or potentially indefinite time period etc Plus obviously its a complex combinatorial calculation. The probability goes up the more sets of 25 hands you play etc. Chance it happens in set 1 + (1-that chance)* (chance in set 2) etc Problem for me is that P I am using is being estimated above using the CLT and so it goes And since its already happened once that complicates the calculation even more For me to contribute I think I need more clarity on the specific probability we are looking for PS And I have a very vague recollection over how long things like the CLT can take to kick in with many distributions etc But I also appreciate these days with economics of time and limited resources only a small number of replications (if any sometimes) are deemed necessary so maybe a small sample from a sim will get close :) But I did a little sim just looking at South's hand (too complicated otherwise) and I estimated around 28% of South hands had less than 8 points over about 10 sims of 4000 hands each :) That gave me a probability of around 0.007 of South getting 25 hands of less than 8 points (ignoring many other factors and complexities of course) Oops wrong calculation (thought it looked wrong, thats e^0.28) of course its 2.5 x 10^-14 (approximately)

Deleted since image doesn't show but hope everyone had some faith against the forces of evil and did ok EDIT(looking at the graph it wasn't that volatile) S&P 500 +43% since the thread was posted - sadly where I invest wasn't that quite as spectacular (20%) but has regained 1 years loss PS I dont risk bitcoin, the time to invest in that was 5-10 years ago I know many of us lost a year of our savings - or it took a year to get it back but lets never give in to those who think savings, investments, businesses etc are bad things And despite all the rubbish talked by certain political tendencies much of that investment is by small savers who believe in working and saving And its not all based on rubbish. Most of us believe in value -business, initiative, .employment, etc etc All these backward types constantly trying to destroy everything and live off other people who they constantly insult There appear to be a couple of major tendencies in this world. Those who invest in others and those who invest in themselves Its actually disgusting and disgraceful that most of those political tendencies (that I used to associated with - still do in terms of true ideals) have been reduced to only looking after their own patch and attacking those who invest in others. You know those characters - they dont take risks, they dont invest in others but expect everyone else to invest in them. Those characters But of course, if you do invest in others (and your enterprise that employs others) you need to make sure that there is no exploitation dont you There are many people around the world crying out for a little income/capital to stay alive/float. Lets hope there arent many greedy selfish people anywhere eh. But from what I see the worst of the worst in terms of elite attitudes/expectations are still running the show Important PS. When I talk about investing in themelsves I dont mean that at the individual investment/business investment (education/work/etc). I am talking about those who argue that others should invest in them or their sector I keep looking for some metric for inequality. One I have been considering recently is vacations and who pays for them

My aspiration is that soon I will be in the "NA (pronounced nah) - I haven't read or heard anything about this" category More seriously I think the world's media should be impeached for 2020

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I had one of my regular Alice in Chains unplugged days yesterday Actually it was such a heavy day it went unplugged, plugged, live and studio and every version of some songs I could find

I have no idea on that score. Different people do have very different minds and strengths and weaknesses IMO :)

Who knows what he would achieved in anything he tried but we would have lost this I was amused and concerned at the comment that since he didnt have enough brains to be a doctor he wanted to do research instead. No disrespect intended in any direction :)

It is curious though. I was constantly bombarded by views from the left that it didn't matter who was in the Whitehouse since there was no plurality and essentially just a big corporate state. But when the Trump administration was in "power" strangely the left forgot those views. And when I pointed it out to them I was often accused of becoming very conservative Its the same topsy turvy approach to language/politics/philosophy that sees libertarian anti-authoritarian types now described as authoritarian. Strangely its the same characters doing that too All these liberal minded progressive people I thought were anti-authoritarian progressive radical anti-establishment liberal changed their spots over a few years and became facsists They started redefining everything in fact to fit their new world order It reminds me a bit of a Douglas Adams passage about "man" proving that God didn't exist then going on to prove that black is white and being killed at a zebra crossing - apologies for garbling the passage

Thx Cherdano. Was wondering if it was just a variant on the "all psychotherapies are about as effective as each other" thing :) Some of us out here like variance. Its gives us a bit more trust :) Some of us also like outliers, extremes, strange distributions, despite so many being taught they have to delete those annoying things If anyone asked me what concerns me most about people's understanding of statistics it would be lack of understanding of the Central Limit Theorem But something of even more concern is the possible impact of the dollar over peoples approach to analysis E

I don't know. The point I was making is there are early beginners loading up with tome after tome of complex bidding systems who dont actually have a clue about the fundamental principles of the game. My philosophy actually applies to anything. I prefer broader intellect and feel and less dependence on extreme technical approaches. Thats just me. Old fashioned I guess The whole world is going excessive technical, overfitted, overcomplex and in my view actually getting worse and often the wrong answer. Like sitting in a lecture theatre with a basic bit of mathematical manipulation on the board leading to a solution that can only be represented as a fraction (or infinite series whatever) and everyone in the class going for their calculators or spreadsheets to work it out and get the wrong answer But seriously. If you sit at a table with 3 strangers what is the best approach to a fun game :)

At what stage in history did novice and beginner become intermediate plus There are people playing who don't even understand the basics of the game I use Cappeletti/Hamilton since it's what the bot uses and I had never learned a defence before or even what it meant. I've read up on DONT. They all are basically variants on a theme When I learned to play any bid over weak NT was a natural bid. A suit was what I had and double was penalty

It seems that over my lifetime so many trusted institutions, industries, whatever, have been taken over by a load of immature, irresponsible and often rather incompetent people. And so many powerful people everywhere are playing into the trivialisation and game-playing nature. I guess they all got a bit too big for their boots. Everything is being played with and hard working people and business people are the ones who always suffer All I'm saying is can we trust any of these characters with anything any more. Our savings. Our freedoms. Our rights. Our privacy. Our lives etc Seems sadly that a bunch of greedy and totally irresponsible anarcho-capitalist types who abuse the use of the anarcho- tag in claiming to care about people's well being and social justice. All they care about is their own greed. I actually despise the use of the anarcho tag with them at all. If anarchy ever stood for anything it was about justice and progress and freedom from oppression. Not f**king around and playing with people's lives for amusement and profit Did I mention we also need to trust those characters with the well-being of the whole planet. Yet they seem to be educating a whole generation that all you ever need do to be successful in life is play around with an app. The sad thing is many of them think they are hard up struggling generations yet many of them have much more as children than their grandparents did after a lifetime's productive hard work Final sentences. Sadly the ignorant attitude that by attacking worker's pensions you are attacking the wealthy is part of all the other political claptrap sold to an ignorant younger generation with their divisive generational warfare for close to 25+ years now. Dangerous times indeed when a wealthy privileged younger class thinks they are badly off and goes after ordinary hard working older generations. Who is behind that politics? And dressing all this rubbish up as some kind of progressive social justice struggle when people are dying from poverty all over the world is truly disgusting. None of them would know what social justice really is. So while these new generation of global freedom fighters sit in their swanky apartments playing their consoles some old workers modest savings are flushed away and possibly some poor countries whole GDP/reserves is flushed away too. So much for your freedom fighting and justice You start to get nervous posting stuff like this in case some ****** decides to target your super fund on Reddit

Can someone please explain the apparent lack of variance between the effectiveness of the vaccines at Phase 3 so far :)

Just reading the sad news about a group of newbie traders finding out that (risky) trades can involve losses as well as "gains" I think the most amusing headline I read recently was part of the continued growth of the Elon Musk mythology where he was described as being an "anti-establishment hero" or words to that effect :) Just reading one of the amusing comments above where playing the sharemarket is regarded as some great revolutionary Marxist act too. Too funny As far as I can see the workers keep being sucked into scams and losing their means of production. Thats my take :) On a slightly related topic, a few decades back Labor and Business here worked out some scheme (scam) where workers (and small businesses)sank all their spare cash into this wonderful superannuation scheme (scam). From what I can see for many of them they have absolutely no control over those means of production when they need them at all. Others enjoy those benefits. It would be wonderful to be connected to any of those "looking after" our savings :) The best thing about our scam was that it was trusted because there were players from organised Labo(ur) and Business involved so we didnt have to worry. I think they all have very comfortable lives :) Don't get me started on that other revolutionary scam (the gig-economy) which is tantamount to peasantry as far as I can see where workers do indeed own their means of production (like a few farm tools equivalent) and till other people's lands (for other's profits) under immense competition and even a variant of a tragedy of the commons etc