The Cambridge Chat Thread

I had a makeover today.

Not for the faint of heart.

Reply 1901

Slumpy

16

ukebert

I did have a torch, but it was one of these wind up thingummies, which had very diminished brightness, so that I had to be perpetually winding it.

I've never found a windup torch that doesn't seem to diminish massively if you don't keep winding it...to be expected I guess.
But yeah, I always take it and my petzl to be safe :p:

Reply 1902

Tom

15

visesh

I had a makeover today.

Not for the faint of heart.

Pretty impressive. What's it in aid of?

Reply 1903

visesh

Tom

Pretty impressive. What's it in aid of?

A trauma course for doctors. Today was their test day and I was one of the patients.

Reply 1904

munro90

12

visesh

I had a makeover today.

Not for the faint of heart.

Brilliant!! I don't think they'd even have to pay me to do that :biggrin:

Reply 1905

if you ask 24 people to predict a ball in the lottery and take the average, this is a really good way to predict the winning numbers, apparently.

...if the lottery numbers weren't uniformly distributed but in fact were very tightly distributed about 24.5, that is :rolleyes:

Reply 1906

Tempeststurm

The numbers which just have come up are all close to 24.5, and suddenly they've done much better.

Reply 1907

Tempeststurm

The numbers which just have come up are all close to 24.5, and suddenly they've done much better.

they're just actors.

though if you play along with him, given that they could do numbers <1, >49, there's no expectation of them being around 24.5 anymore, so..

Reply 1908

ok, the ending was pretty good :smile:

and next week looks good.

Reply 1909

The West Wing

18

That was the biggest waste of my life ever.

Reply 1910

Tempeststurm

Chewwy

they're just actors.

though if you play along with him, given that they could do numbers <1, >49, there's no expectation of them being around 24.5 anymore, so..

Ah, I forgot when he said that. And if they really were picking utterly random numbers, instead of being actors, then there's no reason the averages would all be 1-49.

Reply 1911

alex_hk90

19

The West Wing

That was the biggest waste of my life ever.

What was?

Reply 1912

The West Wing

18

alex_hk90

What was?

That 'magic' show.

Reply 1913

Scipio90

Chewwy

hello

For you and any other nearby mathmos: does the "switch the middle number and put it in front" thing work? My intuition and some half-baked reasoning says yes, presuming a continuous flipping of coins, but I'm pretty crap at common-sense probability.

Reply 1914

alex_hk90

19

The West Wing

That 'magic' show.

Surely not Derren Brown's crap? His most impressive trick would appear to be in increasing his ratings.

Reply 1915

Scipio90

For you and any other nearby mathmos: does the "switch the middle number and put it in front" thing work? My intuition and some half-baked reasoning says yes, presuming a continuous flipping of coins, but I'm pretty crap at common-sense probability.

yes.

it should be pretty obvious why it worked in the particular case they showed:

the guy has HHH, derren had THH.

presumably they restarted the game after a point was scored.

so if the guy wanted to win, he needed to get 3 heads from the start, otherwise derren HAD to win. (since if a run of heads starts after a tails, derren needs 2 heads to win, the guy needs 3).

SURELY everyone in the room (when they were playing the game) must have figured this out very quickly...

Reply 1916

Tempeststurm

Scipio90

For you and any other nearby mathmos: does the "switch the middle number and put it in front" thing work? My intuition and some half-baked reasoning says yes, presuming a continuous flipping of coins, but I'm pretty crap at common-sense probability.

Yes, it does. A quick and non-rigorous explanation of the case they showed:

In order to get HHH first, you need to get it in first time (so a 1/8 chance). If you throw a tail at any point, the best you can hope for is THHH, in which case THH wins first.

So HHH wins 1/8 of the time, THH 7/8 of the time.

Reply 1917

Scipio90

Cool, was fairly sure, but "obvious" has led me to some strange places before :tongue:

Reply 1918

visesh

Chewwy

yes.

it should be pretty obvious why it worked in the particular case they showed:

the guy has HHH, derren had THH.

presumably they restarted the game after a point was scored.

so if the guy wanted to win, he needed to get 3 heads from the start, otherwise derren HAD to win. (since if a run of heads starts after a tails, derren needs 2 heads to win, the guy needs 3).

SURELY everyone in the room (when they were playing the game) must have figured this out very quickly...

Cheers, I just lost the game.

Reply 1919

brimstone