vpFREE2 Forums

Best Randomness Analogy Contest

#1

Now that the contest has closed, I'll submit my analogy.

You're sitting by the side of the road where you can watch cars coming
over the top of a hill one at a time. You see a red car, then a black
car, a white car, a blue car, a black car, followed by the colors:
Red
Blue
Black
White
White
Black
Green
Silver

Wow! There's an obvious pattern here. Every third car is black.
Therefore, since there have been two cars since the last black car we
can confidently predict that the next car will be black. We might even
offer 2-to-1 odds on a bet that the next car will be black.

If the next car happens to be black, the confidence in the pattern is
reinforced, and we might offer even bigger odds on the third car coming.
Does that sound like a sound bet?

If it's not black, we might think, "Oh, oh, the pattern is changing,
I'll have to look for the new pattern." At some point in time, the
pattern will be broken. So what happened? Just as we tried to benefit
from the pattern by betting on it, we lose. Similarly, if we are playing
video poker and try to predict what cards will come on the draw and
deviate from the strategy, all that we do is reduce the expected value.

Frank, would I have won the contest?
Dan Paymar

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#2

Indeed you might have, if you'd started your post with "Contest Entry". It's a small point, but nearly everyone forgot to do it.

It's a near perfect analogy of when you don't want to look for patterns, because they will mislead you. And it's as concise and informative as we'd expect from a leading VP book author like yourself. It's always annoyed me that Dan could say in a paragraph, what it takes me a chapter to impart. Oh, well, I'm a better violinist.

Just for fun, I'll include this in the short list I have for my impartial judges, and see if Dan would have won. Obviously, since Dan and I are friends I cannot award the prize to him. So if Dan does win I'll award the prize to second place.

He also brings up an interesting question, "If you did want to bet on passing car color, what information WOULD be needed to lay odds?"

I'll attempt to answer that in an upcoming post entitled, "Goldstien, and the 4 Bears' Fans"

~FK

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Dan Paymar <Dan@...> wrote:

Now that the contest has closed, I'll submit my analogy.

You're sitting by the side of the road where you can watch cars coming
over the top of a hill one at a time. You see a red car, then a black
car, a white car, a blue car, a black car, followed by the colors:
Red
Blue
Black
White
White
Black
Green
Silver

Wow! There's an obvious pattern here. Every third car is black.
Therefore, since there have been two cars since the last black car we
can confidently predict that the next car will be black. We might even
offer 2-to-1 odds on a bet that the next car will be black.

If the next car happens to be black, the confidence in the pattern is
reinforced, and we might offer even bigger odds on the third car coming.
Does that sound like a sound bet?

If it's not black, we might think, "Oh, oh, the pattern is changing,
I'll have to look for the new pattern." At some point in time, the
pattern will be broken. So what happened? Just as we tried to benefit
from the pattern by betting on it, we lose. Similarly, if we are playing
video poker and try to predict what cards will come on the draw and
deviate from the strategy, all that we do is reduce the expected value.

Frank, would I have won the contest?
Dan Paymar

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#3

I'm guessing you'd need to know the average age of cars still operating, and sales stats by color for that many years. You could probably Google your way to reasonable odds in about 20 minutes. If your road is in Vegas or Orlando or some other vaaction mecca, you might have to adjust for all the white rental cars driving around.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Frank" <frank@...> wrote:

Indeed you might have, if you'd started your post with "Contest Entry". It's a small point, but nearly everyone forgot to do it.

It's a near perfect analogy of when you don't want to look for patterns, because they will mislead you. And it's as concise and informative as we'd expect from a leading VP book author like yourself. It's always annoyed me that Dan could say in a paragraph, what it takes me a chapter to impart. Oh, well, I'm a better violinist.

Just for fun, I'll include this in the short list I have for my impartial judges, and see if Dan would have won. Obviously, since Dan and I are friends I cannot award the prize to him. So if Dan does win I'll award the prize to second place.

He also brings up an interesting question, "If you did want to bet on passing car color, what information WOULD be needed to lay odds?"

I'll attempt to answer that in an upcoming post entitled, "Goldstien, and the 4 Bears' Fans"

~FK

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Dan Paymar <Dan@> wrote:
>
> Now that the contest has closed, I'll submit my analogy.
>
> You're sitting by the side of the road where you can watch cars coming
> over the top of a hill one at a time. You see a red car, then a black
> car, a white car, a blue car, a black car, followed by the colors:
> Red
> Blue
> Black
> White
> White
> Black
> Green
> Silver
>
> Wow! There's an obvious pattern here. Every third car is black.
> Therefore, since there have been two cars since the last black car we
> can confidently predict that the next car will be black. We might even
> offer 2-to-1 odds on a bet that the next car will be black.
>
> If the next car happens to be black, the confidence in the pattern is
> reinforced, and we might offer even bigger odds on the third car coming.
> Does that sound like a sound bet?
>
> If it's not black, we might think, "Oh, oh, the pattern is changing,
> I'll have to look for the new pattern." At some point in time, the
> pattern will be broken. So what happened? Just as we tried to benefit
> from the pattern by betting on it, we lose. Similarly, if we are playing
> video poker and try to predict what cards will come on the draw and
> deviate from the strategy, all that we do is reduce the expected value.
>
> Frank, would I have won the contest?
> Dan Paymar
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

#4

I figure you need to know the percentage of local vehicles vs. out of town vehicles that historically travel that particular stretch of road as well. If it's primarily locals, you could reduce the universe of sales stats geographically.

···

To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
From: wha724@comcast.net
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:02:11 +0000
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: Best Randomness Analogy Contest

I'm guessing you'd need to know the average age of cars still operating, and sales stats by color for that many years. You could probably Google your way to reasonable odds in about 20 minutes. If your road is in Vegas or Orlando or some other vaaction mecca, you might have to adjust for all the white rental cars driving around.

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Frank" <frank@...> wrote:

Indeed you might have, if you'd started your post with "Contest Entry". It's a small point, but nearly everyone forgot to do it.

It's a near perfect analogy of when you don't want to look for patterns, because they will mislead you. And it's as concise and informative as we'd expect from a leading VP book author like yourself. It's always annoyed me that Dan could say in a paragraph, what it takes me a chapter to impart. Oh, well, I'm a better violinist.

Just for fun, I'll include this in the short list I have for my impartial judges, and see if Dan would have won. Obviously, since Dan and I are friends I cannot award the prize to him. So if Dan does win I'll award the prize to second place.

He also brings up an interesting question, "If you did want to bet on passing car color, what information WOULD be needed to lay odds?"

I'll attempt to answer that in an upcoming post entitled, "Goldstien, and the 4 Bears' Fans"

~FK

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Dan Paymar <Dan@> wrote:
>
> Now that the contest has closed, I'll submit my analogy.
>
> You're sitting by the side of the road where you can watch cars coming
> over the top of a hill one at a time. You see a red car, then a black
> car, a white car, a blue car, a black car, followed by the colors:
> Red
> Blue
> Black
> White
> White
> Black
> Green
> Silver
>
> Wow! There's an obvious pattern here. Every third car is black.
> Therefore, since there have been two cars since the last black car we
> can confidently predict that the next car will be black. We might even
> offer 2-to-1 odds on a bet that the next car will be black.
>
> If the next car happens to be black, the confidence in the pattern is
> reinforced, and we might offer even bigger odds on the third car coming.
> Does that sound like a sound bet?
>
> If it's not black, we might think, "Oh, oh, the pattern is changing,
> I'll have to look for the new pattern." At some point in time, the
> pattern will be broken. So what happened? Just as we tried to benefit
> from the pattern by betting on it, we lose. Similarly, if we are playing
> video poker and try to predict what cards will come on the draw and
> deviate from the strategy, all that we do is reduce the expected value.
>
> Frank, would I have won the contest?
> Dan Paymar
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#5

Amarillo Slim or Titanic Thompson would already have a road scoped out to set up a sucker. The road would be a main artery for some big factory at shift change. But the factory would be out of sight of where the hustler and his mark sit and make their bets. And, of course, Slim or Titanic would already know the stats on the color of cars coming out of the factory.

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, David Silvus <djsilvus@...> wrote:

I figure you need to know the percentage of local vehicles vs. out of >town vehicles that historically travel that particular stretch of road >as well. If it's primarily locals, you could reduce the universe of >sales stats geographically.

#6

thought this was a funny addition to dan's comments on random versus patterns

···

-----Original Message-----
From: jaywilly240 <wha724@comcast.net>
To: vpFREE <vpFREE@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jan 25, 2011 9:02 am
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: Best Randomness Analogy Contest

I'm guessing you'd need to know the average age of cars still operating, and sales stats by color for that many years. You could probably Google your way to reasonable odds in about 20 minutes. If your road is in Vegas or Orlando or some other vaaction mecca, you might have to adjust for all the white rental cars driving around.

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Frank" <frank@...> wrote:

Indeed you might have, if you'd started your post with "Contest Entry". It's a small point, but nearly everyone forgot to do it.

It's a near perfect analogy of when you don't want to look for patterns, because they will mislead you. And it's as concise and informative as we'd expect from a leading VP book author like yourself. It's always annoyed me that Dan could say in a paragraph, what it takes me a chapter to impart. Oh, well, I'm a better violinist.

Just for fun, I'll include this in the short list I have for my impartial judges, and see if Dan would have won. Obviously, since Dan and I are friends I cannot award the prize to him. So if Dan does win I'll award the prize to second place.

He also brings up an interesting question, "If you did want to bet on passing car color, what information WOULD be needed to lay odds?"

I'll attempt to answer that in an upcoming post entitled, "Goldstien, and the 4 Bears' Fans"

~FK

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Dan Paymar <Dan@> wrote:
>
> Now that the contest has closed, I'll submit my analogy.
>
> You're sitting by the side of the road where you can watch cars coming
> over the top of a hill one at a time. You see a red car, then a black
> car, a white car, a blue car, a black car, followed by the colors:
> Red
> Blue
> Black
> White
> White
> Black
> Green
> Silver
>
> Wow! There's an obvious pattern here. Every third car is black.
> Therefore, since there have been two cars since the last black car we
> can confidently predict that the next car will be black. We might even
> offer 2-to-1 odds on a bet that the next car will be black.
>
> If the next car happens to be black, the confidence in the pattern is
> reinforced, and we might offer even bigger odds on the third car coming.
> Does that sound like a sound bet?
>
> If it's not black, we might think, "Oh, oh, the pattern is changing,
> I'll have to look for the new pattern." At some point in time, the
> pattern will be broken. So what happened? Just as we tried to benefit
> from the pattern by betting on it, we lose. Similarly, if we are playing
> video poker and try to predict what cards will come on the draw and
> deviate from the strategy, all that we do is reduce the expected value.
>
> Frank, would I have won the contest?
> Dan Paymar
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#7

I'm extremely impressed that everyone is on the right track.

For purposes of argument, I'm picking highway 95 north out of Las Vegas.

I'll do my full post on this subject in the morning. My back is acting up and typing at the computer is painful today.

~FK

···

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, David Silvus <djsilvus@...> wrote:

I figure you need to know the percentage of local vehicles vs. out of town vehicles that historically travel that particular stretch of road as well. If it's primarily locals, you could reduce the universe of sales stats geographically.

To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
From: wha724@...
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 22:02:11 +0000
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: Best Randomness Analogy Contest

I'm guessing you'd need to know the average age of cars still operating, and sales stats by color for that many years. You could probably Google your way to reasonable odds in about 20 minutes. If your road is in Vegas or Orlando or some other vaaction mecca, you might have to adjust for all the white rental cars driving around.

--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Frank" <frank@> wrote:
>
>
>
> Indeed you might have, if you'd started your post with "Contest Entry". It's a small point, but nearly everyone forgot to do it.
>
> It's a near perfect analogy of when you don't want to look for patterns, because they will mislead you. And it's as concise and informative as we'd expect from a leading VP book author like yourself. It's always annoyed me that Dan could say in a paragraph, what it takes me a chapter to impart. Oh, well, I'm a better violinist.
>
> Just for fun, I'll include this in the short list I have for my impartial judges, and see if Dan would have won. Obviously, since Dan and I are friends I cannot award the prize to him. So if Dan does win I'll award the prize to second place.
>
> He also brings up an interesting question, "If you did want to bet on passing car color, what information WOULD be needed to lay odds?"
>
> I'll attempt to answer that in an upcoming post entitled, "Goldstien, and the 4 Bears' Fans"
>
> ~FK
>
> --- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, Dan Paymar <Dan@> wrote:
> >
> > Now that the contest has closed, I'll submit my analogy.
> >
> > You're sitting by the side of the road where you can watch cars coming
> > over the top of a hill one at a time. You see a red car, then a black
> > car, a white car, a blue car, a black car, followed by the colors:
> > Red
> > Blue
> > Black
> > White
> > White
> > Black
> > Green
> > Silver
> >
> > Wow! There's an obvious pattern here. Every third car is black.
> > Therefore, since there have been two cars since the last black car we
> > can confidently predict that the next car will be black. We might even
> > offer 2-to-1 odds on a bet that the next car will be black.
> >
> > If the next car happens to be black, the confidence in the pattern is
> > reinforced, and we might offer even bigger odds on the third car coming.
> > Does that sound like a sound bet?
> >
> > If it's not black, we might think, "Oh, oh, the pattern is changing,
> > I'll have to look for the new pattern." At some point in time, the
> > pattern will be broken. So what happened? Just as we tried to benefit
> > from the pattern by betting on it, we lose. Similarly, if we are playing
> > video poker and try to predict what cards will come on the draw and
> > deviate from the strategy, all that we do is reduce the expected value.
> >
> > Frank, would I have won the contest?
> > Dan Paymar
> >
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#8

Betty Ann, I apoligize Or should I say I don't apologize. Betty, there's no way I can square the story with you

#9

One of my second cousins hates my ass. She thinks I'm the worst thing that ever happened to the United States. I love her until the biter end,