Month: March 2009

Monty Hall Math Problem

I’m stealing this sort of from Joe Posnanski’s blog. I’ll change the wording up a bit to shorten it and remove the baseball content.

You are a contestant on Let’s Make A Deal. OK, so, there are three curtains. Behind one is new car and behind the other two are goats.

You choose your curtain for simplicity, we’ll say that you choose what’s behind Curtain No. 1. And Monty goes, “Well, before we see what’s behind your curtain, let’s show you what’s behind Curtain No. 3!” They pull back the curtain and there is a goat grazing on a square of sod held on a leash by a model.

Now, Monty gives you an option. He says that you can stay with Curtain No. 1 or switch to Curtain No. 2.

So what do you do?

A: Stick with Curtain No. 1.
B: Switch to Curtain No. 2
C: It doesn’t matter because there is an equal chance the prize is behind either curtain.

The correct answer is B. You ALWAYS switch. If you switch, you are twice as likely to get the big prize.

I thought C, there are two curtains, one has the prize, so you have a 50-50 shot. I read his original post, and the next day’s about it, and still couldn’t see my way to believe that switching doubled the odds. Then I got to reading the comments on the second post and somewhere in the 101 of them that there, are I became a believer.

If you remain unconvinced that B is the right answer, go read for your self – A Brilliant Reader Question.

If you are a smarty pants know-it-all, what the heck are you doing here reading my blog?

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 160

New Lawnmower

Every spring the lawnmower doesn’t start. Every year we buy a $2.50 spark plug and that fixes it. This year it didn’t.

In our continuing effort to drag America’s economy out of its doldrums, we bought a new lawnmower. And once again proved that on a sunny day a Miata is as good as a pickup truck.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 160

The Exact Opposite of Yesterday

Where yesterday was gray and rainy, today was blue and sunny. If it weren’t for a very stiff breeze it would have been a picture perfect spring day. Where yesterday we spent much of it indoors, today was spent mostly outdoors.

We had a 5 for 5 day geocaching. Last Saturday in Graniteville we picked up a Travel Bug who’s goal was to travel to state parks (why it got to Graniteville is a mystery) and we planned on dropping it in the Aiken State Natural Area. After reading the logs for that cache, Donna and I agreed there was a low probability of us finding it. It also wasn’t a high traffic cache, so it might be a while before it got picked up again.

A change of plans resulted in our deciding to go to Barnwell State Park instead. The park itself is closer to Blackville than Barnewll, so I found a couple easy caches in and around that town to give us some other things to hunt. There was even a Virtual Cache that was so easy that you didn’t even need a GPS – The Healing Springs.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 158

Finally

The correct parts for the Emperor’s brakes arrived at work this morning and within an hour and a half after getting home, major stopping power was returned. The first time I stepped on the pedal during a circuit of the block for testing, it was eerily reminiscent of the first time I drove a car with power brakes, an unexpected demonstration of Newton’s First Law of Motion.

More madcap ways to place a photo of you inside different images – Fun Box Photo.

My favorite:

 
Although this one is more appropriate because the photo I used is from my 1978 passport:
 

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 156

Three years, no burning buses, y’all are back for one day…

Tonight’s Final Jeopardy category is “16th Century Thinkers” and I think the odds are pretty good the answer question will also be the name of a character on TDTVS.*

The title of last night’s LOST episode was ” He’s Our You” which is how Saywer described to Sayid who they were bringing him to, the Dharma Initiative’s very own “torturer”, a fellow named Oldham. Both Donna and I felt he looked eerily familiar. My initial thought was Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, but knew that wasn’t even remotely possible.

It wasn’t until I read something today that gave it away – “Hi, I’m Larry, this is my brother Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl.” That’s right, William Sanderson. Probably what really kicked him from the depths of my addled brain to near remembrance was that he played a character named J.F.Sebastian in Bladerunner and he seemed to be wearing the eyeglasses of anothe Bladerunner character, Edlon Tyrell.

*It wasn’t, it was Martin Luther.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 154

Maybe I’m Not Ready…

…for baseball season. At least the FRS may not be. Last night I posted that they were tied with the MFY 1 to 1 in the 8th inning, well in the bottom of the inning the Yankees scored 6 runs, unearned runs mind you, to win the game 7-1.

I am ready for tonight’s episode of TDTVS.

I am also ready to get the brakes fixed, but that ain’t happening until at least Friday night now. The parts got to the dealer on Tuesday, but I decided I didn’t want to deal with driving 60 miles with the last 8-10 in hectic capital city traffic, so I had them ship the stuff to me. Parts arrived today and wouldn’t you know it, they were the wrong ones. I called the part’s guy back and he said, “Oh yeah, there are two kinds of brakes for your year car, you must have the hard suspension. I’ll get the right parts and ship them right to you and they should get there Friday.”

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 152