Comments on: Fooled By Randomness

By: sammcnerney

sammcnerney — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:40:18 +0000

I think Apple did use shuffle in the same way that it is used in regard to playing cards. But they also advertised it as being random – and that is where my beef comes in.

By: FormerComposer

FormerComposer — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:59:41 +0000

About the iPod “shuffle”: I think there are two different types of randomness being confused here. If you “shuffle” a deck of cards and then deal them out, you will _not_ get the Ace of Spades followed 5 cards later by the Ace of Spades.* If, on the other hand, you do a random selection with replacement, you may get the behavior being complained about. It sounds like Apple used a word that has a common, everyday meaning to denote something with a completely different behavior.

[*pedantic note: That is assuming that the first appearance of the Ace is not just before the deck runs out before reshuffling and dealing again. In this case, one could end up with Aces appearing quite close together.]

By: sammcnerney

sammcnerney — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 06:26:22 +0000

Likewise with the Twins. They won 14 of 16 in the first half of June, then followed that up with a five game loosing streak. They’re hot, they’re cold? I think not.

By: Jacob Hartog

Jacob Hartog — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:29:38 +0000

More baseball related evidence can be found in Madison Bumgarner’s recent pitching. After giving up 8 runs off 9 hits in 1/3 of an inning, the San Francisco Giant was pulled. In his next start, the 21 year old came back to pitch 7 innings, giving up one run (on a blown call), and striking out 11. Why was this surprising?

Because we have a hard time understanding randomness.

Fantastic post, I look forward to reading more in the future.