Mountain West 5, PAC-10 ZERO!

So much for the BCS conferences dominating the mid majors! The Mountain West is 5-0 against the PAC-10, capped off by BYU's complete destruction of UCLA, 59-0!

2008 Results So Far: BYU 59 UCLA 0 UNLV 23 ASU 20 TCU 31 Stanford 14 New Mexico 36 Arizona 28 BYU 28 Washington 27

Since when was your conference so pathetic?

Yet another example of why the monopolistic nazi "good ol' boy" BCS system is lame and there should be an equal opportunity playoff at the end of the year!

Game Show Host problem

In the movie 21, Kevin Spacey brings up a math/logic/probability problem called the Game Show Host Problem.

In the movie the problem was described something like this: You are a contestant on a game show and you have to choose between three doors, one of which has a new car behind it. The other two doors have goats behind them. The game show host tells you to pick a door. You do so, at which point the game show host opens up one of the other two doors to show you a goat. The host then asks you if you would like to switch your choice to the other closed door. The question then is: Should you switch your choice, or should you stick with your original choice?

The answer in the movie was that you should switch, because you have a 2/3 chance of winning if you switch, and a 1/3 chance if you stick with your original choice. Mathematically that is correct (you can see an explanation here). But they left out an important assumption, which is that the game show host always asks you if you would like to switch doors. If the game show host's behavior is unpredictable, then the probability is unpredictable, but if we know that the host always asks if you want to switch doors, then you do have a 2/3 chance of winning by switching.

The simplest explanation I can come up with is that when you make your initial choice, you clearly have a 1/3 chance of being correct. Then, even after the game show host opens one of the doors, your initial choice still had a 1/3 chance of being correct, so the other door must have a 2/3 chance of being correct, since it's the only one left.

I was discussing the problem with my roommate after watching the movie. It's kind of a hard thing to grasp, because it seems like it should be a 50% probability either way. But it's not.

So, to "prove" the results, and also to prove how nerdy I am, I wrote a quick Perl program to simulate the results. I'm pretty rusty since I haven't done any programming to speak of in the last couple of years, so it took 150 lines when a good programmer could probably have done it in 15.

But sure enough, when running the program, you win approximately 2/3 of the time if you switch doors, and approximately 1/3 of the time if you don't switch. Check it out:

% ./goat_problem.pl --switch=true --iterations=10000000
Switching... Won 6667355 out of 10000000 Times!

% ./goat_problem.pl --switch=false --iterations=10000000
NOT Switching... Won 3333678 out of 10000000 Times!

Top 10 (Mostly Phone Related) Annoyances

I'm sitting on hold, waiting for someone to take my call. Some lady keeps interrupting my musical experience... "Thank you for your patience! Your call is very important! Please remain on the line... blah blah blah". How annoying! Just play the music and let me work on something else until a real person picks up!

Not a very positive mindset, I know, but this led me to start thinking about other things that annoy me. While I'm waiting, I might as well make a top 10 list of things that annoy me, starting with the current issue:

10) When I'm on hold and the hold music is constantly interrupted by a voice saying "Thank you for holding, your call is very important, please remain on the line..." Just play the darn music and leave me alone!

9) Boxes of paper clips that are labeled "Staples" (Yes I'm just looking around on my desk for things that annoy me. It's harder than you think to come up with 10 annoyances!)

8) Online video players that hang in the middle of a clip even though the clip is already sufficiently downloaded to your computer (such as the Microsoft Starlight player or whatever it's called used by the NBC Olympics website)

7) Asterisks that don't lead anywhere (except for the one in the LunchClub.com logo)

6) When an automated phone menu asks you to enter your account number or social security number, and then when you reach the attendent they ask for the same info

5) Automated phone menus that claim "Our menu options have changed" (YOUR OPTIONS HAVE NOT CHANGED! STOP INSULTING MY INTELLIGENCE!!)

4) Ridiculous made up fees on bank accounts, such as the "Inactivity Fee" (Yes, I'm talking to you, Chase Bank.)

3) When I'm trying to leave a voice mail and I have to sit through a long obnoxious automated message, such as "The caller you are attempting to reach is not available. At the tone I will take your message, or press 5 to page this person. Press 6 to leave a call back number. When you are finished with your message, if you are satisfied with your message, press pound, or hang up to deliver the mesage, or press star for more options. [PAUSE...] [PAUSE...] [CALLER COMMITTING SUICIDE...] BEEEEEP!"

2) When my Internet connection is slow

And finally, the biggest annoyance of them all...

1) The term "pet peeve"

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I saw a movie recently called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's about a French guy named Jean-Dominique Bauby who had a stroke at age 43 and became completely paralyzed, after which he was only able to communicate by blinking his left eye.

His speech therapist developed a system for communication which consisted of her repeating over and over a modified alphabet, which was ordered by the frequency of use of each letter. When she got to the right letter, he had to blink once. Then she would being again repeating the alphabet for the next letter.

After coming to terms with his situation, Bauby ended up dictating an entire book using that alphabet blinking system!

While the computer scientist in me was appalled that they didn't come up with a more efficient dictation system, I felt compelled to read his book. I figured that if this guy could have the incredible tenacity to crank out a complete book one letter at a time, that I had to at least check out what he had to say. So I ordered the book on Amazon.

It's an interesting read. Bauby was a journalist, actually the editor-in-chief of French Elle, so he's an eloquent and poetic writer. Reading it of course made me think about the human condition, the fragility of our day to day lives, and the need to savor the moments and appreciate the little things. But the most moving thing to me was just the fact that he wrote it at all, using that incredibly tedious system. Pretty amazing.

If you're wondering about the title, as I was, a Diving Bell is a "cable-suspended airtight chamber, open at the bottom, that is lowered underwater...to operate as a base or a means of transport for a small number of divers." Bauby describes his condition as being trapped in a giant invisible diving bell. And he uses butterflies as a metaphor for his ability to escape the diving bell through journeys of the imagination.

Helen DeSantis Tanner

My Italian grandmother (my dad's mom) passed away on Tuesday, June 17. I went up to Utah for the funeral.

Helen DeSantis Tanner Helen DeSantis Tanner, age 91 of Springville, passed away Tuesday, June 17, 2008. She was born February 19, 1917 in Frontier, Wyoming to Henry DeSantis and Elvira Vennarucci. She married John Tanner on May 16, 1941 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Helen was raised and attended schools in Wyoming, moving to Utah in 1942 and has lived in Springville since 1946. She loved square and ballroom dancing. She also enjoyed playing bridge. Helen was an excellent cook. She is survived by her husband of Springville, two sons: Paul (Mel) Tanner of Duchesne, Roy (Joann) Tanner of Kirksville, Missouri; 13 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. Graveside services will be held Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 11 a.m. in the Springville Evergreen Cemetery. Friends may call at Wheeler Mortuary, 211 East 200 South in Springville on Saturday from 9:30 to 10:30 prior to the services. Condolences may be sent at www.wheelermortuary.com Published in the Daily Herald on 6/19/2008.

It was definitely her time. She's been suffering for a while, and she's in a better place now. The last time my dad spoke to her, she said something like "I don't know where we go from here." I believe she meant that she didn't see any possible road to recovery. That's a tough spot to be in, and we were glad for the suffering to be over.

But it will take a little getting used to the idea. Ever since I've been alive, my dad's parents have been in that same house in Springville that my grandpa built himself, probably more than 60 years ago. Ever since I can remember, whenever we went for a visit we've always played cards with them, usually progressive rummy. We always sat at that same table with the chairs that swing in and out that they've always had. We always had homemade cookies and ice cream. We would talk to Grandpa about sports and to Grandma about bridge. Grandma would usually yell at Grandpa for something or other.

Some things seem like they've always been the same, and they'll always be the same. When those things change, it's like a wake up call, it's like you're waking up from a dream, and you realize that reality isn't what you thought it was a moment ago. And then you have to ask, "Where do we go from here?" And hopefully you have a good answer.

PARASKAVEDEKATRIAPHOBIA

Just in case you wanted to be able to name your fear this coming Friday...


par·a·ska·ve·dek·a·tri·a·pho·bi·a
    -noun
    the fear of Friday the 13th