Math

 

Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall In Love)

Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

And after that let’s do it, let’s do some math!

Mathematics is not only NOT hard, it is the basic language of the universe. 

·        The shape of a shoreline or a tree - Fractals. 

·        The shape of a sunflower seeds-Fibonacci spiral.  

·        A snowflake- Six sided radial symmetry.

·        The honeycombs made by bees - Hexagonal shapes.

And even humans do complex math in our head. 

·        A unbiased fair jury follows the 68/95/99 rule of normal distributions and a unanimous 12 member panel reflects 99.97% certainty.

·        People choose the 95th percentile time to ensure that they will have an on-time arrival  I can barely count to 10 anymore and I can compute the 95th percentile time without even thinking?

·        The founding fathers chose 2/3, 67.7%,  for the most important decisions and 68% is the mean plus one standard deviation.

·        The universe seems to mandate tolerance. And not only things are most probably random, not deterministic, Free Will over Determinism has a mathematical basis!

Math is NOT hard.  It is intrinsic to nature and we ignore it at our peril.

Seven Game Series

 

Step to the Rear

Will everyone here kindly step to the rear
And let a winner lead the way
Here's where we separate
The notes from the noise
The men from the boys
The rose from the poison ivy

How many games does it take to determine a winner?

The 2004 Boston Red Sox beat the 2004 New York Yankees in Major League Baseball’s American League Championship Series. The 2004 Red Sox prevailed to win four games in an epic seven game series. But were the Red Sox the better team? And why seven games? Why not  a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 or 9 game series?

On any given Sunday, any team can win a game, and all jazz. So how many games does it take before you can be certain that the winner of a series of games IS the better team. In a one game series there are two possible outcomes: Win or Lose. The mean is 0.5, if a win is worth 1, and a loss is worth 0. The square root of the variance of those outcome is 0.167.  If there were an infinite number of games, and both outcomes, Win and Lose are equally likely, then the mean is always equal to half the number of games. If that mean is subtracted from the number of wins such that number of points is normalized to zero,  it is like the figure below.

The problem is that we can’t afford to play an infinite number of games, we can only afford to play a finite number of games. For a finite series with an odd number of games, the mean is equal to the median but neither of those are an integer number of games. By contrast for a finite series with an even number of games, the mean is an integer, but with an even number of games, this outcome could occur by chance and thus the outcome can not decide who is better.

Infinity is both odd AND even. Its median is its mode is its mean, which is one of the hallmarks of a normal distribution. However the other hallmark of a normal distribution is that it satisfies the 68/95/99 rule. And with an infinite number of games you can satisfy this. But what are the fewest number of games in a series that satisfies the 68/95/99 rule? You also want to discard all even games series because there should only be one winning outcome, not two.

A seven-game series satisfies more of the 68/95/99 rule. The 2004 ALCS was a seven-game series, and the Red Sox were thus the better team. Ain’t statistics wonderful!

Leaks

 

We’re Gonna Move

Well there's a leak in this old building
Yes, there's a leak in this old building
Well there's a leak in this old building
We're gonna move to a better home

Amen Elvis!  But wouldn't it be easier to just stop that leak.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito says he has a “pretty good idea” who leaked the draft of his ruling that overturned abortion rights.

“I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible, but that’s different from the level of proof that is needed to name somebody,” Alito said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Alito was referring to the leak of a draft of his opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last May.  https://news.yahoo.com/sam-alito-says-criticism-supreme-161500730.html

“Strip Search Sammy”, I have watched enough episodes of Scooby Doo to know that the villain is usually the one who benefits the most from the villainy.  Before the leak, Chief Justice Roberts was making an effort to get you, “Long Dong Silver” Thomas, “Not Merrick Garland“ Gorsuch, “I Like Beer ” Kavanaugh and “Handmaiden” Barrett to not screw the pooch.  Those efforts ended with the leak.  Dare I say that you know who the leaker is because YOU ARE the leaker. (and I am the Walrus. Goo goo g' joob.)

Art

 

The Lady In Red

Say have you ever met the girl who's the toast of the town
A work of art without a question
You better write her number down, you fools

Is the work of art the artist?

I have some moves I would like you to see.

·        Annie Hall,

·        Rosemary’s Baby,

·        Braveheart,

·        American Beauty. 

Works of Art each one.  But by flawed Artists.

·        Woody Allen,

·        Roman Polanski,

·        Mel Gibson,

·        Kevin Spacey 

And there is a lesson here.  Would I hire any of these artists as a baby sitter?  Would I want to work for or with any of them without sufficient protection?  Would I fawn over them as celebrities?  Surely you jest.

Would I turn away, throw out their art because it was their art?  That is a more difficult question.  I do not want to reward the artists for bad behavior, but I also don’t want to deprive myself of that art. The Artist is not the Art. Just as you can love the sinner and hate the sin, you can love the art and hate the artist, by admiring the art, not necessarily the artist.

And maybe there is something good to take away from this.  No matter our flaws, and we all have them, we are capable of so much.  Go and make some art.

Betting

 

Luck Be A Lady Tonight

Luck, let a gentleman see
How nice a dame you can be
I know the way you've treated other guys you've been with
Luck, be a lady with me

Betting on WWE matches? Really? Really?

World Wrestling Entertainment , “WWE is in talks with state gambling regulators to legalize betting on high-profile matches, according to people familiar with the matter.

WWE is working with the accounting firm EY to secure scripted match results in hopes it will convince regulators there’s no chance of results leaking to the public, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. Accounting firms PwC and EY, also known as Ernst & Young, have historically worked with award shows, including the Academy Awards and the Emmys, to keep results a secret.”https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/08/wwe-betting-scripted-match-results.html

Betting is on random events.  The outcome of random events is…doh….random, in other  words the outcome is not known to anyone but the Absolute in advance.  In the case of sporting contests, the outcome of the event can be influenced.  That those outcomes can be influenced has been demonstrated numerous times,  e.g. the 1919 baseball World Series Black Sox scandal or the numerous point shaving scandals in basketball such as

the CCNY point-shaving scandal in 1950–51; the Dixie Classic scandal of 1961; the Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal of 1978–79, which was perpetrated by gangsters Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke; and the Tulane men's basketball point-shaving scandal of 1984–85, which led the university to disband its program for four seasons.

On 15 August 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty to two felonies related to wagering on games that he officiated in a scheme somewhat related to point shaving. The difference in this case was that Donaghy sought to affect the outcome of over-under bets by changing calls so that both teams would score more than predicted, thus seeking to give the impression that at worst that he was merely strictly calling fouls as opposed to being outright biased. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_shaving

And for those of you who are not sports fans, see Funny Girl which documents Fanny Brice’s romance with Nicky Arnstein.  

“Nicky" was short for nickel plate, a sobriquet bestowed in the 1890s when, as a boy, Arnstein rode a gleaming nickel-plated bicycle in the then-popular bike racing craze. However, he spent more time throwing races than winning them. He graduated to gambling on transatlantic liners and in European casinos, and eventually fell in with Arnold Rothstein, a loan shark, bookmaker, fence, Wall Street swindler, real estate speculator, and labor racketeer, who was best known for fixing the 1919 World Series.

In 1915, Arnstein was convicted of swindling, and the following year he entered Sing Sing to serve out his term. Fanny Brice visited him every week while he was there, and in 1918 Arnstein's wife Carrie sued her for alienation of his affection. She subsequently divorced him, leaving him free to marry Brice in October of that year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Arnstein. 

The outcome of the Academy Awards and Emmys are votes that are announced at a ceremony. It may be fancier than the ceremony on the Federal Election Day and there is also  controversy about the candidates, the voters, and the votes, but the accounting firm only tabulates and ensures the secrecy of the ballots.  By contrast, the winner of a WWE match is known, maybe not by the wrestlers until 30 minutes before the event, but by someone.  If betting is allowed on WWE matches, why not let betting before the staging of every scripted event.  I’ve got five bucks that says in the play Peter Pan, Tinker Bell lives, any takers? 😉 Spoilers are so passé anyway.  I guess there is no such thing as luck, if your name is Vince McMahon, Mark Burnett, or Donald Trump.  I guess then there is no such thing as insider trading either!

Income Taxes III

 

As Time Goes By

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by

Is Sam from Casablanca a System Optimizer?

The odds of becoming a professional basketball player (Pick your sport. I chose basketball because my eldest son was on his high school basketball team), if you are on your high school team is 1 in 1,920. It may be a mix of skill and luck, but humor me by saying that it is only luck. (Yes, I know that it is also skill. That same son did not even make an intramural team in college, so I know I am simplifying by saying that it is only luck). If it is luck, then it may make sense for a group say of five friends on an youth basketball team to make a pact. They will each contribute 10% of their salary into a pot if they don’t make an NBA team, but if someone beats the odds and makes it to the NBA that person will contribute 40% of their salary to that pot. The distribution from that pot will be in equal amounts regardless, 1/5 to each member of the group. If no one from the group makes it to the NBA, the payout from the pot is the same as the contribution to the pot. But if any one of the group does makes it to the NBA, the payout to each of the group is considerably more than the contribution from the non-NBA players. The one who did make it to the NBA will get 60% of that NBA salary plus 1/5 of the pot. Yes, the one who made it to the NBA is receiving less than his full salary, but the other members of his group are receiving more.

And on a very large scale this is a simplification of the US income tax system, where making it in any field is a random event. The question is are you for the group, a System Optimizer, or for yourself, a User Optimizer. I'm with Sam, the piano plyer in the movie Casablanca, who, when he was presented with the chance of making more money if took a job at somewhere other than Rick’s place said . “Yeah, but I ain't got time to spend the money I make here.” Sam was clearly a System Optimizer. Play it, Sam. You played it for her, you can play it for me!

Strategy

 

Poker Face

Can't read my, can't read my
No, he can't read my poker face
(She's got me like nobody)
Can't read my, can't read my
No, he can't read my poker face
(She's got me like nobody)

You shouldn’t need a poker face.

The idea behind a poker face is that you are trying to hide from the other bettors. That is whether you have a good hand or a bad hand.  That way you can more convincing bluff (lie) when betting.  So you only need a poker face if you are going to successfully lie.

If you don’t plan on lying, then you don’t need a poker face. In a two-person game, the optimal strategy is to do anything to win, including lying.  In a three-or-more person game, the optimal strategy is to make your move on each round based on your opponent’s move in the prior round.  Kind of "Do unto others as they did unto you."  Notice this is not vengeance, retribution, the start of a feud.  If your opponent starts being nice, then you start being nice on the next round.  If someone is trying to separate you from your group so that you and they are in a bilateral contest, then expect them to lie.  If people are trying to get you to join their group for a contest, then expect them not to lie.

But wait a minute, aren’t there usually more than two people in a poker game.  Yes but every hand is the luck of the draw, a good hand or a bad hand.  You are playing against the deck, and merely betting against others.  If you drew a Royal Flush on every hand, then you would not need a poker face.