Updated, because for a self-proclaimed grammar snob I certainly made my share of errors & typos yesterday!
Whoops, boss caught me yawning… which is fine, because I’ve been a virtual beacon of productivity for the last two days, and my fervour shows no sign of waning. I’m on fire, fuelled by public sector insanity and fighting the good fight, injecting doses of common sense into infected drones and knocking over mountains made from mole-hills.
If I were a horse, though, I’d have been shot: knees are black ‘n’ blue, basically lame. Bloodied arm and sore shoulder to boot (yeah, I know horses don’t have arms).
Beating the Roll-up-the-Rim odds: it’s 4 winners out of 13 attempts as of today. If only I could be so lucky in all areas of my life. (Ok, so if the true mean is 1/9 = 0.1111 I’m pulling 0.3077). Also, to anyone who cares: assuming that the distribution of winning cups is equal across all sizes (which I think it is, but can’t prove right now!) if you buy only medium-size coffees (price = $1.23) with a probability of winning at 0.1111 and an average win value of $1.23 (ok this is totally non-scientific, because I don’t have access to insider marketing information… and yes I know that the odds differ by region), and you buy 9 cups and use your 1 winning cup to buy another cup (assuming you can barter away your winning tabs for bagels and donuts), you’ve effectively purchased 10 cups at $1.107 each.
Or maybe I'm not that lucky after all...
P(r) = (n!/(r!(n-r)!))*(p^r)*(q^(n-r))
n = number of attempts = 13
r = number of wins = 4
p = probability of a win = 1/9
q = (1-p) = 8/9
Probability of winning 4 times in 13 attempts is 0.0378
Bit rusty on my stats... but I think the binomial distribution is suitable here.
NO, I don’t know if there was a point to that.
Today I observed a new low in government-speak: this time, the use of the term “fiscal” to refer to “fiscal year” was truncated to… wait for it…. “fisc.” As in; “We’ll wait and see what happens next fisc.”
Wow. I’ve promoted myself to: “Official Keeper of the Glossary”. (OKG).
