{"id":59,"date":"2002-02-25T22:51:40","date_gmt":"2002-02-26T03:51:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/wordpress\/lessons_from_the_slopes"},"modified":"2002-02-25T22:51:40","modified_gmt":"2002-02-26T03:51:40","slug":"lessons_from_the_slopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/2002\/02\/lessons_from_the_slopes.html","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the Slopes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nI just got back from a ski trip to Big Bear (with a brief stopover in<br \/>\nSanta Barbara to visit Rachel).  Joining me on the trip were <a href=\"\/Nancy\/\" title=\"marketing something-or-other\">Nancy<\/a>,<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/Mike\/\" title=\"lawyer\">Mike<\/a>,<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/Eric\/\" title=\"yet another lawyer. Susan too, actually.\">Eric<\/a>, Susan, Byron, and Karen.  My philosophy is that all<br \/>\ntrips are in some way educational.  On this particular excursion to<br \/>\nexotic Southern California, I learned the following:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>\nRachel is doing fine, but she has become very annoyed with another<br \/>\ngraduate student who is working with her on the same giant project.<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;ve decided to use my knowledge from my sociology classes to crush her,&#8221;<br \/>\nRachel said.  No, Rachel, no!  You must learn to use your powers only<br \/>\nfor Good, never Evil!\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nRachel&#8217;s husband Ben seems to be doing just ducky.  He always seems<br \/>\nto be doing just ducky.  I think I&#8217;m not very good at reading him.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nIt is good to know friends who have friends who have large cabins<br \/>\nwith vaulted ceilings in which you may stay for free.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nLucky Charms are, cup for cup, healthier than Kellogg&#8217;s Raisin Bran.<br \/>\nLucky Charms are equal or better in every vitamin\/nutrient category,<br \/>\nand they actually have fewer calories.  The one category where Raisin<br \/>\nBran wins is fiber: 28% RDA to 7% RDA.  But who needs regular BMs<br \/>\nwhen you can have purple horseshoes and red balloons?\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nSkiing in 50 degree weather is really nice, aside from the occasional<br \/>\nslushy patch.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nSkiing in rental boots is not so nice, particularly when they give<br \/>\nyou blisters on your calves.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nProficiency in Boggle does not translate into proficiency in<br \/>\nScattergories (vindication for the domain-specific knowledge<br \/>\ntheory of intelligence?)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nThe official legal way to refer to<br \/>\n&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cba.uiuc.edu\/broker\/pdf\/insider.pdf\" title=\"WARNING: legal jargon\">insider<br \/>\ntrading<\/a>&#8221; is to call it a &#8220;Section 10(b)-5 violation&#8221;.\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>\nContrary to popular myth, in blackjack a &#8220;bad&#8221; third base player<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/conjelco.com\/faq\/bj.html#B14\" title=\"Explanation of the 3rd base myth\">does not affect the odds<\/a><br \/>\nof another player winning or losing.  Consider the following example:\n<\/p>\n<pre style=\"font-size: small\">\nDealer is showing 12, and so will bust if he draws a 10.\nThe deck has N cards:  \n  G   \"good\" cards (tens), \n  N-G \"bad\" cards (non-tens).\n\nIf the third base player stays, the dealer's odds of busting are\nsimply G\/N.\n\nIf the third base player hits, there are two cases:\n\n  Case 1: a G\/N chance he receives a \"good\" card.  There are then G-1 \n  good cards left, so the dealer's odds of busting are now (G-1)\/(N-1).\n\n  Case 2: a (N-G)\/N chance he receives a \"bad\" card.  The dealer's odds\n  of busting are now G\/(N-1).\n\nThe total odds of the dealer busting are therefore:\n\n  (odds of Case 1) x (odds that dealer busts given Case 1)\n    + (odds of Case 2) x (odds that dealer busts given Case 2)\n\nOr:\n\n  (G\/N) x (G-1)\/(N-1) + (N-G)\/N x G\/(N-1)\n\nwhich is, putting everything under a common denominator:\n\n   G x (G-1)   (N-G) x G\n   --------- + ---------\n   N x (N-1)   N x (N-1) \n\nwhich is, expanding and cancelling terms:\n\n   G^2 - G + GN - G^2      GN - G       G x (N-1)     G\n   ------------------  =  ---------  =  ---------  =  -\n        N x (N-1)         N x (N-1)     N x (N-1)     N\n\nWhich is the same result as if the third base player had stayed.\n<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But who needs regular BMs when you can have purple horseshoes and red balloons?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}