The Monty Hall Problem
Pick a door!
Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what’s behind the other doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, ‘Do you want to pick door No. 2?’ Is it to your advantage to take the switch?
That is the way the “Monty Hall Problem” is usually stated. Marilyn vos Savant published the problem with essentially this wording in 1990. In the recent film “21″ the problem appears in this form. Unfortunately, when stated this way, there is no indication in the problem whether the the host always must open a door with a goat or not. That condition is crucial. Read more
Corporate Personalities
Disclaimer: what follows is a completely biased take on some large companies that affect my everyday life. No independent research went into this diatribe. Also, there are some brilliant, hardworking people at all three of these companies and regardless of what I say below, I highly respect them.
Even big corporations have distinct personalities. Here are my perceptions about three important ones. First, Microsoft.
Microsoft’s motto seems to be: “We’ve got you by the balls and we expect your hearts and minds to follow.” Please forgive me if I’d prefer to invest in a balls-extraction device. Read more
It’s “noon” and “midnight,” okay?
I’m going to say this only once. “Meridiem” means middle of the day. “Ante” means before and “post” means after. They’re all from Latin. The middle of the day, the meridiem, is noon. As in 12 noon. Ante meridiem (a.m.) is before noon. Post meridiem (p.m.) is after noon.
Noon is neither before nor after the middle of the day, neither a.m. nor p.m.: it’s exactly noon! Read more