A little blog of questionable wisdom written by Lucas Pierce. I do a lot of little things these days. I hope some of them do a little good.
These posts are old and new, serious and absurd, technical yet philosophical. I’ve kept even the questionable bits—partly for nostalgia, mostly as proof that wisdom arrives slowly, if at all.
If you’d like to reach me and don’t already know how, LinkedIn is probably your best bet. Students, I’ll likely reply; salespeople, probably not.
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Decades ago, I took a test in a statistics class that included a version of the classic Monty Hall problem. You might know it: a game show host presents three doors. Behind two are goats, and behind one is a car. You pick a door, the host knowingly opens one of the other doors to reveal a goat, and you’re asked whether it makes sense to switch.
But as I remember it, my exam had one important difference. It said the host opened a door randomly, rather than deliberately choosing one with a goat. I interpreted that to mean the host might accidentally reveal the car. I thought my teacher was being tricky, intentionally giving us a variation on the classic problem. I worked through the possibilities and concluded that if the host opened a door randomly, and happened to reveal a goat, switching would give you a 1 in 2 chance of winning, rather than the traditional 2 in 3.
Continue reading →“Can you take Polly out for a walk this morning? I wasn’t able to run her out yesterday,” my wife calls as she comes into the kitchen. My son and I are sharing a plate of fried eggs while I’m sipping my espresso.
Polly, our labradoodle, will follow us around with her orange ball if she doesn’t get out enough. As soon as she hears me open the leash drawer, she bolts over and sits like the good girl she is, barely containing herself. I can’t help teasing her with the word “walk” just to see if she’ll break composure.
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