Sunday, 8 July 2012
Thursday, 5 July 2012
How to Use Math and Win Free Drinks from Your Friends [Math]
How to Use Math and Win Free Drinks from Your Friends [Math]:
Want to dazzle pals with your math skills AND snag free drinks in the process? All you need is a set of dice.
Let's play a dice game. I have three dice (shown in top image). They are similar to regular six-sided dice except they have slightly different numbers on them. Each die is different. I'll label them Red, Green, and Blue so that we can differentiate them. The meshes for the three dice are shown here.
It might not be a surprise to my suspicious readers, but I'm going to predict that I'm probably going to win the battle. In fact I'll go as far to say that I think I'll win the battle over 98% of the time! (Even if, in the event of a tie at ten points each, I concede the win to you). OK, you say, I somehow forced you into picking one of the dice? No problem, let's do it again.
You can chose to keep the same die, or select another one (you can even have the die I just rolled if you like!) I predict I'm going to win again. We can keep going all day. It does not matter which of the dice you choose, I'll select one of the other dice and win over 98 times in every 100 games. Huh, what's going on? That does not make sense! What's the trick?
There's no trick, it's just that you're thinking in a transitive way (don't worry I'll explain what that means shortly).
If you select the Red die, I'll select the Blue one (and probably win).
If you select the Green die, I'll select the Red one (and probably win).
If you select the Blue die, I'll select the Green one (and probably win).
Yes, it's that simple!
You might want to go away and make a set of these dice for yourself to use as you read this article (and then use them to scam your unwitting friends out of free drinks by betting against them).
What does that mean? A Transitive function or property is something in which all comparisons are performed according to the same dependent criteria. For example, if Albert is older than Bob, and Bob is older than Charlie, then we know that Albert must be older than Charlie too. This is because "is older than" is a Transitive function. However, if I told you that Albert is friends with Bob, and Bob is friends with Charlie, you can't assume that Albert is also friends with Charlie! Friendship is Intransitive.
For our dice set, the function "Is more likely to roll a higher number" is intransitive.
Need more convincing about the concept? At first glance this may appear counter-intuitive, so let's look at the classic game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, which is also an intransitive game.
Rock smashes Scissors, and Scissors cut Paper, but Paper also wraps Rock.
If you are playing Rock-Paper-Scissors and you know which symbol your opponent was going to select, you could always select the device that was its nemesis and be sure of a victory.
Get it? OK, let's go back to the dice …
Our dice are constructed in a similar cycle such that the value "Is more likely to roll a higher number" sequences around in a loop.
Red is more likely than Green
Green is more likely than Blue
Blue is more likely than Red
Because I asked you to select your die first, I can always select the color next along the cycle!
Below are the meshes for the dice we are using in this example:
If you look closely, you will see that each dice has just three distinct numbers (repeated twice).
The Red one: 2,4,9. The Green one: 1,8,6 and the Blue one: 3,5,7.
Rolling the red die, there are three equally likely outcomes (each with Probability 1/3). The same can be said for the green die.
Multiplying these together, we see that there are nine possible (equally likely) outcomes for these pair of dice. In five of these combinations the red die wins. Thus, probablity of the red die winning against the green die is 5/9. This is shown below as a tree diagram:
A similar diagram can be constructed for all possible combinations of rolles for the green and blue dice. Again the probability is weighted, and again the advantage is 5/9.
Finally, with the blue and red dice we can again complete the cycle with a 5/9 probability.
By selecting the correct die against one freely selected by our opponent we can gain always gain a measurable advantage. The 5/9 advantage is small, but by repeating the experiment a few times (in our example by repeating the roll twenty times), we can increase our odds considerably.
Now go out and have fun with math!
Intransitive Dice | DataGenetics
Nick Berry is the president of DataGenetics. He is an active member of the privacy community and speaks at various events about the legal and ethical aspects of data collection, use, and destruction.
Want to dazzle pals with your math skills AND snag free drinks in the process? All you need is a set of dice.Let's play a dice game. I have three dice (shown in top image). They are similar to regular six-sided dice except they have slightly different numbers on them. Each die is different. I'll label them Red, Green, and Blue so that we can differentiate them. The meshes for the three dice are shown here.
Rules
We're going to choose and roll one of the dice. I'll even let you choose first. You are free to select any die you like (Red, Green or Blue), then I'll pick one of the two remaining dice. We then enter into a battle: We both roll our dice, and the highest scoring number wins a point. We'll roll twenty times and declare a winner as the one with the most points. Simple?It might not be a surprise to my suspicious readers, but I'm going to predict that I'm probably going to win the battle. In fact I'll go as far to say that I think I'll win the battle over 98% of the time! (Even if, in the event of a tie at ten points each, I concede the win to you). OK, you say, I somehow forced you into picking one of the dice? No problem, let's do it again.
You can chose to keep the same die, or select another one (you can even have the die I just rolled if you like!) I predict I'm going to win again. We can keep going all day. It does not matter which of the dice you choose, I'll select one of the other dice and win over 98 times in every 100 games. Huh, what's going on? That does not make sense! What's the trick?
There's no trick, it's just that you're thinking in a transitive way (don't worry I'll explain what that means shortly).
How to Play
First, I'm going to explain the strategy of how I play. Then, I'll explain why it works:If you select the Red die, I'll select the Blue one (and probably win).
If you select the Green die, I'll select the Red one (and probably win).
If you select the Blue die, I'll select the Green one (and probably win).
Yes, it's that simple!
You might want to go away and make a set of these dice for yourself to use as you read this article (and then use them to scam your unwitting friends out of free drinks by betting against them).
Intransitivity
So, what's special about the dice? Well nothing really. They are striped with numbers, but why this "trick" works is that the relationship "Is more likely to roll a higher number" is intransitive.What does that mean? A Transitive function or property is something in which all comparisons are performed according to the same dependent criteria. For example, if Albert is older than Bob, and Bob is older than Charlie, then we know that Albert must be older than Charlie too. This is because "is older than" is a Transitive function. However, if I told you that Albert is friends with Bob, and Bob is friends with Charlie, you can't assume that Albert is also friends with Charlie! Friendship is Intransitive.
For our dice set, the function "Is more likely to roll a higher number" is intransitive.
Need more convincing about the concept? At first glance this may appear counter-intuitive, so let's look at the classic game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, which is also an intransitive game.
Rock smashes Scissors, and Scissors cut Paper, but Paper also wraps Rock.
If you are playing Rock-Paper-Scissors and you know which symbol your opponent was going to select, you could always select the device that was its nemesis and be sure of a victory.
Get it? OK, let's go back to the dice …
Our dice are constructed in a similar cycle such that the value "Is more likely to roll a higher number" sequences around in a loop.
Red is more likely than Green
Green is more likely than Blue
Blue is more likely than Red
Because I asked you to select your die first, I can always select the color next along the cycle!
Math
Now that we have the background out of the way, let's look at some numbers. By it's nature, rolling dice is random and we can exploit that with our function "Is more likely to be higher."Below are the meshes for the dice we are using in this example:
If you look closely, you will see that each dice has just three distinct numbers (repeated twice).
The Red one: 2,4,9. The Green one: 1,8,6 and the Blue one: 3,5,7.
Rolling the red die, there are three equally likely outcomes (each with Probability 1/3). The same can be said for the green die.
Multiplying these together, we see that there are nine possible (equally likely) outcomes for these pair of dice. In five of these combinations the red die wins. Thus, probablity of the red die winning against the green die is 5/9. This is shown below as a tree diagram:
A similar diagram can be constructed for all possible combinations of rolles for the green and blue dice. Again the probability is weighted, and again the advantage is 5/9.
Finally, with the blue and red dice we can again complete the cycle with a 5/9 probability.
By selecting the correct die against one freely selected by our opponent we can gain always gain a measurable advantage. The 5/9 advantage is small, but by repeating the experiment a few times (in our example by repeating the roll twenty times), we can increase our odds considerably.
Now go out and have fun with math!
Intransitive Dice | DataGenetics
Nick Berry is the president of DataGenetics. He is an active member of the privacy community and speaks at various events about the legal and ethical aspects of data collection, use, and destruction.
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Growing digital game sales not enough to compensate for weak retail
I think this is kind good news for the industry right? less people buying second hand more new sales.
Growing digital game sales not enough to compensate for weak retail:
Digital game sales are growing in the U.S., but those small gains weren't nearly enough to make up for plummeting software sales at retail during the first three months of the year. The NPD Group's new "Q1 2012 Games Market Dynamics: U.S." report shows that console and PC game sales across retail, digital, and used/rental revenues reached almost $3.4 billion in the first quarter of the year, compared to more than $3.8 million during the ...
Growing digital game sales not enough to compensate for weak retail:
Digital game sales are growing in the U.S., but those small gains weren't nearly enough to make up for plummeting software sales at retail during the first three months of the year. The NPD Group's new "Q1 2012 Games Market Dynamics: U.S." report shows that console and PC game sales across retail, digital, and used/rental revenues reached almost $3.4 billion in the first quarter of the year, compared to more than $3.8 million during the ...
Monday, 2 July 2012
VLC for Android Beta Finally Arrives, Plays Almost Anything on Your Android Device [Video]
VLC for Android Beta Finally Arrives, Plays Almost Anything on Your Android Device [Video]:
Android: If you've been waiting for news on an Android version of VLC, wait no longer. The media player finally launched an Android beta today, and it brings VLC's trademark play-anything goodness, multi-track subtitle support, and even whole-library management tools to Android devices, but be warned: the developers make no bones about the fact that it's a beta, and there's a lot of work to be done on it.
The first thing worth noting is that the VLC for Android beta is a port of the iOS version, largely to get a framework in place where the VLC mobile team can work from. They point out that everything about the app will change as it gets updated, including the UI and major features, and hardware decoding only works on a few devices at the moment. Even so, it's still VLC, can play just about anything (including network streams), supports multi-tack audio and video with subtitles, has a home-screen widget for audio control without launching the app, and it supports headsets with in-line audio controls.
The developers point out that "It might kill your kitten, destroy your house and start the mayan apocalypse," and warn you to "Use at your own risk." They also point out that this version is for "power users and hackers," so while it worked great on the devices we tested, make sure your device is supported before trusting it with your media. It's definitely not as polished as our favorite media player for Android, MoboPlayer, but Android has no shortage of great media players, and hey—this is VLC! If you give it a try, let us know your experience with it in the comments below.
VLC Beta | Google Play via Mashable
Android: If you've been waiting for news on an Android version of VLC, wait no longer. The media player finally launched an Android beta today, and it brings VLC's trademark play-anything goodness, multi-track subtitle support, and even whole-library management tools to Android devices, but be warned: the developers make no bones about the fact that it's a beta, and there's a lot of work to be done on it. The first thing worth noting is that the VLC for Android beta is a port of the iOS version, largely to get a framework in place where the VLC mobile team can work from. They point out that everything about the app will change as it gets updated, including the UI and major features, and hardware decoding only works on a few devices at the moment. Even so, it's still VLC, can play just about anything (including network streams), supports multi-tack audio and video with subtitles, has a home-screen widget for audio control without launching the app, and it supports headsets with in-line audio controls.
The developers point out that "It might kill your kitten, destroy your house and start the mayan apocalypse," and warn you to "Use at your own risk." They also point out that this version is for "power users and hackers," so while it worked great on the devices we tested, make sure your device is supported before trusting it with your media. It's definitely not as polished as our favorite media player for Android, MoboPlayer, but Android has no shortage of great media players, and hey—this is VLC! If you give it a try, let us know your experience with it in the comments below.
VLC Beta | Google Play via Mashable
Use Inflatable Arm Bands to Safely Transport Wine or Liquor Bottles [Clever Uses]
Use Inflatable Arm Bands to Safely Transport Wine or Liquor Bottles [Clever Uses]:
If you like to bring back a few bottles of wine or liquor from your travels you may want to consider packing an inflatable swimming arm band in your luggage. The arm band weighs virtually nothing, takes up little space, and will protect your libations from rough baggage handlers.
Real Simple magazine's weblog offers this tip noting that the swimming arm bands can also be used to protect glassware and can be used as a travel pillow. Most swimming arm bands are sized for children and are available for less than five bucks.
Kids' Floaties as Wine Bottle Protectors | Real Simple
If you like to bring back a few bottles of wine or liquor from your travels you may want to consider packing an inflatable swimming arm band in your luggage. The arm band weighs virtually nothing, takes up little space, and will protect your libations from rough baggage handlers. Real Simple magazine's weblog offers this tip noting that the swimming arm bands can also be used to protect glassware and can be used as a travel pillow. Most swimming arm bands are sized for children and are available for less than five bucks.
Kids' Floaties as Wine Bottle Protectors | Real Simple
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