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Der alte Affe Quant · 31.07.06

Heute: 'Klappe zu, Affe tot!' Es weiss ja kein mensch was der ursprung dieses ausspruchs ist. Heute ist es mir aufgegangen. Der ausspruch geht auf Erwin Schroedinger zurueck und es ging urspruenglich gar nicht darum, eine basta-attituede auszudruecken. Vielmehr handelt es sich um ein kleines gedankenexperiment, das spaeter als Schroedingers Katze auch ueber die quantenmechanik hinaus weltgeltung erhalten sollte.

'Klappe zu, Affe tot!' also. Bei dieser konstellation haben wir ein messproblem. Das gleiche problem hatten schon Charles Goodhart, Margaret Mead und eben Erwin Schroedinger. Wir koennen den zustand des affen nicht ermitteln, ohne das system zu veraendern. 'Klappe auf, Affe tot (oder eben nicht)!' ginge gut, aber eben nicht 'Klappe zu'. Wie isset nu mit dem affen, wenn die klappe zu ist? Tot isser nur, wenn er schon tot war als die klappe noch offen war, also 'Affe tot, Klappe zu!' Es heisst aber 'Klappe zu, Affe tot!' Wenn wir wissen wollen, ob der affe tot ist, muessen wir die klappe aber aufmachen. Existiert eine loesung, die wahrheit der aussage 'Klappe zu, Affe tot' zu ermitteln?

... und was hat das ganze mit dem mauerbau zu tun?

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Aldi Broker · 27.07.06

Jetzt kommt auch beim gang zu Lidl, Aldi, Norma, Plus echtes adrenalintreibendes stockbrokerfeeling auf: Preismonitor des Statistischen Bundesamtes. Wolln sehn was wir am ende ueber die anstehende mehrwertsteuererhoehung rauskriegen. Aussagen ueber die elstizitaeten in den einzelnen marktsegmenten am ende?

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Spider Krenzke · 26.07.06

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Ironman Frankfurt · 24.07.06

This guy finished the ironman distance the third time now. I think it's time for new challenges. How about eating vast amounts of sausages or writing haikus? ... as for me, I already found it exhausting to be up the whole day to shout at him ... however ... Respect, Dude!

Follow this link for impressions of the whole day.

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German Tank Analysis · 22.07.06

Another great piece on why nerds will achieve world domination one day. Consider the following problem:

You are a british general planning the invasion in europe in the latter half of the second world war. One question you really need to find an answer to is: "How many german tanks are there?" in other words you have to estimate how many tanks Germany produced up to a given date. What would you do? You would ask intelligence. A handful of desperate guys on the enemy's ground, always at risk of being captured could try to find the answer ... or you could ask statisticians.

Here is what both sources reported. In the last column the true figures according to German records are given:

German Tank Data

Date	Statistical Estimate	Intelligence Estimate	German Records
June 1940	169	1000	122
June 1941	244	1550	271
August 1942	327	1550	342

How could statisticians guess that good? Ok, let's go for it: Obviously german tanks were captured by allied troops. Probably in Italy or Noth Africa. Those tanks had serial numbers. Those numbers were not randomly chosen. The German tanks were numbered as follows: 1, 2, 3 ... N, where N was the desired total number of tanks produced. Note that the tanks captured are a random sample of the german tank population. The rest is Order Statistics and led, according to the Guardian, to the following simple estimator N = (M-1)(S+1)/S, with S being the sample size and M being the highest serialnumber in the sample.

Still, the estimates are astonishingly good. Note that the sample should have been drawn iid, which very likely has not been the case.

(via MatheKlein)

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Persian Wisdom · 21.07.06

He, who has found the truth will turn into a fascist.

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Regentanz · 21.07.06

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Great Idea · 19.07.06

... see what happens when great ideas are implemented excellently ...

(via pistolwimp)

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Eclectic · 12.07.06

Sorry for the ongoing eclecticism. I have a most lovely visitor ... so ... I really do not have the time to post proper content. End of next week I'll be back with some posts of my own. Indianerehrenwort

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The Bush Pilot · 12.07.06

(via crooksandliars)

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Is Outsourcing Profitable? · 9.07.06

Is Outsourcing Profitable? Prof. Strassmann of George Mason University gives a little lecture on the topic.

(via Basman)

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Wie man mit Statistik... · 6.07.06

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So sehn Verlierer aus ... scha lala lala · 5.07.06

... Um stilvoll verlieren zu koennen, bedarf es einer radikalen melancholie oder einer prizipiellen ironie. Beide beruhen auf gebrochener weltwahrnehmung ... Wo schmerz mit solchen gegenkraeften hinterlegt wird, da beginnt stil. Stilvolles verlieren setzt eine sonderbare mischung aus engagement und desinteressiertheit voraus ...

Audiodatei bei dradio.de

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Introduction to Probability · 5.07.06

There is this lovely Introduction to Probability by Charles M. Grinstead and J. Laurie Shell avaliable under GNU Free Documentation License (FDL). That means one not only can download a PDF print file. One actually can download LaTeX sources of the book. This is the book which made me progamm the Martingale script.

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Martingale · 4.07.06

Congratulations to Italia. Life is a game of chance, ain't it? The following groovy script shows how to play roulette the right way. Well, ok, this strategy only provides sure payoffs if 'assets' is infinite ... too bad

/**
We have 'assets' and would like to carry home
'expassets' by going to the roulette table and
placing bets on either red or black. If we win, 
we do the same thing again. If we lose, we 
double the bet we place in order to cover losses. 
The Strategy should lead us to the expected 
assets in no time. ...or doesn't it?
**/

/** Some start values **/
assets = 1000; //starting assets
expassets = 1500; //assets we want to carry home

b = false; //progress condition
bet = 1; //starting bet

/** Do the experiment **/
strres = new StringBuffer();
strres.append("win, coin, bet\n");

while (!b){
  /** toss the coin **/
  if (0.5 < java.lang.Math.random()){
    coin = true;} 
  else{
    coin = false;};


  /** if coin true, collect payoff, 
     otherwise adjust bet **/
  if (coin){
    assets += bet;
    bet = 1;} 
  else{
    assets -= bet;
    bet = 2*bet;};

  /** Did we reach our goals? **/
  if(assets >= expassets || assets-bet <= 0)
    b = true;

  if(assets-bet <= 0)
    println("Lost");
    
  if(assets >= expassets)
    println("Won");
 
  strres.append(assets+", "+coin+", "+bet+"\n");
}

/** Write Results to .csv **/
writer = new java.io.FileWriter( "˜/results.csv" );
writer.write(strres.toString());
writer.close();

... well, mkay, however, the .csv file can be analysed most conveniently with R

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Das Stueck ist Aus · 2.07.06

Es stimmt, ein bisschen bloed war die nachricht, dass Robert Gernhardt von uns ist in der halbzeitpause des spiels deutschland argentinien. Die tischnachbarn schauten doch etwas verstaendnislos auf mich ... sagt das was ueber die tischnachbarn? Egal. Um ein weiteres mal Gernhardt zu bemuehen und das zu fruehe ableben zu kommentieren: "Das finde ich irgendwie nicht gut".

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