Statistics is not exciting. It's not something that makes people giddy. It's a dull, mundane discipline. But... it's useful, very useful. Because statistics allows you to see truths that that naked eye (by which I mean the mind without using any special method) doesn't. And the reason I say it's useful is because statistics is a field that deals almost exclusively in application. There isn't really that much to gain from statistics as a mathematical field in of its own, it's the ability to apply this method widely that makes it powerful.

When you learn statistics you explore examples like what is the probabiliy of winning the lottery. It's a contrived example really, because I imagine there isn't a wide correlation between those who play the lottery and those interested in learning statistics. But what you find out is just how oblivious those people are about the fact that there is no chance in hell they will ever win the lottery.

But there are more interesting truths you can derive with statistics, like accurate predictions about who's going to win the election, with 50 million voters, by only polling 1000 people. Now that's pretty impressive, I'd say. Of course, a lot of people dismiss statistics as just manipulating numbers to suit your end. And that's true. But it's a very shallow view on statistics, which is a lot more than that.

Because statistics deals fundamentally with examining relations between things. And that is a very general idea you can apply to lots of scenarios. And what's more interesting: probability. We tend to accept the theory that if something has happened, there is a chance it will happen again. Probability is no more than a formalization of this idea. If you are late for class 9 times out of 10, then chances are, by the sheer virtue that history tends to repeat itself, you are going to be late next time. Of course, it's just a prognosis, it doesn't determine the outcome.

And this is where I think people dismiss probability as being some kind of useless game. Because the thing is that according to the physical models we have of our world, there is nothing definite about anything. It's all probability. When you drive under a bridge, you don't know for certain that the bridge isn't going to collapse and smother your car. Now the chemical qualities of the materials used to build this bridge are such that the probability of collapse is very small. The bridge will probably stand for at least 100 years. But there is nothing certain about this. And yet it's good enough for us to trust, isn't it?

So why isn't it definite? When you buy a hard disk, you're hoping that the disk won't crash on you and you'll lose all your data. Why do you have this fear? Because hard disks are known to crash, sometimes they break. And if on average one disk in 1,000 breaks within the first year, then you know that yours may break. Why do you know this? Because you believe that something that's happening won't just stop happening for no reason, you believe there is a certain continuity to events. So if the design and production of hard disks is such that 1 in 1000 breaks, then you know that there's a chance of 1:1000 you'll be replacing yours. But why is this true? Does the prognosis now determine the outcome? No, it doesn't. Instead, the probability represents a truth about the present. That is to say it's not some product of guesswork and wishful thinking we hope will come true, it's a truth. What determines the outcome isn't a guess - it's the present situation.

If you slide a pencil off your desk and it drops to the floor, you will not be surprised. And if you repeat this experiment, you will not be surprised to learn that it happens every time. Does that mean you can be certain that it always will? Probably. On the other hand, if you sit down to dinner everyday, and occasionally (let's say once a year) you spill your drink, can you be certain that there will come a time in the future when you'll again spill your drink? No, not really. In the first case, you can confirm the same outcome every time, there isn't even one example to the opposite. In the second, it happens very rarely, and so it's hard to say whether it will happen again, and if so when. Both are scenarios with a certain probability.

So how useful is probability in predicting the future? I haven't done a lot of air travel in my life, but in the last few years with vacations and moving abroad it has picked up. And I have never been late for a flight. Just like with the pencil. Could I say that if I've been on 30 flights and I've dropped the pencil 30 times, the probability of being late for my next flight is the same as the pencil not dropping? No, because the underlying conditions are much different. The only thing affecting the pencil is gravity, and we know gravity is pretty reliable. What it takes for me to get to the airport on time is timing skills, as well as public transportation being on time. So if I've never been late, and I know that the bus is 10 minutes late one time out of say 100, I know that sooner or later I may be on the bus that happens to be late. So essentially, every time I make it on time (approaching that 100th trip), I know that next time I'm more likely to be late than I was this time. That is to say, I anticipate that 100th occasion to happen.

Of course, the probability of missing the next flight is a lot more complicated than just determining how likely the bus is to be late. Perhaps they switched buses to a new model that's more reliable. Perhaps everytime I take the bus it has just undergone maintenance (and is less likely to break down right after maintenance than it is otherwise). Anyway, I still have to get to the bus in the first place. Perhaps the cops decide to close down the block and send me a on giant detour. Perhaps my knees give out. Perhaps I was playing sports the day before and injured myself, slowing me down. Perhaps I slip and injure myself on the way to the bus. Perhaps the machine at the airport that prints boarding cards runs out of paper just when it's my turn. Perhaps the security people decide to pull me over for an hour long check because they're bored. There's a huge amount of probabilities that enter into the calculation. One or multiple can make me late for the plane. The only thing I [probably] know for certain is that there is no certainty.

Doesn't that strike anyone as a violent thing to say? And what are the other ways? Noone ever talks about them. In fact noone even says what the "preferred" way is.

And why would you even want to do it? Are we about to open a stuffed animal exhibit?

Ps. If you were thinking "this blog is getting too serious", this one's for you. 

And when I say most people I'm talking about those casual practitioners. Like people playing in the park, or working people playing in the company gym, that kind of thing. Not kids.

Because they think it's about making baskets. Of course, basketball *is* about scoring, but it's about a lot more than that. Scoring is an end, but how you achieve it also matters. It's like driving a car, you want to get to your destination, but the way you do that makes a difference.

Basketball is, in a very big way, about palm action. If you watch those highlights from the NBA, plays of the week, stuff like that, what you see is people who have impeccable dexterity. If you take a person who's never played and put them next to a pro, the biggest difference between the two, in terms of skill (not physical stature), is hand dexterity. If you've never played basketball, you don't even realize what your hand is capable of.

Where this matters most is on the floor, so everything that goes on with dribbles, fakes, starting, stopping etc. If you have good dexterity you can do just about anything. It's probably also the one thing that takes the longest to learn. It's all in the palm.

But it helps you with everything. From the point of view I opened with, it helps you tremendously with scoring as well. Because now, it's not just shots, you can also make all kinds of drives. Alright, everyone can do a lay-up, but if you have the palm action, you can spin it any number of ways, no matter what the situation is.

A few years ago there was this well respected genre in filmatography called documentary movies. Documentaries set out to, indeed, document something. A historical event, a person's biography, discuss a social issue by presenting a lot of facts, that kind of thing. They were still movies, made in some period of time and screened later. Of course, no matter how important or interesting your documentary was very few people would watch it, because generally people think they're boring.

Actually, documentaries still exist. No, really, they do. It's just that the idea of showing something as it is has rather rudely shifted focus to the reality show. The show is made for television, so they need a lot more material. Which also means the quality is much lower. The reality show is like a documentary with no message or purpose to it. They're not trying to tell you anything, or educate you, they just hope you stick around and watch it anyway. And to do that, they sensationalize it. They build it up a lot, run those ads on tv. "Temptation Island starting next week, don't miss it!!" Then they add some graphical framework so you have the intro sequence a certain way, a music clip to go along "dramatic" scenes and all kinds of effects to distract your from the fact that the show isn't about anything. As a final piece of the puzzle, they know you like stupid games, so they make it a competition between the people in the show. Without this you would actually figure it out and not watch it, but because you have this sick compulsion to partake in games and gambling (how do you explain those slot machines as the supermarket?), you will actually watch this bs.

It's called a reality show, and the major selling point is that it's omg so real! We're actually seeing what they're doing, it's like a live feed. Which it isn't, because they screen this stuff all through the week and then they show you a summary once a week, so it's just like any other show. But if they want to really maximize on the show, they will find a way to get you involved. They'll make you vote on the people, decide who wins, who loses, make you care about whatever nonsense they're up to. And that's why they can sensationalize every little detail as well, because they know it matters oh so much to you!

"The contestants are in the house, I repeat they are inside the house, this is so exciting."
"Now they've positioned themselves around the table and they appear to be talking, are we getting this?"
"We're not recording, you bimbo, we're broadcasting."

Big Brother, that was just a fantastic show. It was a study in just how insulting you could make a show to the user and still make him follow it. And they did, en masse. It set a number of records in tv ratings, can you believe it? A show about a bunch of nitwits who sat in a house for months without doing anything and people actually watched it. Not only that, they managed to sell satellite, cable and internet subscriptions for the live feeds too. If you think that was bad, people even taped it to see what they had missed.

It's the second time I've seen an envelope addressed to one of my neighbors marked confidential. It's a regular white envelope, but across it they stamped CONFIDENTIAL in upper case, and below that Strictly confidential, must only be opened by addressee or something like that.

So they send this very important (presumably) information in the mail, and making sure noone is to open it but the recipient. I didn't open it, indeed I never open other people's mail cause I just don't feel that is good practice, nor do I care. But if I were nosy, a letter labeled confidential would pique my interest. I'd be much more keen to open that one than any other. So what are they trying to achieve here? Why not send it by registered mail so the recipient has to show a valid id and sign for it? That's a lot more of a confidential method.

Or did they send this one "confidential" to divert attention from some other letter in a plain envelope that actually had the secret information?