Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Hamlet 2001

1.) Download and install the VLC media player. I had to encode the video in a way that Media Player probably won't know how to play back.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

2.) Right-click this link and choose "Save Link As..." or "Save Target As..." and save the file. It's a hefty file, so it'll take a little while for it to download.
http://ubuntuone.com/1psfcIf75PhFj0mld8Wyun

3.) Open up VLC and point it to the file you downloaded. It should begin playing.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The Monty Hall paradox intuitive "solution"

Whenever one starts to figure out the Monty Hall paradox, the problems seem to begin because people rely on probabilities. It is common to get confused with how the probabilities work in this problem because it's not intuitive. So... I have a "solution" that doesn't use any numbers, and provides the intuitive solution that is so elusive.

First, the assumptions: The host will ALWAYS show you a losing door, and there is only ONE winning door.

The contestant starts off with the selection of three doors. What do we know right now? From the get-go we know that there is only one winning door. This means that *the contestant's first selection is probably wrong*. This should be easy enough to see. If there are three doors to choose from, and there is only one winning door, and you can only guess one, you are probably going to guess wrong.

Now, the host opens a losing door for the contestant. The host will *never* show the contestant a winning door. Ever. (That would defeat the fun of the game, wouldn't it?)

What do we know now? We know that the door the contestant chose *is probably wrong*. We also know, from the host, a door that *is definitely wrong*. What does that leave left? The only option left is the door that remains unopened, and unchosen. This means that more often than not (2/3 of the time), the contestant has a better chance of winning if he changes from his first guess and chooses the remaining door.