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Guess the number! SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT!
So the other day I was listening to a podcast that talked about "the wisdom of crowds." This is the title of a book that talks about collective decision making and how, in some particular circumstances (most often is situations where there is a precise, quantifiable answer to be had), a correct, or at least the closest to correct, answer can be got from averaging together all the answers. You can read about it and the bull-weight-guessing experiment in 1906 that produced this phenomenon at Wikipedia or here.
At my work's Hallowwen party, we had a guess-the-number game similar to the bull's weight guessing game mentioned in the above links. Over in the section of the room that was dedicated to dead druggie celebrities, there was a small display that featured the powdered innards of Pixy Stix cut into lines with paper razor blades, and a glass jar full of candy that looked like pills,* and the game was to guess the number of pills in the jar. I asked if I could have the guesses afterwards, to test out this theory, and they gave them to me. Sure enough, it turned out that the average of all the guesses was fairly close to the actual number in the jar. And throwing out the two outliers - someone guessed 1000 and someone guessed 83 - the average was closer to the actual number than the closest individual guess.
* Er, the Social Committee is nicely twisted. :D
Now, we only had 13 guesses and I suspect that it would have gotten much closer to the real number if we'd had more, but it was still quite interesting. And I want to try it again, with more guesses. So I'm doing something similar here. Of course, I have no idea if a picture of the container will be the same as looking at it, but them's the breaks. :)
There's no prize, sorry to say. You'll have to do this entirely for the good of science.
So ... Guess the number of popcorn kernels in the Sanzo shot glass!
Here's the shot glass, full of kernels:
You can find pictures from multiple angles, without Sanzo obscuring the kernels, at this link. It is a standard-sized shot glass, which originally came as part of a set of four of the Sanzo-ikkou, with stinky votive candles in them, but I removed the candles and turned them into what they obviously were meant to be: shot glasses. I also have two pictures of it next to my cat, for scale.
It's full of standard popcorn kernels, all whole kernels because I counted them individually as they were going in and threw away the broken ones.
When I remember that this poll exists, I'll add it all together and average it, to see how close the Wisdom of the Crowd makes it. I'll also announce whoever got closest to the actual number, just for a wee bit of word-fame. :D
[Poll #1081435]
At my work's Hallowwen party, we had a guess-the-number game similar to the bull's weight guessing game mentioned in the above links. Over in the section of the room that was dedicated to dead druggie celebrities, there was a small display that featured the powdered innards of Pixy Stix cut into lines with paper razor blades, and a glass jar full of candy that looked like pills,* and the game was to guess the number of pills in the jar. I asked if I could have the guesses afterwards, to test out this theory, and they gave them to me. Sure enough, it turned out that the average of all the guesses was fairly close to the actual number in the jar. And throwing out the two outliers - someone guessed 1000 and someone guessed 83 - the average was closer to the actual number than the closest individual guess.
* Er, the Social Committee is nicely twisted. :D
Now, we only had 13 guesses and I suspect that it would have gotten much closer to the real number if we'd had more, but it was still quite interesting. And I want to try it again, with more guesses. So I'm doing something similar here. Of course, I have no idea if a picture of the container will be the same as looking at it, but them's the breaks. :)
There's no prize, sorry to say. You'll have to do this entirely for the good of science.
So ... Guess the number of popcorn kernels in the Sanzo shot glass!
Here's the shot glass, full of kernels:
You can find pictures from multiple angles, without Sanzo obscuring the kernels, at this link. It is a standard-sized shot glass, which originally came as part of a set of four of the Sanzo-ikkou, with stinky votive candles in them, but I removed the candles and turned them into what they obviously were meant to be: shot glasses. I also have two pictures of it next to my cat, for scale.
It's full of standard popcorn kernels, all whole kernels because I counted them individually as they were going in and threw away the broken ones.
When I remember that this poll exists, I'll add it all together and average it, to see how close the Wisdom of the Crowd makes it. I'll also announce whoever got closest to the actual number, just for a wee bit of word-fame. :D
[Poll #1081435]
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Re: Guess the number! SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT!
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Also: Dude! I am going to do a clean install of XP this weekend in the hopes it declogs my computer so I can run PainterX without jaggedy awfulness. Hold me in your thoughts!
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I imagine that this is because everyone else - myself included - has forgotten their formulae for calculating volumes ... I also probably underestimated the number of kernels hidden in the curvature.
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As a note to the fanart thing, it's clear that fanart often gets more hits and comments than original art. I don't know why people automatically assume that's why artists make the stuff. Sure, more people can identify with the fanart-- including the artist! Whoa, who would'a thunkit?
Though I have to admit that I wouldn't mind if more people paid attention to my original stuff XD But I'm just as guilty for not showing as much interest in others' as I should.
When we're all famous, we'll look back on this and laugh and laugh and laugh.
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And I freely admit that the pieces I did precisely to get pageviews weren't very popular. XD I think people can somehow tell.
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Harks back to my theory about the enthusiasm of the creator relative to the quality of the final results ... this is why I'm hesitant about writing with prompts, unless I can get a variety of them from which to choose. If I don't like it, it won't work!
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im prety smrt
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You folks can have the popcorn, I want the shot glass...and Genjyo. X-D