Why The Sea is Salt

English Folk Tales: The Morals behind Them

By Madison Nef

English folk tales- classic and entertaining stories that many children enjoy while growing up. While they are meant for small children for fun, there are good underlying morals that teach you… even as you revisit them when you’re older. Today, I revisited the story Why the Sea is Salt. Below, I give a brief summary of the story and tell what morals I think are shown throughout it.

Why the Sea is Salt

This story is about two brothers- one poor, and one rich. On Christmas, the poor man has nothing for his family and so he visits his richer brother to ask him if he has anything to spare for the holidays. The rich brother, having given his brother plenty beforehand, angrily gives him two loaves of bread and some bacon and candles, telling him that he is to never come back after doing so.

Firstly, I am having trouble seeing who is in the wrong. On one hand, they ARE family and on holidays, I wouldn’t mind helping my family. On the other, if the poor brother had been asking of much from his richer brother previously while making no attempts to find work for himself, I’d be pretty pissed off too- regardless of it being a holiday. This is not noted in the story, so it is hard to tell. It could be a lack of competence on the poor brother’s side or heartlessness in the richer brother. This is not clarified in the story, and while it SEEMS like a minor detail; it creates a large plot hole.

After getting these things from his brother, the poor brother begins to head home. On the way, he meets a man as poor as himself stumbling down the road, and the man asks the poor brother if he can spare anything. While the poor brother knows he has little for himself, he is generous and kind and gives the man a candle and a loaf of bread. He is about to split the bacon between them as well when the old man stops him and tells him of a hill in which people live. The hill-people have a magic mill that can grind out ANYTHING except bacon- and that the poor brother should bargain with them, trading the bacon for the magic mill. The old man then tells him to return, and he will tell him how to work the mill.

Okay, so the poor brother was generous and in turn, the old man told him how to get something to improve his life. This STILL doesn’t matter if the brother was a lazy pig to begin with- if he was lazy, he shouldn’t get anything for his troubles, regardless of if he was generous and kind-hearted. Also- I bring to question why the old man didn’t keep the bacon himself and then go get the mill himself, if he was in as bad a position as the brother. Yes, he was kind to the old man… but that’s no reason to suddenly give up the one secret you know of that could possibly turn your life around. It makes no sense.

Well, the poor brother goes and bargains with the hill-people for the mill… they don’t initially give it up to him, but eventually want the bacon enough where they give him the mill. The poor brother brings it back to the old man, who teaches him to work it. Without even thanking the old man or giving him ANYTHING for his troubles, the poor brother returns home to his wife where they live lavishly for some time.

Now, soon, the rich brother began to notice how suddenly his poor brother had become rich. The brother became jealous, and bargained with his brother for the magic mill. Before giving his brother the mill, the poor brother ground out enough food and drink to last he and his wife for some time, and then sold his brother the mill for 300 pieces of gold. The brother, so anxious to get the mill home, forgot to ask his brother how to use it.

More foolishness. If I had something as awesome as that mill, I’d hold on to it for dear life and definitely not let someone who had told me to NEVER COME NEAR THEM AGAIN just a week previous buy it from me. That’s just stupid. If they aren’t your friend when you are in a bad position, they won’t be your friend in a good position either. They are still very much so your enemy. I give the poor brother points for generosity, once again… but not as many as he loses for stupidity and lack of logic.

Well, the rich brother commanded the mill to grind out heron and broth… but once the mill started, the brother didn’t know how to stop it (having not bothered to learn). The broth nearly drowned him and drove him out of his house, and flooded nearly the whole town before the brother brought the mill back to his poor brother to have him stop it. The brother stopped the mill, but the rich brother no longer wanted the mill after seeing the trouble it could cause. He left the poor brother be and left to repair his house, which had been rightfully destroyed by the broth and fish.

So we’ve established that the rich brother is a greedy scumbag who wants nothing to do with his family unless they have something HE wants or a talent that he needs, and that the poor brother, while kind and generous, is a tremendous IDIOT when it comes to trading. He is possibly lazy as well, but this is left untold by the story. Since it is stated that the rich brother had been giving him things for a long while previous to when the story starts, I am going to assume that the poor brother was indeed lazy.

The poor brother kept the mill for some time after that, building himself a house over the sea made of gold that the mill ground out. He and his wife lived quite comfortably for a bit. Time went on, and a salt merchant heard of the magic mill from across the sea. He went to see the poor brother, asking him if the magic mill could grind out salt. The poor brother, who was by this time quite proud of his mill, showed the merchant that the mill could indeed grind out salt along with a great many other things. The salt merchant waited until the poor brother wasn’t looking, and then he stole off with the magic mill.

Once on his ship, the salt merchant commanded the mill to start grinding salt and to do it quickly and well. However, the salt merchant had made the same blunder as the rich brother had and had not learned to use the mill properly… and the salt soon weighed down the merchant’s ship and it sank. The mill lies at the bottom of the ocean to this day, grinding away… and that is why the sea is salt.

It’s a good story, but you have to be a bit older than 5 or 6 to understand the morals it teaches. While there are many underlying morals that are much smaller, the glaring moral that is being taught is that greed leads nowhere and that stealing is wrong. This is shown in the greed of the salt merchant and of the rich brother… both were so greedy that they didn’t even bother to learn how to use the device they were using to fuel their greed and that led to disaster for both. Even if they HAD known how to use the mill properly, it still wouldn’t have been right… treating someone poorly when they are poor and then trying to fake being nice to them when they are rich is crappy enough to do without greed tagging along with it.

The story also teaches that kindness and generosity are important- whether you are lazy or not, poor or rich. This lesson is taught through the example of the poor brother sharing his family’s meal with the old man on Christmas… without expecting anything to come out of it. If you are going to be generous, do it from the kindness of your heart- NOT because you expect a reward or anything but a good feeling for you and the person to come out of it.

~The End~

Maddie

Market Wizards (2)

Market Wizards: Compare and Contrast

By Madison Nef

I read two interviews… one interview from Richard Dennis and another from Paul Tudor Jones. I immediately noticed some large differences between the two… But I’d first like to sum up each one on their own. Both are very successful traders in the market, at one point or another… and they both have their own style.

Richard Dennis

Richard Dennis, while he is a multimillionaire, does not fit the typical stereotypes you would place on a millionaire. He leads a basic, common and low-maintenance life with common standards… No excessive mansion or 10 different cars. He is more often seen donating to charities… he founded the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies. His political views tended to be more towards the liberal side… not something commonly associated with millionaires. However, through his lifetime he has been involved in a wide spread of liberal activity and is a great sponsor for liberals.

Dennis believed that keeping a level head was one of the best things you could do while trading. In the stock market, there can be some hectic times if a trade goes afoul or if a certain thing you thought might happen doesn’t… it can be a multi-million dollar loss, depending on your position and how much you have put into a stock. Dennis had a very calm attitude towards whatever happened… he could keep a level head no matter what the situation. Since knowing how to keep calm during a crisis to avoid stress and headaches is a large part of being a trader, it is something that helped him succeed tremendously.

“Do you really take losses as great as 50% calmly? Isn’t there an emotional side to it?” “I try for there not to be. It is totally counterproductive to get wrapped up in the results. Trading decisions should be made as unemotionally as possible… You have to maintain your perspective. There is more to life than trading. Also, to me, being emotionally deflated would mean lacking confidence in what I am doing. I avoid that because I have always felt that it is misleading to focus on short-term results.” – Richard Dennis

Paul Tudor Jones

Paul Tudor Jones is like the polar opposite of Richard Dennis. He is a multi-millionaire as well… but flaunts it, exploiting his money buying large houses, many nice cars and dining at luxurious restaurants. His attitude is anything but calm when trading, and he rules over his employees with an iron fist in order to get trades done correctly. However, it is stated in the book that during the interview and in person he holds together well, keeping a casual and light tone going even though his trades were going against him. He atones this trait to one of his first tutors in the market, the legendary cotton trader Eli Tullis.

Jones learned from the beginning to trust his instincts and one of the best pieces of advice that he offered is that if you were caught in a position or a trade that you felt uncomfortable in, you could just leave… there is always time to get back in to the trade and it’s better than losing a lot of money because you didn’t listen to your intuition.

“If you have a losing position that is making you uncomfortable, the solution is very simple: Get out, because you can always get back in. There is nothing better than a fresh start.” – Paul Tudor Jones

In conclusion… both of these men are trading geniuses who both made incredible amounts of money trading commodities. They had different personalities, different outlooks on the market and different techniques… but I think you could take tips from either of them and be better off for it. 

Probability and Statistics Part 12

Probability and Statistics 12

By Madison Nef

The Difference Between Bayesian and Frequentist Probability

While many times in probability for math we use frequentist probability, there is a second type of probability that we use more often everyday when expressing our opinions and making statements. It is important that these two different probabilities don’t get confused, because they are different in dramatic ways.

Frequentist Probability

Frequentist probability is used more in math and calculations: problems with factual answers. For example, when calculating the probability of getting a 4 when you roll a 6 sided die- we say that we expect to get at least one 4 if we roll the die 6 times. This gives us a probability of 1/6. It is called frequentist probability because we are measuring the frequency of the die rolls and the answers.

Bayesian Probability

Bayesian Probability, on the other hand, is used more when we are talking between each other. We use it to estimate and to express our opinions on what we think a certain probability is- Bayesian probability is more an established guess, nothing else and is usually not very accurate.

To put this method into perspective, a good example is Shakespeare. If you were to ask people “Who wrote Hamlet”, most would say Shakespeare. However, there are rumors that Shakespeare may NOT have written Hamlet. So depending on what you believe, how you would answer that question could differ. Suppose you answer something like “Oh, there is a 98% chance that Shakespeare wrote the Hamlet… but you can’t discount the other 2%”. This is a good example of Bayesian probability at work because it displays your opinion on a certain topic without being exact. We are making a STATEMENT about our belief, which is far different from a frequentist statement.

The way it is different from a frequentist statement is how we arrive at our conclusion. When asked the ‘Hamlet’ question, we wouldn’t arrive at our answer by saying:

“Well, if there were 100 Shakespeares, 98 of them would have written the Hamlet… therefore, there is a 98% chance that the Hamlet was written by Shakespeare!”

That’s a silly way to do things. What works for calculating the probability of drawing a certain card or rolling a certain number doesn’t necessarily work in real-life situations such as the ‘Hamlet’ scenario. No, when we come to a conclusion like that we are more often estimating and guessing… maybe basing it off of something we have read or heard somewhere.

Those are the differences between frequentist and Bayesian probability, and why they are so important… they shouldn’t be confused, because if they are confused, it can be bad. However, I think you’d have to be extremely stupid to mix the two up as they vary so much from each other.

Maddie

Bayes' Theorem

Probability and Statistics: Part 10

By Madison Nef

Conditional Probability

Conditional probability comes up in many different areas of probability and statistics. To explain it simply, imagine that you have 27 cards. You are then asked the probability of choosing a face card from the 27 cards given. 12 out of these 27 cards are face cards, so we know that the probability of selecting a face card from the cards given to us is 12/27. We are then asked the probability of choosing a red card out of the 27 cards. There are 6 red cards. So we know that the probability of choosing a red card is 6/27.

However, we are THEN asked the probability of choosing a red card, if we have already chosen a face card… and this is what conditional probability is. Only 3 out of the total number of red cards are also face cards… and as we know from before, there are 12 face cards that can be chosen out of 27. To get the probability of choosing a red card that is also a face card, we have to multiply the two probabilities. Since we have 12/27 probability of getting a face card, and OUT of those 12 cards we have a 3/12 chance of getting a red card… after we multiply the two fractions, we are left with a 1/9 chance of getting a red card after having already picked a face card.

 This method can also be reversed and used to determine the probability of choosing a face card when you already know you have a red card. You know that 6 out of the total 27 cards are red, giving you your first fraction:

6/27

You then find that out of the 6 red cards, only 3 of them are face cards. This gives us our second fraction, 3/6 (or ½ simplified), so:

6/27 * 3/6 = 1/9 (simplified)

While these two examples of conditional probability are very similar, they are actually of two different types, simply because of their reversal. This can be done to any conditional probability question… while it will indefinitely yield the same answer as the reversal, the two are in no way the same question OR the same conditional probability.

Bayes’ Theorem

The examples given above are an example of Bayes’ Theorem. The theorem simply states that the probability of B multiplied by the probability of A given B would always equal the probability of A multiplied by the probability of B given A. To simplify it, think of A as equaling red cards and B as equaling face cards, as written below:

P[B] x P[A/B] = P[A] x P[B/A]

A = red cards

B = face cards

Market Wizards

Market Wizards: Compare and Contrast

By Madison Nef

The first interview I read was an interview with Mark Weinstein. He’s a well known commodity trader who got a rough start trading when he lost all his money trading and not knowing anything about how the stock market worked. He quickly picked up his game, and since losing that one trade on soybeans in 1980 continued and had no losing months or weeks from there on out.

The second interview I read was Brian Gelber’s interview. He started trading from the very bottom without a license and without any real knowledge of the market or how it worked. He saw it could be used to make money from a young age, so he got his broker’s license, studied charts and then worked the market as both a trader AND a broker for 3 years. He traded equities as opposed to commodities.

The personalities of these two seemed very different simply from HOW they answered their questions. Gelber seemed more self-assured, proud and outgoing. He seemed to know exactly where he stood and what strategy used. Weinstein, on the other hand, seemed to be a laid back, go-with-the-flow type and seemed shy from how the book was written. If he was being quoted, I get the feeling that he was quieter.

The second difference I noticed was how the two approached the market. Gelber believed that one of the best things you could do is listen to other traders and listen to the ideas of those around you. He felt that by doing so, you could get some of the best trades off. He held a lot of long positions throughout his career and was very successful. Gelber used a lot of other people’s trading ideas and became successful while trading AND being a broker at the same time… something that not many chose to do because of the long hours and the fact that you were not SUPPOSED to run others’ stocks and your own at the same time.

On the flip side of things, Weinstein felt that the best strategy was to listen to your gut and follow your own instincts. He learned early on in the game to not always trust what other people tell you in the “game” of sorts that he was in; and that had an impact on how he traded for his entire career. He often held more short-term positions, trading only a few longs.

I don’t necessarily agree with either of these traders… I just would MODIFY some of their strategies. For example, instead of just always listening to the ideas of those around me, I would try to incorporate my own too… not just rip ideas off of others (which is what Gelber seemed to be doing). If you combine both their strategies, you can have a pretty successful one simply by using the rule that while listening to others and gathering ideas is good, you also have to trust your own instincts and use your own plans… because not everything told to you will be the truth.

Now, this is coming from someone who knows virtually nothing about the stock market or how it really works… I’m sure I missed some things that people who have been working in it for a bit could have picked out. This is simply what I thought about their strategies and some of the differences I noticed in particular throughout the interviews. What did you notice?

Maddie

Caverns of Socrates

Caverns of Socrates: A Plot Twist

By Madison Nef

Nyla and I have always been geeks, to some extent- into dorky sci-fi books, magic, fantasy and the like. So when a virtual reality convention was announced just an hour away from where we lived, we decided that we HAD to go. Most of it would be cosplayers, advertising for upcoming books and movies and a couple of sneak previews, but the main attraction was an AI simulation that boasted to be so realistic that once inside, you’d forget about the outside world. While Nyla seemed afraid of it, I wanted to try it out- to see if it actually worked. According to the advertising, you just described your character to the AI and then, once in the simulation, that’s who you would be.

The day of the convention rolled around, and we left early so we could be the first ones in. When we arrived, the place was already alive with people; mainly geeks like us, trying to get into the virtual reality sim. There was a bit of a line, so we walked around checking out some of the different booths that were set up before returning. By then, the line had cleared and there seemed to be less people around the machine, so we stepped up to try it. We both knew what our characters were going to be: Nyla was going to be Shadow, her character from Skyrim; a grandmaster magician specializing in conjuration. I was going to be Rosika (also my character from Skyrim), a master thief and assassin for the Black Hand.

Nyla was still a bit scared of the simulator, worrying that she could get trapped inside it. I punched her in the arm jokingly and said “Relax, once we’re in I’ll know who I really am and I’ll tell you. You’ll see. It’ll be fine.  It’ll be just like us hanging out… only we’ll look different and have awesome weapons and stuff.” “Okay… if you say so…” Nyla hesitantly replied. We stepped up to the machine. The man running it pointed to the small chamber hooked into it and said “Go in there. Input your character. And have fun.” He didn’t care enough to tell us much about the machine, but I, being stupid, didn’t ask questions. I walked right into the chamber along with Nyla.

Once we were both inside the chamber, we sat down at the small little screen (there were only two) and pulled on the helmet as the sign near the screen instructed us to. Once our helmets were on, we were shown a selection screen where we had to essentially design our characters and input their stats: but it was an actual person… not just an animation. When we got done, we both turned to each other, nodded, and pressed the green button to start the simulation.

I blinked and opened my eyes. The sun was shining bright above me, and the sky was a bright blue. White clouds lazily rolled through the blue, casting shade on my every now and again. I was lying in a hay pile. A bow and a quiver full of arrows lay beside me, and I was wearing leather armor and had two tiny daggers strapped to my thigh. I sat up. My first thought was “Where the hell am I?!” but then I remembered: I was in a simulation! None of this was real. I had about an hour (a day inside the simulation, an hour outside) to explore and have a good time. My hair had changed from its usual short red cut to long and dark brown, flowing in waves down my back.

I got up and looked around. I was up on a hill of some sort- I could see mountains off in the distance, along with a town nested in a valley a few miles off. I looked around the hill; there was another haypile to the side and on it, a woman with long black hair bound in tight curls was sleeping. She had on blood red robes, and a scepter made of silver was tucked into the gold belt that held the robe around her waist.

“Nyla!” I said, shaking the woman. I recognized the character she often played with, and grabbed her shoulders to wake her. She woke up, looking around groggily with her dark brown eyes. “Nyla? What? I’m not Nyla. My name is Shadow, you idiot… we’ve only been best friends and partners on quests for 6 years. Rosika… what are you talking about?” my friend said. I was taken aback. “Nyla, this is no time for tricks. I want to hang out and explore this with you, WITHOUT you being stuck in character the whole time. Now come on!” I grabbed her hand and pulled her up out of the haypile. “I’m not Nyla!” yelled Shadow, pulling her hand away from me. “What’s gotten into you, Ros?” she asked; a confused tone in her voice. I decided that since my friend was going to be annoying, I’d just go along with it.

“I say that we head for the town. I’d like to know a bit more about where we are and what we’ll be doing,” I said. “Rosika, we already know what we have to do… and we’re in Itheria, remember? We traveled here from Skyrim on a quest to help Queen Tillapy. Her crown was stolen by a group of warriors named the Black Foxes… and the High King Ulfric needed us to get it back for her.” I stood with my jaw hanging open a little bit. What the heck was “Itheria”?! Why was I there?! And WHY was my friend acting so… different? Was it possible that the simulation had actually… changed her into Shadow?

Within an hour, we had reached the small town. It was the town of Fairhail, and it had an in and an armory. That was it… no store, no farm to get food at, nothing. No guards walked around and only a few houses littered the roadway that made up the town. It was already lunchtime, and we both were hungry. “I can probably steal something from one of these houses,” I whispered to Shadow. Even the inn offered no food, so eventually I broke into one of the houses as planned. I found a bit of bread, some carrots and a jug of water. We ate and drank and then asked the innkeeper if he had ever heard of the Black Foxes.

The innkeeper had- he in fact said that they had passed through the town just a few days before, heading towards the city of Renash. “If you leave now, you should be able to catch them in a day’s time- as long as you don’t stop to rest.” “I think that’s manageable,” Shadow said to me. “Maybe…” my voice trailed off. We left the inn and began following the southbound road, just like the innkeeper had instructed us to.

As night crept up on us, we began worrying about getting attacked. After all, we were two women, only 20 and 23 years of age… very vulnerable, especially with the amount of bandits that often lived along these roads. Not that we couldn’t handle things if anyone DID attack us… after all, we were both experienced killers, in our own right. As fate would have it, we were JUST talking about a bandit group we had fought through back in Skyrim when trouble began… 3 bandits, 2 female and one male, ALL THREE larger than us, grabbed me from behind.

It took just seconds for Shadow to pull out her staff and knock them away from me. As soon as I was free, I grabbed my daggers from their sheaths. I made short work of the two females, slitting one’s throat as she carelessly swung at me with a spiked club, and stabbing the second repetitively in the back with my daggers when she spun to attack Shadow. Shadow, on the other hand, had conjured a dire wolf and it was attacking the male bandit. As large as he was, the dire wolf alone could not kill him… but neither could one of my daggers.

Using teamwork, I stabbed him in the back of the neck with one dagger and stuck the other one into his chest… after that, the wolf finished the job and soon, all was quiet on the roadside again. Night had fallen, and I had lost all track of time. We rummaged through the two females’ belongings, finding nothing of interest… the payoff came when we searched the male bandit’s knapsack. Because inside… was something we had thought we wouldn’t be able to grasp. A golden crown, shimmering despite the dark, adorned with rubies, diamonds and emeralds alike was sitting inside amongst some stale bread and coins.

We pulled it out, and sure enough… the name “Tillapy” was carved in a fancy scroll on the inner band of the crown. Shadow and I looked up at each other, a look of excitement on our face- were these the Black Foxes?! Had we completed our mission!?! We took the crown, full of happiness… but as we did… our eyes faded black, and suddenly, we were back in the chamber at the virtual reality convention… as if nothing had happened.

...To Be Continued

Probablity and Statistics (7)

Probability and Statistics (Part 7)

By Madison Nef

The Stock Market

Probability and statistics play a large role in the stock market, and in predicting what the price of a stock will be on any given day. The stock market is constantly changing, and since the price of stocks are determined by humans, the price of a stock is very unpredictable. Louis Bachelier developed one of the first methods for figuring out where a stock’s price would end up using a random walk- starting the walk at the stock’s current price and then letting it go. This technique was logical, but it lacked any underlying global trend… so it didn’t work.

When you try to figure out the price of a stock, expected value is a key component in figuring out how much the stock will rise or fall. Naturally we don’t know for sure how much it will, but we make and apply estimates that rely on underlying trends. Since Bachelier’s model lacked that, it was unreliable.  

What is an option?

An option is a form of contract used in stock trading. Once bought, it gives it’s buyer a certain set of rights. The rights given are to buy a security, commodity, or a stock at a specified price and at a specified future date. This can go two ways, because after buying an option, it means that no matter what price the stock is trading at at the specified date, you have to pay the given amount for it. It can be good, because you could be getting an $100 stock for $10… but it could also go against you and force you to pay $10 for a $2 stock.

Options can also be used as insurance, of sorts. If copper is trading at 100 per share today, but you are worried about it going up within the time you need it, you can buy an option allowing you to purchase it in 3 months time at the same price that it currently is. 

How much should you pay for an option?
The price you pay for an option depends on the probability of it reaching it's target price.  Usually with options, there is an agreement that for every certain amount the stock makes, you (the option-holder) give the seller a fraction of money. Let's say that for every $100, you owe the seller $1. If there is a 9/10 chance that it will reach 100, or a 90% chance of you getting $1. Since this is the case, .90 is a good price to charge for the option.

 However, the buyer will have a different view of the probability. The buyer will see it as a 50% chance of having to pay the dollar… but also a 50% chance of never having to pay the dollar. Therefore, the stock's expected value to the buyer is .50.

 So what can we do to get rid of the risk of paying $1?

 If you buy 1/100 of a share of the stock today, then you OWN 1/100 of a share of that stock.  If the share goes up to 100, then you automatically have enough money to pay off the dollar.

Maddie

Probability and Statistics part 6

Probability and Statistics, Part 6

By Madison Nef

Probability plays a large role in biology- especially in determining the genetic makeup of a child. One of the most-asked questions in biology is what a child will look or act like in comparison to the parents. Probability lies at the very center of biological and genetic makeup. The basic idea of genetics is that each parent donates some genetic makeup to their child, and how the child looks and acts is based off of what genes it inherited from its parents. To keep things simple, let’s use blue and brown eye colors to demonstrate how probability would work in deciding what eye color the child would have. While in reality, many genes decides a child’s eye color, to keep is simple we’ll pretend only one gene decides.

Alleles, or genes, can be either brown (B) or blue(b). People can have any combination of these: BB, Bb, or bb alleles, and parents can only contribute one allele each. If one parent donates a dominant allele (B), then that is the allele that the child will receive. In any other case, the child will inherit the recessive allele (b). This makes the probability for getting the recessive gene 25%, given that both parents carry one (b) allele.

Even so, by random chance, percentage of getting certain alleles is altered in each generation. The percentage of getting a certain allele always changes, no matter what allele you may have. This change is called genetic drift; and it is quite similar to a random walk, only using genetics rather than flipping a coin. Genetic drift works quickly in small populations, but takes much longer to happen in larger ones. All of this tells us that no natural selection is happening that affects the percentage of alleles… in other words, no trait has an advantage in the number of children that a person WITH THAT CERTAIN TRAIT can produce.

Genetic makeup can also change through mutation. A mutation is a healthy and stable change to DNA that is often not seen and passed on to children, and affects nonessential DNA for many reasons. These mutations are very useful when measuring time, and can help calculate how far back a person’s ancestry goes. It is through this that we actually now know that the woman who most humans share DNA with can be traced back to having lived 150,000 years ago. Amazing, huh?

Let’s take another example of probability. HIV tests are given out to about 300,000,000 people living in the US each year. OF those 300 million, only 500,000 of them will test out positive. This means that 299,500,000 people do not have the disease. The test for HIV, while accurately showing if a person has HIV 95% of the time, also shows a false-positive 1% of the time. So, 95% of people with HIV will get a positive result on their test. Since the test shows a false positive 1% of the time, 2,950,000 people will get a false positive on their test and 95% of the 500,000 people who actually have the disease (475,000) will be shown as having HIV, when in fact only the initial 475,000 have it.

This leaves us with the statistic that if you test positive on a HIV test, your chances of ACTUALLY having the disease are 475,000/3,470,000… which is less than 15%. This an example of probability, but also of probabilistic anomaly that shows that testing for rare diseases are more likely to show a false positive than to ACTUALLY diagnose the disease in those who have it.

Maddie

Probability and Statistics 5

Probability and Statistics (Part 5)

By Madison Nef

Brownian Motion Theory
In the early 1800’s, many people didn’t understand the concept of atoms and molecules, dismissing them as metaphors for physical matter, since they can’t be seen. The breakthrough that finally convinced people was Einstein’s paper on Brownian motion- the theory invented in 1827 by Robert Brown. Brown noticed that grains of pollen had landed in water and were moving in spontaneous, jittery random motions on the water’s surface. The jitters were ALWAYS random and never slowed down and/or stopped. It was his belief that the atoms and molecules that made up the water and the pollen were hitting against each other, which was propelling the pollen and keeping it moving across the surface of the water.

Einstein invented a formula, using the temperature and velocity of the water as a gauge, and figured out (on average) how far a piece of pollen could go in any set amount of time. Einstein used this information to figure out that the pollen was displaced from its previous location at a rate that was proportional to the square root of time.

"God does not play dice with the universe." - Albert Einstein

Misunderstanding the weather

Surprisingly, one of the biggest misconceptions in the realm of probability is about something we use each and every day, without even knowing it: the weather! Many people misunderstand the weather report- if you see a notice online or on the news about “30% chance of rain”, what do you think it means? Before we answer that, two matters should be cleared up. 1: How much rain does there have to be for it to actually qualify as RAIN? The answer is 0.01 inches, or one hundredth of an inch. There must be at least that much rain measurable to count as actual rain. 2: What does it mean when there is a 30% chance of rain in one, specific spot? The answer to that is simple: all it means is that in weather circumstances like today, 30 out of 100 days you should expect rain in that spot.

The problem starts when there is supposed to be a 30% chance of rain in ONE REGION. Regions have many different points, so unless the region is homogeneous, it would be impossible to calculate the rain chance for the whole region… mainly because 50% of the region could have a 40% chance of rain while the OTHER 50% of the region could have a 20% chance of rain. To accurately calculate the chance of rain for the whole region, we simply average out the two percentages and get 30% chance of rain for the whole region.

Below is the definition for the probability of precipitation as described by the National Weather Service… it’s not very helpful, but it is better than nothing:

The "Probability of Precipitation" (PoP) describes the chance of precipitation occurring at any point you select in the area.
How do forecasters arrive at this value? Mathematically, PoP is defined as follows:
PoP = C x A where "C" = the confidence that precipitation will occur somewhere in the forecast area, and where "A" = the percent of the area that will receive measureable precipitation, if it occurs at all.
So... in the case of the forecast above, if the forecaster knows precipitation is sure to occur (confidence is 100%), he/she is expressing how much of the area will receive measurable rain. (PoP = "C" x "A" or "1" times ".4" which equals .4 or 40%.)
But, most of the time, the forecaster is expressing a combination of degree of confidence and areal coverage. If the forecaster is only 50% sure that precipitation will occur, and expects that, if it does occur, it will produce measurable rain over about 80 percent of the area, the PoP (chance of rain) is 40%. ( PoP = .5 x .8 which equals .4 or 40%. )

In either event, the correct way to interpret the forecast is: there is a 40 percent chance that rain will occur at any given point in the area.

Poetry Analysis

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Thoughts and Analysis by Madison Nef

1.
Half a league, half a league,
 Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.

2.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
 Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.

3.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred.

4.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
 All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
 Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
 Not the six hundred.

5.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
 Left of six hundred.

6.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
 All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
 Noble six hundred.

Right off the bat, I think this poem is about war. Just from how it’s written, it seems like the author was almost angry about the war, or at least how soldiers FIGHTING in the war are treated. It sees to highlight how the soldiers had no opinion, no rights and were pretty much drones just being controlled by someone who wouldn’t go and fight themselves. Below, I’ve broken down each numbered part of the poem down in my own thoughts.

Part 1
The first part of the poem is just an opening, setting up for the rest of the poem. The soldiers are given orders to go into “the valley of Death”, which I think is just a way of saying they know they are fighting and marching into certain death. However, they don’t seem to have much choice in the matter.

Part 2
This second part is showing the lack of personality the soldiers going into battle have… or maybe just the lack of rights. They know that the plan they are being told to carry out will fail, but they are not allowed to speak up against it or turn against it. “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.” It is obvious that many of them will die, but it is also their duty and so they continue onward.

Part 3
Pretty much emphasizing how the soldiers rode directly into certain death, being shot at and having to fight all the way. I’m confused as to if their reasoning for continuing was their loyalty to whomever their leader was… or if it WAS, as I think, a lack of rights and freedom. “Jaws of Death” clearly means, well, death, but as for “Mouth of Hell” I think the author was trying to stress the horrible situation they were fighting in and how bad things were for them. 

Part 4
This tells us how the battle went, to some extent- death and war while “all the world wondered” Wondered who would win, wondered what the point of the war was… wondered who would return home, perhaps? At the end of this part, it is said that they returned home after the battle… but not all 600. This is a clear indicator that many likely died in this battle, doing what they knew was wrong and would lead to their demise to begin with.

Part 5
Part 5 tells of the fall of the light brigade, for as they retreated they were attacked again. Either that or part 5 is out of place and is flashing back to the fight. Once again, there is emphasis on needless sacrifice of innocent men and death. What leads me to think that this is a second attack is because of the line “As horse and hero fell”. They wouldn’t be called heroes DURING the battle; that title would only come after. So this was likely a second attack. Due to the sixth and last part of the poem, I think that this battle was NOT won… but lost honorably.

According to Wikipedia, Tennyson wrote this poem in only 5 minutes after reading an account of the war in the Times. He wrote it not only as a tribute, but also as gratitude to those who fought in the war. That about wraps up that- I think the poem is pretty straight-forward. It is about war; no more and no less. What did you think?

Maddie

Robert Browning Poetry

Robert Browning Poetry

By Madison Nef

Prospice

Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

In my eyes, this poem is about death and dying. The first four lines are about the sensation of death, I think- “the fog in my throat, the mist in my face” are just lines used to indicate weakness. “When the snow begins and the blast denotes, I am nearing the place” is symbolic for dying as well; I can only assume that what Browning means by “nearing the place” he means heaven. Lines 5-8 are once more about dying, however more of a reflection on the man’s past life: how he was strong, powerful and willed… but now is reduced to nothing on his deathbed.

Lines 9-12 are symbolic for life, as Browning uses a soldier’s life as a metaphor. The summit being attained means that he has lived his life out fully and completed all his goals, and the journey being done is pretty self-explanatory; he knows his life is at its end but is satisfied with what he has done. The barriers falling represent his weak state and letting himself drift… welcoming death, even. By “the reward of it all”, I once again think Browning was talking about heaven due to the line before it: “Though a battle’s to fight ere the guerdon be gained” is just saying that life should be lived to the fullest and you should use your time to be happy, because you reap what you sow.

Lines 13-20 are the dying man’s lament, in a way- he was strong and a soldier, so he doesn’t want to die an easy death. He feels that he should die a similar death as his comrades, and not an easy one. Being a fighter, he doesn’t want to die easily and peacefully but feels that he deserves a bit of a rougher death due to his life; rebelling against what he has just said about “barriers falling”. If your barriers have fallen, then you welcome death… but even as he welcomes death, he doesn’t quite want to accept the fact that his life is at its end.

The rest of the poem seems to be his closure to his wife. Since this poem was in the section of the book that was dedicated to his wife, this rings true. He’s dying, or maybe at the time of writing the poem was sick enough where he feared death and decided to make it his closure. Or, maybe he wrote it in good health but wanted his wife to have something to remember him by once he was gone… I don’t know. That’s my interpretation of the poem, though.

I think that the title “prospice” comes from the Latin phrase “respice, adspice, prospice” which means “look to the past, the present, the future.” In that case, the poem should be “looking to the future” in Latin. Now, going against what I just got done explaining, I am going to take a different route with the poem. I read another analysis, and the poem was written by Browning shortly after his WIFE died. This throws a whole other curve on the poem- others seem to think it’s his way of trying to move on. The death of a loved one is hard… I know; and maybe this poem, as I said, was closure for Browning… but closure for his wife.

If the poem is indeed his way of moving on from his wife’s death, then the title and everything else holds true. “Looking to the future” to get over her death, not wanting to die simply because she died, and because he still has other things in life to do… the soldier references because he had to be strong through her death (obviously) and his way of battling on through his life even after that depressing event. THIS is why I try not to read other analysis of poetry before I complete mine… because if I do, I go off on a whole different theory.

Ah well. You got a bit more than you bargained for… not a big deal. I hope you like the second opinion on the poem too.

Maddie

Statistics and Probability (part 4)

Probability and Statistics (Part 4)

By Madison Nef

Random Walks 

To take a random walk is to do things based off of random occurrences- but to put it in a way everyone can understand, a random walk (literally speaking) would be taking a coin and starting at point zero. Let’s say that for every time you flip a head, you have to go one block North and for every tail you flip, you have to go a block South. THIS is a random walk- typically. However, a simple graph with points on it can turn a random walk into just about anything- monetary, distance, even measurements.

 What is the probability of returning to the point of origin?

When you take a random walk, there is a chance that all 100 times you flip that you will just walk back and forth in one set direction. MOST times you do inevitably return to the point of origin, but it is possible not to.

 Starting at 1 and going back to 0 (the origin point) has a probability of 50%. However, if you make negative progress and go to 2 instead of 0, the probability of getting 2 tails in a row is a probability of 1… even though it is possible you WON'T return to 1. This is known in statistics as “the infinity problem”.

 What's the probability of going 100 blocks away in one direction when flipping a coin?

There is SOME non-zero probability of getting 100 heads in a row, but a more likely way is to get 100 blocks away in one direction by alternating back and forth through blocks by flipping the coin for an infinite amount of times. Since you are flipping for infinity, there are an infinite number of chances for rare occurrences such as flipping 100 heads in a row, OR infinitely returning to your starting point (zero).

 Gambler's Ruin

You start off in a casino with $2,000. You're betting, and each bet is a $200 bet. It has completely fair odds.  Flip a coin- if it lands on heads, you gain $200 more. If it lands on tails, you lose $200. Since it's a fair game, you have equal odds of winning and losing and going back and forth. However, with this probability… you will always go broke eventually. The point is to see how far you can go before you go broke; and that is the gambler's ruin. Remember, this is set in a FAIR casino where the casino doesn't get a cut of the money.

If even Gambler’s Ruin, which takes place in a FAIR casino has you going broke… how can you expect to make any profit from an UNFAIR casino in real life? Yes, every once in awhile someone gets lucky and wins… but often times, that same “lucky” person then overstays their welcome and attempts to bet again and loses everything. Life lesson to be learned from this lecture? DON’T GAMBLE. It’s stupid, addictive, and a waste of time. The odds are truly against you, no matter where you go; so just don’t bother.

The only thing gambling is good for is showing how dumbed down society has become and how statistics and probability come into play in real life circumstances… and that is all.

Probability and Statistics (Part 3)

Probability and Statistics (Part3)

By Madison Nef

Expected Value: You Can Bet On It

 Expected value is calculated by multiplying probability and profitable outcome. An expected value is the weighing of odds you do before making a big decision; for example insurance. If considering insurance for a house you are buying, you need to take into consideration some of the things that could happen and their likelihoods. A good example is the chance of a house burning down. There is a good chance your house will NOT burn down, but then again, there is also a smaller chance that it will and if it does, it would be beneficial to have insurance because it could save a lot of money.

Another PERFECT example of expected value is the odds of playing the lottery. Everyone uses the same phrase “you can’t win if you don’t play” and then throws away roughly $10 a week on a stupid obsession that has horrible odds. Have you ever LOOKED at the statistics for the lottery?! It’s craziness! “Well I’ve looked, but someone always wins so why not me?” Let me put it this way: would you bet $10 a week that you would get hit by lightning? “No no, that’s ridiculous!” NO! Throwing away money to a corporation who won’t even give you the full jackpot if you DO somehow win is ridiculous… because you have a higher chance of being struck by lightning than winning the Powerball. Here are the statistics:

Powerball: 1 in 175,000,000 people win the jackpot
Lightning: 1 in 700,000 people per year die in the US alone from lightning strike and IN YOUR LIFETIME you have a 1 in 3,000 chance of getting struck by lightning.

Hell, if those statistics aren’t good enough for you… you have a higher chance of getting killed by a VENDING MACHINE than winning the lottery. That’s right- people die because of vending machines, in fact, 1 in 112,000,000 people are killed by a vending machine per year. If that doesn’t show you the error in your gambling, money-wasting ways… I don’t know what will. There is no help for you.

A roulette table has 38 possible spaces. An expected value is an expectation (winning or losing).

We have outcomes, and we weigh the probability of each outcome. Each outcome has a value- in roulette, for example:

If you bet 13, you have a 1/38 chance of winning. It is $10 to play. If you win, however, you get $350. This is all well and good, but you have a 37/38 chance of losing.

Therefore:

 vO (Value Outcome)for pO1 (winning) is +$350

vO (Value Outcome) for pO2 (losing) is -$10

A bet on red in roulette has a 18/38 chance of winning (net gain is +$10) and a 20/38 chance of losing. However, if you win, you gain $20. At $10 per bet, you are only earning $10, and upon calculating the expected value (18/38($10) + 20/38(-$10)) you are expecting a loss of 53 cents per bet you make on red.

This is the same expected value as if you bet on a singular number in roulette- the long term results are the same.
 Expected probability: Payoff x Probability + Payoff x Probability + Payoff x Probability… = expected probability

Probability

Probability and Statistics (Part 2)

By Madison Nef

How to calculate probability

In the case of a die, there are six equally likely outcomes that can occur.  A collection of outcomes is an event. In the case of a die, the chance of rolling an even number {2,4,6} is classified as an event, since there is more than a 1/6 chance of rolling a certain number. Therefore:

The probability of rolling a die and getting any number in general is 1.
The probability of rolling a die and getting nothing is 0.
The probability of rolling a die and getting a 5 is 1/6, so the probability of NOT getting a 5 is 5/6.
The probability of getting a 2, 4, or 6 in a roll is 3/6, simplified to ½.

Probability in a nutshell is a fraction or a percentage that is calculated in a very simple formula: Probability(e) is the simplified fraction and/or percentage created when you use the total number of possible outcomes as the denominator and the number of outcomes in e as the numerator. So in the case of a die, as we know, the TOTAL possible number of outcomes is 6. So 6 would be the denominator. Let’s say that we are trying to calculate the probability of getting a 2, 5, 3, and 1. There are FOUR outcomes that we are trying to figure, so by using four as the numerator and six as the denominator, we can see that the chances of getting any of those numbers {2,5,3,1} is 4/6, or 2/3.

I know I said this in my last report, but cards are excellent examples of probability. An example used in the lecture was taking a deck of cards and calculating the probability of getting a certain hand of 5 cards in a poker game. The hand that was tested was a hand where all 4 aces are present along with one other card. Calculating how many hands you can have totally from one deck of cards does not give an accurate answer… because you only need one extra card. However, by switching the order of just one card, you create a completely different hand… so the initial answer given is in-accurate. The actual stats for how many different 5-card hands you can get from a deck of 52 cards are about 1,120,000 different hands.

How to figure out the statistics in a deck of cards

1)      What is the probability of being dealt a hand with 4 aces?

2)      Since there are 52 cards in a deck and 4 of those need to be in the hand, we subtract 4 from 52 to get a total of 48 possible cards that could count as the fifth card.

3)      We then figure out how many possible 5-card hands there are: 52x51x50x49x48=311,875,200

4)      However, this number is incorrect since the cards will have repeats… just in a different order. This, in poker, makes and entirely different hand… so we calculate how many different times a hand could be repeated in a different order: 5x4x3x2x1=120

5)      From this, we know that the distinct number of 5 card hands we could get must be the number of possible 5 card hands divided by the number of times a hand could be repeated… 311,875,200/120 = 2,598,960

6)      Finally, we divide 48 by this number to get a final answer of 0.00002% chance of getting four aces in one hand.

HTML and CSS

HTML and CSS: Overview and Where I Am At

By Madison Nef

HTML is a coding language. HTML is one of the easiest coding languages to learn, and is often used in graphic and web design. It is similar to Python, but is more structured and uses a more straight-forward coding style. I have been taking an online course in coding and have so far gotten through 70% of the course. It is basic, but I have learned how to do a LOT in regards to website design. I started by learning the fundamentals of it: how to create text, how to color the text, and how to re-size text. I also learned to change the color and font of the text, and even learned how to enable and disable text decorations through various commands.

I can now also coordinate the code into neater, formed columns and I have learned to separate the different texts into headers of different sizes, paragraphs, titles and more. I can also customize all of this however I want using any text, color, size and font that the code recognizes. After learning how to structure a page and make it readable, I learned how to insert photos, links, and clickable image links onto the blank page I was working with. To add an image using HTML, you have to first add a h1 (a header) or a p (paragraph) so you have a place to put the image. Next, you add an image tag (making sure to use the proper format, <>) and then add the image source.

To add the picture to the project you are working on, you need to have the image’s URL. To attain an image’s URL, simply right click on the photo and then hit the “Copy Image URL” button and voila! You have the link copied. To finish adding the photo, add the src tag in front of the image tag, then an equal sign, and finally, close the tag. Then, whatever image you copied the URL from should appear in the project window. Here is how the proper format for a line of code (to add an image to a site) should look:

<h1 style="font-family: Arial; color:purple">Unicorns Are Amazing! :3</h1>

                                <img src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkatpOvAoa9riYJS3fEi5LmswVB9UlYsONsYN1-aaGgnEZVjs5OQ"

                <a href"http//:www.maddiesthinkathought.blogspot.com">

                <img src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkatpOvAoa9riYJS3fEi5LmswVB9UlYsONsYN1-aaGgnEZVjs5OQ">

I have also learned how to use CSS to neaten up my coding. CSS is another tab linked into the HTML tab that allows you to easily edit large chunks of code at once, giving them all the same text, color, font etc. while keeping your normal code clean and tidy. I can create tables with different borders, widths and lengths using HTML and can also change the colors using the color wheel (you can’t say ‘red’, ‘blue’, and ‘green’… if you want a more specific color, you have to use a color wheel and use the # symbol that specifies the color. Usually this # will look something like #FFF0000 or something close to it, as this is how the colors are named.

I am just learning how to use CSS for more advanced editing. I am learning about nesting bits of code and how to specify what bit I want to modify… but that’s about as far along as I am since the course is a beginner class.

Maddie