Gaming Outpost Discussions

1. 

   M. J. Young
   Moderator

   John, I'm sure that your post would be a lot more credible if you didn't think that the Mayo clinic had something to do with mayonnaise. Of course, they say that you can tell you're an intellectual if you can hear the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger, and it's admittedly not such a stretch.

   So what you're telling me is that you don't consider a twenty-five percent difference statistically significant. I'm not in the field, but I think that's quite a difference, particularly considering the low numbers we're seeing otherwise.

   And those are not the only concerns. Children in smoking homes are more likely to get asthma and other respiratory problems, miss more days of school due to colds and respiratory infections, have lower average weights and heights, and are generally less healthy than children in non-smoking homes.

   If you're trying to demonstrate that second hand smoke has no serious effects, you've got an uphill battle.

   --M. J. Young

   Sun Feb 6 2011 11:32 pm #
2. 

   JohnA1nut
   Member

   If you're trying to demonstrate that second hand smoke has no serious effects, you've got an uphill battle.

   Actually it's Penn and Teller. They do a TV show called Bull$&%@ where they debunk stuff like that. They're the ones making the claim, I was just repeating what I saw.

   The point was that 25% sounds like a huge number, but 2.5 out of a million isn't really as significant as that makes it sound.

   Sun Feb 6 2011 11:39 pm #
3. 

   Brock
   Member

   Somehow unimpressed by your reference. You might benefit from English 101: Composition. they can teach you how to build your credibility and sustain an argument much better than that.

   Mon Feb 7 2011 9:20 am #
4. 

   JohnA1nut
   Member

   And where did I say that secondhand smoke was safe? I said that the 25% referenced represented only 2.5 out of a million people. If it went from 10 out of a million to 25,000 out of a million, THAT would be significant. Simple variants you would see in any such random polling could have accounted for a 2.5 out of a million increase. It doesn't prove conclusively that the secondhand smoke was responsible. That's all I'm saying.

   If you want to know the truth, I would be all for making tobacco illegal, IF they legalized a certain other plant.....

   (Doing Therapy)

   Mon Feb 7 2011 9:28 am #
5. 

   Glantri
   Member

   Well let's start with the fact that you're once again continually disregarding MJ's wishes as stated by:

   And I'm going once more politely to ask you not to promote such use on this forum.

   In other words stop, this is another one of those things that's just getting old, and new to this one it's something that mars the forum.

   As to your abuse of statistics there, you seem to be using the term "statistically significant" and "variant" in ways that simply aren't how statisticians define the words.

   Statistically significant is worthless without stating the threshold of significance. 98% threshold is common enough, which means there is a 98% chance that the hypothetical statement is true. In this case the null hypothesis is that smoking increases chance of cancer by 25%.

   Now in order to determine this we have a bit of work to do. I guess we could find the variance, but it's really just a stepping stone to the std deviation, so lets just skip right ahead to that.

   std.dev=sqrt((sum(X-u))/(n-1))

   Where X is the resultant values.
   u is me not being able to type the 12th level in the greek alphabet on this forum and references the mean.
   n is the population sample, and 1 is subtracted from it because we are not using the entire population.

   n>40 and as such a std bell shaped curve may be assumed.

   The sum(x-u) comes out to 2.5, the total difference between the sample and the expected.

   std.dev=sqrt(2.5/999999)
   =sqrt(2.500025e-6)
   =.001581

   So back to our null hypothesis.

   Our hypothesis is that smoking increases the chance of cancer, so the easiest way to prove this is disproving that smoking and chance of cancer are not correlated.

   For that the be true the std.dev of .001581 has to compensate for 2.5 people

   2.5/.001581=316.3 std deviations

   So... I don't know std deviations out that far so let me check.
   My table doesn't go anywhere near that high. 5 std deviations will bring you to 99.9999% certainty. That's already past the number of significant figures we had in this equation, and as such the answer is 100%, most likely to be reported as 99.9999%, confidence in the statement that smoking increases the chance of cancer.

   Mon Feb 7 2011 2:33 pm #
6. 

   JohnA1nut
   Member

   In other words stop, this is another one of those things that's just getting old, and new to this one it's something that mars the forum.

   And where did I promote anything on the forum? That "certain other plant" I mentioned could have been anything at all.

   I don't care how much math you shove in my face. 2.5 out of a million is NOT a significant increase. That's what? A 0.000,002,5% chance. <sarc>WOW, secondhand smoke is a real killer..... </sarc>

   Mon Feb 7 2011 5:37 pm #
7. 

   M. J. Young
   Moderator

   10 out of a million people in non-smoking households would develop cancer and heart disease, and 12.5 out of a million in smoking households would develop cancer and heart disease.

   John, it suddenly occurs to me that you must have gotten the numbers wrong.

   What you're telling me is that the two largest killers--cancer and heart disease--together affect only about one in one hundred thousand people. We know that they do not kill everyone they affect, but even if they did that number is incredibly small--it means we have to figure out the rest manage to die without the same cause of death affecting more than one in one hundred thousand people.

   You've got your numbers wrong somewhere, John.

   And if it's a difference between 10 and 12.5 per thousand, that's meaningful. And if its a difference between 10% and 12.5%, that's significant.

   --M. J. Young

   Tue Feb 8 2011 2:56 am #
8. 

   JohnA1nut
   Member

   I'll have to rent that DVD again and check. Maybe Penn and Teller were talking trash.

   (Doing Therapy)

   Tue Feb 8 2011 2:59 am #
9. 

   Brock
   Member

   Mike and MJ basically summarized WHY I am unimpressed with your reference without me having to do the work. Hooray for smart friends on teh inturwebs! (deliberately unintelligent sounding comment, geek culture reference for those unaware (maybe John? dunno if he is into OTHER geeky stuff besides MV-Are you, John?))

   Tue Feb 8 2011 4:19 am #
10. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    (maybe John? dunno if he is into OTHER geeky stuff besides MV-Are you, John?))

    Not really, no. I missed the reference, and was momentarily considering pointing out that you just made a really stupid mistake. So, thank you for explaining it.

    (Doing Therapy)

    Tue Feb 8 2011 4:25 am #
11. 

    M. J. Young
    Moderator

    I have a hard time figuring out what stuff is "geeky" anymore. After all, I would have thought that Penn & Teller were really geek stuff. Science fiction is classically geek, but it's become so mainstream you can't really tell who the geeks are when you're in the theatre. Fantasy, too, but Harry Potter seems to have broken the mold significantly. And computers were always classic geek, as were most miniaturized electronic devices. Comic books might still be geek, but movies made from comic books aren't necessarily so.

    So I don't know how anyone would know whether he was into geek stuff. Stamp collecting? That's probably still geek, but not even my father collects stamps anymore.

    --M. J. Young

    Wed Feb 9 2011 12:45 am #
12. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    As far as what's geeky, it kind of goes along with what used to mean you were rich. I'm reminded of Short Circuit 2.

    Ben: "It is unfortunate that we are not carrying a telephone around with us."
    Fred: "Well I left mine in the Mercedes, ya know....."

    And that was just a scant 23 years ago. A cell phone used to mean you were rich. Now you can get them for free.

    And since we're on the topic of the way things change, typing skills used to mean you were a secretary. Now it just means you're a teenager with a computer. Thirty years ago, a man with typing skills was probably largely unheard of. I bet some of the guys on this board could rival a skilled secretary for typing now.

    Wed Feb 9 2011 11:00 pm #
13. 

    M. J. Young
    Moderator

    I knew a guy with a phone back in the late 80's, and he was not and is not rich--he was just a tech guy, into audio and photography and video, and a portable phone fit his style. He carried it in a bag. Of course, it had to be satellite back then--no microwave towers for cellular service. But you're right about the rich. The only other person I heard of who had one was Banacek, and he kept it in the limo.

    And I had typing skills in the early seventies. You needed them to get through college, but I actually got them in high school. I admit that they improved immensely when I was in law school. The school library had PCs, and you could get a Word Perfect disk at the desk so you could write papers on them.

    --M. J. Young

    Thu Feb 10 2011 4:30 am #
14. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    My handwriting has been tested as that of a first grader. Indeed, I have old school papers from back then, and the handwriting isn't much improved. For that reason, I had to teach myself how to type when I was 11 or 12. I just sat down with a word-processor typing the alphabet over and over until I got the hang of it.

    (Doing Therapy)

    Thu Feb 10 2011 4:38 am #
15. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    mistake

    (Deleted Doing Therapy)

    Sun May 22 2011 4:43 pm #
16. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    Two

    Mistake

    (Deleted Doing Therapy)

    Mon May 23 2011 3:07 am #
17. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    The last doctor-prescribed anti-psychotic medication I was on increased my paranoia tenfold, and I didn't even realize it until I stopped taking the thing. Two things. First, how many other people are there out there with increased paranoia who don't realize it? That could get dangerous. Secondly, since I was unaware of my own mental illness, technically that means the medication was making me insane!!!!!! And I say again, this was prescribed by a doctor!!!!!!!!

    I'll stick with my all-natural cure, thanks.

    EDIT And ya know what? Suddenly sentience makes so much more sense. Unaware of my own mental illness. That's a form of consciousness. I understood it. Terminators aren't sentient. I didn't understand the definition until I just reread that. Didn't want to open another thread. I don't think I understood the definition of "Consciousness" until just now. They're self-aware and intelligent, but they lack consciousness. At least in the movies. I didn't understand that until just now.

    (Doing Therapy)

    See? Psychotic revelations can be a good thing!!!!!!

    Thu May 26 2011 6:36 am #
18. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    MJ, here's the problem that I have with your notion that marijuana "Dulls" the thought process. Every single post you see of mine labeled (Doing Therapy) means that, by your definition, my mind is "Dulled". I'm completely coherent, intelligent and imaginative. Perhaps a little disjointed, but far from the drooling imbecile you're making me out to be. How can you even attempt to argue that my mind is "dulled" when you're reading a (Doing Therapy) post? If anything, I'd say I'm much sharper.

    Tue Jun 7 2011 5:08 am #
19. 

    M. J. Young
    Moderator

    John, I'm afraid that you cannot effectively evaluate the clarity of your own writing.

    --M. J. Young

    Wed Jun 8 2011 1:00 am #
20. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    So are you saying that my writing is unclear, or are you simply saying I cannot effectively evaluate it? There's a big difference ya know.

    From where I'm sitting, the (Doing Therapy) posts are typically much better.

    Wed Jun 8 2011 2:27 am #
21. 

    M. J. Young
    Moderator

    I don't see it, but if anyone else is still wasting time reading this thread I'll let them give their opinions.

    --M. J. Young

    Thu Jun 9 2011 1:12 am #
22. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    How can you speak out against something you've never tried? You're (at best) speaking in ignorance.

    Thu Jun 9 2011 1:41 am #
23. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    Two

    Regarding speaking out against something you've never tried, I'm suddenly recalling a political cartoon I once saw. It was a gay man talking to a Hell's Angels biker.

    Gay Man: "How do you know you wouldn't like gay sex? Did you ever try it?"
    Hell's Angels Biker: "You ever been kicked in the nuts by a guy wearing steel-toed motorcycle boots?"
    Gay Man: "No"
    Hell's Angels Biker: "How do you know you wouldn't like it?"

    (Doing Therapy)

    Sat Jun 11 2011 2:18 am #
24. 

    JohnA1nut
    Member

    http://c212747.r47.cf1.rackcdn.com/MedicalMarijuanaLrg.jpg

    I implore you to check the facts about medical marijuana before you go spouting off about how "dangerous" it is. Statistically, it's even safer than some FDA approved drugs. There's a boatload of things on this list that you have that it's been used to treat.

    Thu Jul 21 2011 1:33 pm #

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