EDT 11:17 CEST 17:17 KST 00:17

Streams: 120 live
63440 total viewers

Active: 8518
Pizza Meter
G-1 Champions League LAN F…
[WCS KR] Innovation vs. Sy…
[WCS AM] Ro16 Group C Prev…
Bruno Community Q&A
Beyond the Summit and TL S…
Up&Down groups for 2013 WC…
HerO, Revival Interviews -…
[SPL] Round 5 Week 4 Start…
viOLet forfeits WCS AM due…
FXOpen acquires Seed from …
Crank, mOOnGLaDe interview…
LGD.cn and RaTtLeSnAkE Adv…
Get 50% off Papa John's pi…
TL Advertising Features
UK Soldier beheaded in L…
[TV] Star Trek: Deep Spa…
Should people be allowed…
Dating, how's your luck?
[TV] Sherlock - BBC
Perth Barcraft hosted by O…
Seoul LoL allstars Meetup …
BarcraftOslo WCS Europe Fi…
The Automated Ban List
TL.net Ten Commandments
Liquid`Sheth Fan Club
The Scarlett Fanclub 2.0
[Stream] BCNMusic
[STREAM]KalurO <Masters ze…
Help me to buy an ultrabook
Same SSID different places…
Computer screen distorted …
The Ultimate Mouse Thread
What mouse/pad does your f…
SC2 General Discussion &…
Up&Down groups for 2013 …
What happened to oGsEnsn…
Designated Balance Discu…
[Interview] Code S PM 20…
No Future Shoutcraft Ame…
[Code S] Ro4 Day 2 WCS Kor…
$27,000 ESET Masters 2013
[WCS AM] RO16 Group C Prem…
[DSCL] Dutch StarCraft Lea…
[Code S] Placement Matches…
The HotS Terran Help Me Th…
[G] NaNiwa's PvZ (vs HyuN)…
TvZ: A different flavored …
[G] Zest's 4 immortal / ar…
[G] TheStaircase - An Alte…
[A] Starbow
TeamLiquid Map Contest Fin…
[M] (2) ESV Ravage by Iron…
[D] Favorite Maps that Did…
[A] Peepmode: New maps, ne…
G-1 Champions League LAN…
Dota 2 QQ thread
General Discussion
Bruno Community Q&A
Inhouse Dota
Who is Who
[The International] Easter…
Perfect World's Dota 2 Su…
Tt eSPORTS Dota 2 Weekly #…
[D2L] EG vs. Na'Vi & VP
Liquid Pasture Community L…
Simple Questions, Simple A…
[H] Night Stalker
[G] In-Game Dota Guide for…
[G] Clockwerk, The Offlani…
[G]uide to Lifestealer
[D] New BW Server
2 Artificial Intelligenc…
Nada's Body
DES Sonic Interview 5/18…
[Update] itemBay SSL Gra…
Hiya - Highlight Video
[SRT] Ro16 Group B
[GC S3] Gambit's Cup Semif…
C Ranks Teamleague Season 1
Gem League II
D Ranks Teamleague Season 4
Practice Partner Thread
Challenger map on Starcraf…
Simple Questions, Simple A…
Increasing APM/EAPM
2012 - 2013 Football Thr…
RollPlay -- D&D Campaign…
ESPORTS Mafia
Guess the Game
Dark Souls - Prepare to …
The Shikyo Memorial for QQ…
[Patch 3.07: Nerf Everythi…
Anyone Diamond want to joi…
[LCS] All-Star Tournament
[OGN] Olympus The Champion…
[LoL] General Stream Thread
[Champion] Nunu
Simple Questions, Simple A…
[Guide] Montegomery's Supe…
Barbarian - Builds/Discuss…
The: What is my item worth?
[G] Hardcore
Mexican Standoff Mafia
[T] Bastard "Mini" Mafia!
[M][N] Les Mafia
Running Thread
Questions & Answers
The 2013 Weightlifting Pro…
Leta - Movie
Michael - skyline
Anytime - Beast
By.Hero - Shuttle
Anytime - Pusan

Website Feedback

Closed Threads

IRC Chat
irc.quakenet.org #teamliquid

IRC Web Client

TeamSpeak 3 (59 users)

Math: Odds of Blogs Sidebar Being Diagonal

Forum Index > Blogs
  micronesia   United States. August 29 2011 13:28. Posts 19323Profile Blog # 
Every once in a while I notice the blogs section in the sidebar has an interesting look to it: the usernames of the five most recent posters are arranged in ascending or descending length order. I was just wondering what the odds are of that happening so... here goes!

In the first slot we need either the shortest or longest name (let's assume no two names are the same length). This means we have 2 out of 5 odds. The next slot has to be the next longest (or shortest) name, so the odds are 1 in 4. The next slot has odds of 1 in 3, then the next 1 in 2. The last doesn't matter.

So the odds are:

+ Show Spoiler +

Not too difficult, but seems like a reasonable answer given the fact that I notice this phenomenon from time to time, but not often.

Another interesting thing that came up... when I first did this a minute ago I typed it into MS calculator and got an answer of 0.01666...

I recognized that that was probably a fraction but couldn't figure out how to convert it offhand without using a calculator's answer->fraction function. According to someone I just spoke to:


In general, if a decimal eventually repeats with period n, you can multiply by 10^n-1 to get a terminating one.


So 9*0.01666... = 0.15 = 15/100. So 0.0166666 = 15/900 = 1/60.

An interesting trick/rule I had no idea about.

****
Haste. Exalted. Flying. Deathtouch. Lifelink. Protection from Red.
Old Post

 
 Ingenol   United States. August 29 2011 13:32. Posts 1228
Profile Blog # 
Hmmmm that's a pretty neat trick.
Old Post

  infinitestory   United States. August 29 2011 13:32. Posts 3698Profile Blog # 
Alternatively, you could replace the usernames by their ordinal length (i.e. numbers 1-5, based on length). Then, the only arrangements that will look "diagonal" are 12345 and 54321, so 2/(5!) = 1/60.
:3
Old Post

  micronesia   United States. August 29 2011 13:34. Posts 19323Profile Blog # 
Yeah that's the shortcut infinitestory

ty for pointing it out
Haste. Exalted. Flying. Deathtouch. Lifelink. Protection from Red.
Old Post

 
 JeeJee   Canada. August 29 2011 13:53. Posts 5330
Profile Blog # 
re: the whole repeating decimal thing
another way to look at it:

how to create any repeating decimal you want:
let's say you're pro and you wanna repeat 31337
so 0.313373133731337....

x=0.3133731337...
100000x = 31337.31337....
subtract the 2
99999x = 31337

so the fraction that makes the original x is 31337/99999 (which is sadly irreducible. sometimes you get cool fractions though).

same for the 0.0166...

x=0.0166..
100x=1.66...
1000x=16.66....
900x = 15

it's pretty cute
(\o/)  If you want it, you find a way. Otherwise you find excuses. No exceptions.
 /_\   aka Shinbi (requesting a name change since 27/05/09 ☺)
Old Post

 
 nitdkim   August 29 2011 13:54. Posts 1249
Profile Blog # 
Short thread title attract eyes of mods. Those threads are usually instalocked.
PM me if you want random korean images translated.
Old Post

 
 Ingenol   United States. August 29 2011 13:59. Posts 1228
Profile Blog # 

On August 29 2011 13:53 JeeJee wrote:
re: the whole repeating decimal thing
another way to look at it:

how to create any repeating decimal you want:
let's say you're pro and you wanna repeat 31337
so 0.313373133731337....

x=0.3133731337...
100000x = 31337.31337....
subtract the 2
99999x = 31337

so the fraction that makes the original x is 31337/99999 (which is sadly irreducible. sometimes you get cool fractions though).

same for the 0.0166...

x=0.0166..
100x=1.66...
1000x=16.66....
900x = 15

it's pretty cute

Ah yes, that reminds me of learning 0.99999999...=1. That blew my mind in 9th grade.
Old Post

 
 Clerseri   Australia. August 29 2011 14:07. Posts 146
Profile # 
If you wanted to be picky, there's a chance that names are of equal length. Which means one of three thigns -

either equal names are always unacceptable, in which case diagonal becomes significantly less likely.

Or they are always acceptable, in which case it becomes much MORE likely, because you now have two chances to hit the right name at that point.

Or they are sometimes acceptable (two names of equal length still makes it look diagonal, but 5 names of equal length don't) in which case you're on your own
Fantasy will be the next big thing in SC2.
Old Post

  micronesia   United States. August 29 2011 14:13. Posts 19323Profile Blog # 

On August 29 2011 14:07 Clerseri wrote:
If you wanted to be picky, there's a chance that names are of equal length. Which means one of three thigns -

either equal names are always unacceptable, in which case diagonal becomes significantly less likely.

Or they are always acceptable, in which case it becomes much MORE likely, because you now have two chances to hit the right name at that point.

Or they are sometimes acceptable (two names of equal length still makes it look diagonal, but 5 names of equal length don't) in which case you're on your own

Yeah. The cases I can think of I think there were none of equal length amazingly!
Haste. Exalted. Flying. Deathtouch. Lifelink. Protection from Red.
Old Post

 
 Yurie   August 29 2011 14:17. Posts 2099
Profile Blog # 
I thought this thread would have used the database over blog posters to get length of posters nicks and the frequency of them posting to calculate it. This is nice as well though.
Old Post

 
 Primadog   United States. August 29 2011 14:47. Posts 4395
Profile Blog # 

On August 29 2011 14:17 Yurie wrote:
I thought this thread would have used the database over blog posters to get length of posters nicks and the frequency of them posting to calculate it. This is nice as well though.


This is an interesting question. I wonder how hard is it to pull TL username length distribution from the database?

If we have the probability curve (actually a histogram), we can use an analysis similar to above, multiply by the probability that none of the five recent blog names have the same length, to get an even more precise answer.

And if we want to take it one step further, we can dig the database for the probability curve for TL bloggers only, skimmed using the full set of blog and blog counts.

Thank God and gunrun.
Old Post

  micronesia   United States. August 29 2011 14:55. Posts 19323Profile Blog # 

On August 29 2011 14:47 Primadog wrote:

Show nested quote +



This is an interesting question. I wonder how hard is it to pull TL username length distribution from the database?

If we have the probability curve (actually a histogram), we can use an analysis similar to above, multiply by the probability that none of the five recent blog names have the same length, to get an even more precise answer.

And if we want to take it one step further, we can dig the database for the probability curve for TL bloggers only, skimmed using the full set of blog and blog counts.



There's 10 pages of bloggers (slightly less than 800 total bloggers); putting the data into a spreadsheet is actually pretty easy. The tricky part is accounting for active vs inactive bloggers
Haste. Exalted. Flying. Deathtouch. Lifelink. Protection from Red.
Old Post

 
 Primadog   United States. August 29 2011 15:00. Posts 4395
Profile Blog # 
Oh ya, we can use the blogger ladder to estimate that data set, good thinking.

Here's what I got so far:

Let's suppose
Pn = the probability the next blogger post's username is length n
ie P1 + P2 + P3.... = 1 (anyone know what's the length limit for TL usernames?)

For an arbitrary set of 5 recent blog posts, let the username lengths be:
a, b, c, d, e

then the probability that none of the usernames have equal length for this set are
1(1-Pa)(1-Pa-Pb)(1-Pa-Pb-Pc)(1-Pa-Pb-Pc-Pd)

then we apply the magic of combinatrix in this step, but this where I got stuck.
Last edit: 2011-08-29 17:17:17
Thank God and gunrun.
Old Post

 
 slmw   Finland. August 29 2011 17:37. Posts 173
Profile Blog # 
I had a little spare time at work, so here it goes.

First, let's parse the poster names from blogs written in August:
Perl:
+ Show Spoiler +

The program outputs the following results:
+ Show Spoiler +

By using these results, we can count the number of ways of getting a strictly monotonically increasing set of 5 posters. I used a simple dynamic programming algorithm.
C++:
+ Show Spoiler +
The output is 6385086626728.

We can select the set of 5 posters in 2366359177588560 different ways [sum*(sum-1)*..(sum-4)], but only 2*6385086626728 of them are strictly monotonic.

2*6385086626728/2366359177588560 = 0.00539654899999984538

The probability of a diagonal list is then 0.54%.

+ Show Spoiler +


Edit: Fixed an error in the number of all sets. The results appears to be approximately the same as in a monte carlo simulation, so this is probably correct. Hurray.
Last edit: 2011-08-29 17:54:38
IRC/BNet: yuizy http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1212943/1/yuizy/ || www.drop.sc for replays!
Old Post

 
 Primadog   United States. August 29 2011 18:27. Posts 4395
Profile Blog # 
Programmers ruin the fun and games with probability The answer is lower than the probability by micronesia, so it passes the smell test and feels in the ball park.

edit: great work, btw.

editedit: who is the 2 letter name guy? 3 letter name guy? Can't think of a regular blogger with such a short name.
Last edit: 2011-08-29 18:32:26
Thank God and gunrun.
Old Post

 
 slmw   Finland. August 29 2011 18:49. Posts 173
Profile Blog # 
User NB made several blog posts in August.
The other bloggers of length 2-3 are:
+ Show Spoiler +
IRC/BNet: yuizy http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1212943/1/yuizy/ || www.drop.sc for replays!
Old Post

 
 See.Blue   United States. August 30 2011 00:07. Posts 2292
Profile Blog # 
Was about to post what infinitestory said. Cool blog!
Old Post

 
 Khenra   Netherlands. August 30 2011 00:47. Posts 811
Profile Blog # 
EDIT: Nevermind, I misinterpreted. I thought you wanted every next username to be longer/shorter (> or <), while you meant same size or longer/shorter (>= or <=).

---

You missed one thing: the probability of two names being the same length.

So the odds are smaller than what you suggested, since you have to take out all the cases in which two names are the same length. However, there is no way to calculate these odds exactly.
Last edit: 2011-08-30 00:50:50
This signature is ruining eSports.
Old Post

 
 XXGeneration   United States. August 30 2011 00:49. Posts 607
Profile Blog # 
We also have to realize that more characters does not necessarily represent a longer name.

Example from the above list:

W2
rei

"I was so surprised when I first played StarCraft 2. I couldn't believe that such an easy game exists... I guess the best way to attract people these days is to make things easy and simple." -Midas
Old Post

 
 Zona   September 01 2011 13:08. Posts 40425
Profile Blog # 

On August 29 2011 14:55 micronesia wrote:

Show nested quote +


There's 10 pages of bloggers (slightly less than 800 total bloggers); putting the data into a spreadsheet is actually pretty easy. The tricky part is accounting for active vs inactive bloggers

There's probably way more than 800 bloggers - your blog drops off the list if you haven't posted a new blog in awhile. The inactive bloggers are already culled from the list.
"If you try responding to those absurd posts every day, you become more damaged. So I pay no attention to them at all." Jung Myung Hoon (aka Fantasy), as translated by Kimoleon
Old Post

Please log in or register to reply.
 
Refresh
StarCraft: Brood War
StarCraft 2
Dota 2
Other Notable Streams
[ Show 102 non-featured ]

» Recent SC2 Results
» Premier SC2 Tournaments
Sidebar Settings...

The Little App Factory



The opinions expressed by our users do not reflect the official position of TeamLiquid.net or its staff.

Advertising | Jobs | Privacy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren. Ad tag: TF_US.
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2002-2013 Teamliquid.net. All Rights Reserved