How many software engineers fit the mold of the bearded male craft beer connoisseur vs how many are trying to shoehorn themselves into it?
When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
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Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#52How many software engineers fit the mold of the bearded male craft beer connoisseur vs how many are trying to shoehorn themselves into it?
Not to pick on a single stereotype but it seems we've become memes and it's led to an attack of the clones on the ideas of diversity and inclusion flipping everything on its head
Think about how 'fitting in' is also a term for 'averaging out' and ask yourself how much we value mediocrity?
You can only join our group if you fit within one of these narrow guidelines and wear one size fits all clothing
For crying out loud I'm sick of all the fakeness in the name of technology
Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#53Note that this is not some sort of unexpected effect due to humans not behaving mathematically ideally; this is what happens when your intuitions about 1, 2 and 3 dimensions are applied to higher dimensional spaces. Consider the goal of being in the middle 50% of a random value on one dimension; you have a 50% chance. But if you have two dimensions, and you want to be in the middle 50% for both of them, it's a 25% ch…
1 of 10,000 is .01% right?
Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#54Consider this set of statistics: 90% of elementary school teachers are female [1]. 90% of veterans are male [2]. Unsurprising. But, there are 2 million female veterans in the US, and only 1.7 million female elementary school teachers. That means if you talk to a random American female, it is more likely that she is a veteran than an elementary school teacher. I think a lot of disagreements on Hacker News and elsewher…
That's because you need to know that there are ~20 million veterans and ~1.87 million elementary school teachers, i.e. you need to know the base rate if I'm reversing the calculations properly. Another flaw of averages is apparent when you realize that the average person has less than two eyes.
And half of the population is dumber than the average. :-)
Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#55Note that this is not some sort of unexpected effect due to humans not behaving mathematically ideally; this is what happens when your intuitions about 1, 2 and 3 dimensions are applied to higher dimensional spaces. Consider the goal of being in the middle 50% of a random value on one dimension; you have a 50% chance. But if you have two dimensions, and you want to be in the middle 50% for both of them, it's a 25% ch…
Or to work the example in the article: Being in the middle 30% of any three traits has a 2.7% chance (matching the quoted 3%). For ten traits it's a 1e-6 chance.
Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because you need to know that there are ~20 million veterans and ~1.87 million elementary school teachers, i.e. you need to know the base rate if I'm reversing the calculations properly. Another flaw of averages is apparent when you realize that the average person has less than two eyes.
And half of the population is dumber than the average. :-)
Shouldn't it be:
Half of the population is dumber than the median.
??
Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#57Human Dimension and Interior Space [0] is an interesting book if you're into this sort of thing. I mean, it's actually mostly not. It contains a vast number of tables covering percentiles for various human dimensions broken down by sex and age group.
It does, however, also contain diagrams showing what measurements are relevant to certain activities. Chairs for instance, are covered for eating, office work, and lounging. Fun fact, the seat height of a chair is properly called "popliteal height".
I end up pulling it out to answer such questions as: "Can I make the apron on this table go any lower assuming chairs in a normal-ish range of popliteal heights while preserving enough thigh clearance."
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Human-Dimension-Interior-Space-Refere...
Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#58Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#59I remember when this idea came around Hacker News the last time. I mentioned this over lunch, and one of my (highly respected and deservedly considered intelligent) younger coworkers called BS on it. His object was: "Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could fit the operator?" He just couldn't imagine it. Between 2020 and WWII, there is a huge difference in avai…
>Why would a government build an expensive, high tech piece of equipment, then not ensure it could X Maybe short design periods in some cases too. Either way it was not too uncommon. There were bombers with escape hatches big enough for the crew, provided they didn't wear parachutes[1]. Fighter bomb releases that required ducking down to reach them[2] and fighter planes who's fuel feed stopped when pulling negative G…
Not to mention desperation moves like the british STEN sub-machine gun which was basically what you get if you say "I need 800,000 of these and they just have to meet these criteria, eject everything else".
Re: When U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages (2016)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
And half of the population is dumber than the average. :-)
Shouldn't it be: Half of the population is dumber than the median . ??
Yes, it should be median though the original is true for symmetric distributions. If you apply the central limit theorem, then you could say that half of all randomly samplings of a population are, on average, dumber than the population's average.