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Here's Waldo

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Re: Here's Waldo

#41

Post by jstalin »

JonnieCache wrote: post #32
jstalin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps philosopher has a different connotation in UK English. Sorcerer just seems more appropriate in a book about magic.

The term "Philosopher's stone" is from medieval european alchemical lore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher's_stone I don't know if they imagined british kids all knowing about that, but I can assure you the term would be just as fantastical to them as to americans.

Interesting. Having never looked into the history of alchemy, I would never have associated philosophers with alchemy. Sorcerer just makes more sense (to me).

Re: Here's Waldo

#42

Post by icefox »

wikwocket wrote: post #20

This reminds me of high school English class: let's obsessively analyze this book/play/whatever, trying to discern the secret meanings and fundamental truths the author has elaborately hidden inside his or her work. When in actuality, the author was probably just writing what they wanted to, and what sounded good on the page. As in this case, where the author literally says, "I add Wally when I come to what I feel is…

In college that happened to me when an author came and spoke about their work and when we asked them about all of the meanings and "hidden truths" we had been debated we were told they were all unintentional and had no deeper meaning.

Really took a lot of the magic out of reading books for me when I started meta analysing the discussions and the probability that there was no intentional hidden meaning in many of the stories we were reading.

Re: Here's Waldo

#43

Post by iamvery »

Maybe I overlooked it skimming the article, but has anyone else noticed that the pattern of his location matches the pattern of his shirt?

Re: Here's Waldo

#44

Post by Pxtl »

mcguire wrote: post #35
callum85 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the margin of error for this kind of printing is usually only 3mm though, so they could still put him pretty close to the edge if they wanted to

And do, on some of them according to the map.

The most extreme cases all fell within book 5. I wonder what happened with book 5?

Re: Here's Waldo

#46

Post by hammock »

cscheid wrote: post #5

This kind of spatial scan statistics is really easy to misuse without careful multiple-comparison corrections. Would they have reported a 52% effect? a 51% effect? What about 1.4 inch bands? or 1.2 inch bands? That "remarkably thin" 0.3 percent will disappear pretty quickly. Sorry that this is dismissive, but this piece is just a slightly more complicated case of http://xkcd.com/882/

Agreed. It would have been more interesting if he'd developed his model/heuristic based on the first five or so books and then tested it on the remaining two to see if it held up.

Re: Here's Waldo

#48

Post by adamesque »

icefox wrote: post #42
wikwocket wrote: post #20

This reminds me of high school English class: let's obsessively analyze this book/play/whatever, trying to discern the secret meanings and fundamental truths the author has elaborately hidden inside his or her work. When in actuality, the author was probably just writing what they wanted to, and what sounded good on the page. As in this case, where the author literally says, "I add Wally when I come to what I feel is…

In college that happened to me when an author came and spoke about their work and when we asked them about all of the meanings and "hidden truths" we had been debated we were told they were all unintentional and had no deeper meaning. Really took a lot of the magic out of reading books for me when I started meta analysing the discussions and the probability that there was no intentional hidden meaning in many of the…

Suppose a "hidden truth" turned out not to have been intended by the author — would that make it less true?

One of the beautiful things about art (and life) is that it literally is what we make of it (or what we can make from it using the evidence at hand).

Authorial intent is super interesting, of course, and can enrich your understanding, but it's also pretty rare information. Often the work itself is all that remains after the author's gone.

At that point, it doesn't matter what the author "meant". You read what they left you to read and get whatever value from that you can.

Re: Here's Waldo

#49

Post by herbig »

wikwocket wrote: post #20

This reminds me of high school English class: let's obsessively analyze this book/play/whatever, trying to discern the secret meanings and fundamental truths the author has elaborately hidden inside his or her work. When in actuality, the author was probably just writing what they wanted to, and what sounded good on the page. As in this case, where the author literally says, "I add Wally when I come to what I feel is…

Unless you read Nabokov.

Re: Here's Waldo

#50

Post by jaynos »

eterm wrote: post #16
nly wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same, in theory, applies to sequences like 1 2 3 4 5 6 "because that will never happen", and numbers >31 (birth days). In practice though, the number of n jackpot winners is significantly less likely than 1... and do you really care if you only win $10M instead of $20M?

Except 1,2,3,4,5,6 is actually bought way more (by hundreds) than would be bought by random. It's best to use a source of random numbers. Any rules you construct just makes it more likely someone else is using the same constructions.

And never play the same numbers because if you play the same numbers all the time and they are the winning numbers the one week you don't play...
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