Friday, October 19, 2012

Beginner's Luck

We often hear the saying that beginners tend to have good luck in things, especially in gambling. This phenomenon is known as beginner's luck.

This always struck me as rather ridiculous; if anything one would expect beginners to do worse. If beginners really had better luck, why not just follow them around in a casino and bet on whatever they bet on? Obviously this claim is not scientific.

However after some consideration, I have hit on a possible explanation for the claim of beginner's luck.

Statistically speaking, half of the beginners who start a luck-based game will have better luck than average, while half will have worse luck than average. More of those who experience above-average luck will elect to continue playing the game, as they have had a lovely time at the start, while those who started with bad luck will have a greater tendency to drop out.

Over time, this makes it so that among the population of gamblers, a larger percentage have experienced good luck when starting, thus causing them to feel that beginners tend to have better luck.


Sunday, October 14, 2012

A reminder to myself

As I write this I have not slept at all. I've been grinding out some code for the whole night; now my hands are kinda shaky too from lack of sleep.

My arms and legs are pretty painful too from riding a rodeo bull the day before. I suppose to win prizes you have to pay a price in life.

Having said that, I managed to stay on the bull and win. I managed to stay awake and finish my programming.

Never give up in life.

Chinese educated people taking English names

Being Chinese educated myself, I naturally mix with many people for whom English is not their first language. Due to this they have not had an English name since birth, instead having to take one for themselves later in life. Some of them have wisely consulted me before picking an English name and so got something lovely. Unfortunately, many have not had such good sense, causing them to pick rather... unorthodox names such as "Apple", "Fish" and "Flower". My personal favorite was when one girl told me her name was "Kinky" (Kinki? could not ascertain spelling), upon which it took all my willpower to keep from laughing to her face.

Though we may laugh now at such naming choices, it is in a way not surprising. The plain fact is at the beginning of a language being developed, its users tend to pick rather literal names for themselves - for example Native American names such as Howling Wolf or Spirit Eagle. Suddenly "Fish" doesn't sound so outlandish any more right?

In fact most "modern" English names have literal meanings. "Bernard" means "bear", while "Calvin" means "bald". Smith and Archer, both common surnames, are self-explanatory. Avril Lavigne's Avril means "April" in French. Judging by this, I would say taking names such as "Apple" or "Flower" aren't so strange at all, especially considering that there are people named "Flora", which is simply flower in Latin.

However "Kinky" is still unacceptable no matter how you cut it.