THE 10,000 Post Thread

[Larks2242 251]

5642.

Oh look a new page.

[Korot 6]

5643. And look what this new page brings: a new post by me. Duke, how long has it been since I posted here?

[Skimbo 304]

5644 A long time

[Ocram's Razr 964]

5645

My finals are the week after next.

[Duke87 1,070]

(5646)

Originally posted by: Korot

And look what this new page brings: a new post by me. Duke, how long has it been since I posted here?quote>

Your 519th post here: #5435 - May 16, 2010 @ 14:29 EDT

Your 520th post here: #5643 - May 27, 2010 @ 16:31 EDT

Gap: 208 posts - 11 days, 2 hours, 2 minutes

[Muck308 55]

5647

I was thinking it has been a while since I've seen you, Korot.

[astronelson 339]

5648.

I've always wondered this: why is the northern school year offset from the calendar year?

[Chptrk 86]

5649.

I think I can answer that, Astro. As far as I know, it was made that way so kids could go to school throughout most of the year, and then be home during the summer monthes to help the family with the harvesting of the crops.

In other news, guess who got a 32 on his ACT?

[Ocram's Razr 964]

5650

Seeing as 36 is the maximum, 32 is great!

[Larks2242 251]

5850.

Originally posted by: Chptrk

In other news, guess who got a 32 on his ACT? quote>

Umm.... Sparky the dog?

[astronelson 339]

5652: Chptrk: You got a 32 on your Australian Capital Territory?

[Roger51 381]

5653

ACT (Australia) Just steals all the west coasts money and claims its theirs

But anyway congrats chptrk!!

[Duke87 1,070]

(5654)

I'm not familiar with the ACT. In my mind it's "that other test that people take for college admission's sake". Most people I ever talked to only took the SAT.

Although, the SAT has changed. When I took it, there were only two sections: Math and Verbal (which, despite the name, did not involve speaking, only critical reading and analogies), each scored on a scale of 200-800. Thus, the theoretical minumum score was 400 and the maximum was 1600. My score was a 1290 (600 Verbal, 690 Math). If Wikipedia is to be belived, that's roughly the 83rd percentile, and "equivalent" to a 28 on the ACT.

Which was unusual: most people would typically score relatively closely on both sections. A far better Math score than Verbal score was apparently something that generally only people who are autistic (such as myself) would do - because the disorder tends to hinder critical reading skills (autism hinders one's ability to "read between the lines" and we thus tend to miss implied messages and take things literally).

Since then, the makers of the test have done away with Verbal half of the test and replaced it with two sections: Critical Reading and Critical Writing. Now it's no longer solely a multiple-choice scantron test - you actually have to write an essay which will get graded. And as such, the overall scores now range not from 400 to 1600 but from 600 to 2400 - with the math part only accounting for a third of the score rather than half.

I consider myself lucky that these changes didn't occur until I was already in college, I would have done poorlly on both "Critical Reading" and "Critical Writing". The analogies, which they got rid of, were the saving grace of my Verbal score.

[Chptrk 86]

5655.

Thanks guys! Not sure exactly what the Australian Capital Territory is, but if it gets money, I'll stick with it!

For those who don't know, the ACT is broken up into four multiple choice parts and an optional essay (which isn't that optional if you want to go to a good school). English (think grammer type skills), Math, Reading, and then a Science part. All dislikings towards it (and all other college tests) aside, I guess I did pretty well. Each section is graded out of 36, (but there are more then 36 questions on each part, I don't really get it) and your total score is the average of them all. From what their website says, 32 and up is basically the 99th percentile.

And that's everything you wanted to know about the ACT but were to afraid to ask.

[Muck308 55]

5656

Originally posted by: Duke87 

A far better Math score than Verbal score was apparently something that generally only people who are autistic... would do

quote>

Interesting. I got a 600 on math and 480 verbal the first time, then a 620 math and 480 verbal the second. I did very poorly with the analogies.

[Jt1996 3]

5657

I'm back from my ??? month silence

[Duke87 1,070]

(5658)

Originally posted by: simdownload

I'm back from my ??? month silence

quote>

Whoa, now there's a comeback!

From post 663 to post 5657... That's a 4994 post gap!

From November 7, 2009 @ 22:53 EDT to May 28, 2010 @ 00:29 EDT... that's 201 days, 1 hour, and 36 minutes!

(which, to fill in your question marks, is over 6½ months)

Anyways, continuing the SAT subject....

Also worth mentioning is that I never really studied for the test, I pretty much just showed up and took it. I must confess: I don't really know how to study. It's a skill I made it all the way through high school without ever developing because I never needed it.

This proved to be my undoing when I entered college. I failed a few classes over a mix of issues, not the least of which was a lack of ability (or will) to actually hit the books and study for exams. I ended up having to kinda teach myself to go over things the night before a test and refresh my memory... it was a strange new idea!

Of course, this method works class by class, but it doesn't work for an all-encompasing exam. I still only know how to commit things to short-term memory via studying. Fortunately, when I went to take the FE exam, I managed to pass it with the same might-as-well-be-nothing level of studying I tackled the SAT with. Which really got under my father's skin; he had been getting pissed off at me that I wasn't studying. I think in his mind it just wasn't right that I could do that and pass anyway.

[astronelson 339]

5659.

Originally posted by: Chptrk

Thanks guys! Not sure exactly what the Australian Capital Territory is, but if it gets money, I'll stick with it! quote>

It's where our federal government is. I'm here too right now, but the two are not directly related.

From what their website says, 32 and up is basically the 99th percentile. quote>

I got an OP 1, which is effectively the same thing in Queensland's system. The OP (Overall Position) ranks go from 1 (the highest) to 25 (the lowest). Your final result depends on your position relative to your school and your school's position relative to the rest of the state, which is determined through the QCS (Queensland Core Skills) Test.

The distribution is apparently a bell curve. You know what they say - if you have enough random stuff happening, you get a Gaussian.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

5660

I did pretty well in the SAT although I did poorly in the written essay. I was actually in the Washington Search for Young Scholars for getting 65% on the ACT in 6th Grade.

[Korot 6]

5661.

Originally posted by Duke:

Also worth mentioning is that I never really studied for the test, I pretty much just showed up and took it. I must confess: I don't really know how to study. It's a skill I made it all the way through high school without ever developing because I never needed it.

This proved to be my undoing when I entered college. I failed a few classes over a mix of issues, not the least of which was a lack of ability (or will) to actually hit the books and study for exams. I ended up having to kinda teach myself to go over things the night before a test and refresh my memory... it was a strange new idea!quote>

Sounds like my physics teacher. And a bit like me, though I'm still at highschool, and, knowing that he too failed the second year in university, I am trying to start studying, and have already developed the skill to read the whole thing over the night before.

[Duke87 1,070]

(5662)

Originally posted by: astronelson

You know what they say - if you have enough random stuff happening, you get a Gaussian.

quote>

Not always. Traffic counts, for instance, follow a Poisson distribution.

[Skimbo 304]

5663

That's a topic where I canot say much about.....

[Korot 6]

5664. Yes, but Duke, is Traffic constant?

[astronelson 339]

3665.

Originally posted by: Duke87

Originally posted by: astronelson

You know what they say - if you have enough random stuff happening, you get a Gaussian.

quote>

Not always. Traffic counts, for instance, follow a Poisson distribution.

quote>

It's a bowlderised quote from my physics teacher - who then proceeded to explain that most things don't follow a Gaussian distribution, but since that's the standard for calculating standard deviations, we shall be using it.

[Duke87 1,070]

(5666)

Originally posted by: Korot

Yes, but Duke, is Traffic constant?quote>

No. It follows a poisson distribution!

Of course, the mean will vary by hour, day, and season.

[Korot 6]

5667.

No. It follows a poisson distribution!quote>

Doesn't the poisson distribution assume that traffic (as in vehicles/minute) remains constant, at least on average, and thus allows you to calculate the change that an X number of vehicle passes in one minute? Or did I must misunderstand the Wikipedia article?

It's a bowlderised quote from my physics teacher - who then proceeded to explain that most things don't follow a Gaussian distribution, but since that's the standard for calculating standard deviations, we shall be using it.quote>

Ahh, don't you love exact science? Scientist: Well, it might not describe reality accurately, but it's easy to work with, so who cares?

[astronelson 339]

5668.

From what I understand from the Wikipedia article, if you expect some number of cars to pass in an interval (the lambda term), the probablility of some number (n) cars passing in that interval is

where e is the base of the natural logarithm.

So... if you expect 100 cars to pass in some time, the probability of 88 cars passing is roughly 2%. The probability of 100 cars passing is around 4%. The lambda term may vary over time - for example, between 1 and 2 am you would use a different value than between 5 and 6pm.

I then proceeded to get somewhat bored, so I made a 3D plot of the function in Wolfram Mathematica, and noticed something interesting - the function holds for negative and non-integer values of n, non-integer lambda, but not negative lambda. Although, for negative n, it may give negative probabilities, or probabilities greater than one. Also, if you expect no cars to pass in a time period, the probability of no cars passing is indeterminate (0^0).

Ah, the fun of investigating the behaviour of a function outside its stated domain... at 3.30 am... I really should get some sleep.

[Duke of York 23]

5,669.

wow now thats some research Astro !

* Overloads brain when Reading *

-DoY

[Korot 6]

5670.

Ah, the fun of investigating the behaviour of a function outside its stated domain... at 3.30 am... I really should get some sleep.quote>

Yeah you should. Good night!

And now:

PFB Warning: Please check if next page exists before posting, thank you!

[Duke87 1,070]

(5671)

Yeah, astro, you've pretty much got it. λ is the expected value (mean), n is a given value, and the function generates the probability of n being the actual value. Applied to traffic counts the value in question is vehicles per unit time.