Letters to the Editor
earlh0
Published Letters: 11 Editor's Choice: 1
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Re: wife's job
[Read the article: My wife's job is ruining our lives]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cary,
The one thing you didn't touch on in your response is this: "We need my wife's income, so she can't just quit. She is so busy that she doesn't have time to look for a new job, but even if she could, jobs that pay well (which we need)..."
I have had coworkers like your correspondent. While I have no idea what their situation is, perhaps they should try adjusting their "needs" and seeing if they truly need this income? If the price of maintaining their current lifestyle is so much unhappiness, perhaps it isn't just the job but also the lifestyle that needs to change.
At the minimum, reducing your required monthly expenses gives you much more freedom to change jobs or change what you do, with a corresponding greater freedom from exploitation by bosses.
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email addresses are not perfectly competitive
[Read the article: You've got good mail]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Saying, oh, people will just switch email providers is disingenuous. I mean, it's not like people have a well established online identity with dozens or hundreds of acquaintances, friends, relatives, academic/business contacts, etc with their email address or anything. Realistically, unlike a cell phone number which can be kept with phone number portability, the email addresses under consideration bind you to the particular provider unless you care to go through an amazing hassle attempting to notify hundreds of people of new contact information (and forgo a certain number of emails you will inevitably miss).
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Be direct
[Read the article: Where do "family-friendly" workplaces leave singles?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a single person, who tends to work in demanding (ie 40 hours is the beginning of the work week) jobs, I've found the trick is to be direct. If someone says, eg, I need to leave to pick up my kids, the proper answer is so? You get your work done, I'll get my work done, and if you don't like the first part of the equation, take it up with the boss.
If I choose to work longer in hopes of getting a promotion or a larger bonus, that's OK, but to give in to guilt trips is to encourage more of the same.
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stats
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]DavidNN,
Generally a test will distinguish between false positives (no steroids but test read positive) and false negative (steroids but test read negative). Unfortunately, you normally have a minimax problem -- it is generally impossible to reduce the probability of the former without increasing the probability of the latter. For example, you may decide that a ratio of two types of testosterones should be in the range [a,b]; if you increase the range, you reduce the probability of false positives while increasing the probability of false negatives. These are generally formally called accuracy and sensitivity.
In any case, Jon was attempting to use Bayes' Rule which incorporates your prior beliefs as well as the new information; this is believed by some statisticians to be superior to what I was taught (p values, hypothesis testing, etc). Basically, Bayes tried to quantify how one should change prior beliefs in light of new evidence; the school of statistics I learned (and I don't know of a catchy name for them -- I just called them hypothesis testing and p-values) ignores prior beliefs. For something like cheating via drugs, Bayes seems like the better choice given the difficulty of measuring true cheating because of flawed tests and new drugs.
Bayes:
posterior = (likelihood * prior) / (marginal likelihood)
or P(cheated | positive test ) = [ P(positive test | cheated ) * P(cheated) ] / [ P(positive test) ]
using the standard notation.
Now:
P(cheated | positive test) = what we want to know
P(positive test | cheated) = 0.95 (ie if cheated 95% chance of correctly detecting it)
P(cheated) = x = unknown (comes from beliefs)
marginal = P(test positive | cheated)*P(cheated) + P(test positive| didn't cheat) * P(didn't cheat) = 0.95 * x + 0.05*(1-x)
Thus our formula is (0.95 * x) / ( 0.95*x + (1-0.95)(1-x)).
So, this says that if we believe (for pairs of P(cheated) =x and P(cheated | positive test))
(0.1, 0.68)
(0.2, 0.83)
(0.5, 0.95)
(0.9, 0.99)
So if you only believe there is a 10% chance Floyd cheated, then you would believe there is only a 68% chance the test correctly pegged him as guilty, and so on.
Obviously, you could also change the sensitivity of the test, and 0.95 might be optimistic. Also, I don't know if these exact details are generally disclosed, though a thorough explanation of the statistics behind testing might create further public confidence in these tests. In any case, I would generally have a problem stripping people of titles for any probability below
HTH.
earl
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not a fan...
[Read the article: All the guys I'm dating want me to shave down there]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For the record: mid 20s male.
For starters, at least trimming makes it much more pleasant to go down on women -- and more pleasant to go down on men, too. So I'd say you should just deal with it, at least trim, and expect the guy to do the same. Honestly, if you're discarding guys you otherwise like because they want you to spend 10 minutes every second or third day shaving, well... it's your choice.
I'm sure some feminist will be along to yell at me for my preferences, but don't forget you (as a woman) have agency too. You have a choice: forgo nice men because they prefer you trimmed or shaved, or deal with it. Pick your priority, make your choice, and accept the consequences.
earl