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Originally written by Valcrist:

Well.. What ending is better? The ending where Rentar dies or the one the she lives?

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Originally written by This Space For Rent:

Thuryl and Aran have both probably been in the top ten every time, but I didn't bother to go back and check.

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Originally written by Spoilt Salmon:

Have you ever been thinking over some conversation that happened in the recent past and realised where you could have improved on a response, or actually made a response rather than stare, slack jawed, and nod?

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Originally written by Retlaw May:

I read Harrison Bergeron last year and it was one of my favorite storries. The only thing that annoyed me is that the Handicap Gerneral shouldn't have had any better aim than anyone else, so how could she shoot them both dead in two shots?

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Originally written by saunders:

Biological factors such as differences in sperm which affect the gender balance in families in real life are discounted in the problem.
The coin has no memory, no matter how many times it is tossed!

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Originally written by Thin Air:

Perhaps this is what SoT meant by kibitzing, but the distinction between conception and birth is important. I'm not sure if this is true, but I heard somewhere that although more male embryos are conceived, (proportionally) more female babies are born, evening things out.

So in this scenario he stated that the chances of a male or a female baby being born were both 50%, but said nothing about conception. I don't suppose this is what he is getting at, but if lots more female babies are conceived, then inevitably more female babies will be born.

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Originally written by Student of Trinity:

So in this case the measure issue doesn't really seem so relevant. If I find $20,000, or $200,000, I just don't see that there's any appreciable information to be extracted. Certainly not in comparison to the 200% vs. 50% payoff factor. So I think there must instead be a problem with minmax, probably related to the fact that this is a one-shot game.

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Another little statistical puzzle. I once heard the following theory attributed to George Bernard Shaw. Suppose the average probabilities of a baby being born male or female are equal (and to forestall pointless kibitzing, let both be 50% for the sake of this discussion). Nevertheless (the theory argues) there end up being more girls born than boys, because many families want to have at least one boy, so they keep having children until they get one, resulting in disproportionately many families with several sisters and one baby brother.

The easy version of the puzzle, which is the one I heard, is to show that this theory couldn't possibly work. The slightly harder version, which I believe I invented, is to show that it easily could.

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Originally written by Synergy:

I was patiently worming my way home through traffic this evening, and oddly found myself contemplating the metaphorical mysticalities of the world of Spiderweb.

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Originally written by Student of Trinity:

At a conference a few years ago, someone who seemed authoritative at the time propounded a paradox somewhat reminiscent of the Monty Hall problem, but with envelopes of cash, and doubling the money in between two choice stages, or something like that. Point was, it was supposed to be a truly unresolved problem, after a fair amount of study by professionals, at least at that time.

But that's as far as I remember. Ring any bells for anyone here?

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Originally written by Imban:

Highest member counts, rather than total, I think.

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Originally written by WiKiSpidweb:

Joe and Bob go to two days of batting practice, Joe has the better batting average on both the first and second days. Bob has the better overall average after both days. How is this possible?

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But if I have to stick to my first choice every time, there isn't a second game, now is there?

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