More treatises and the like

I love June. It just doesn't get any better in our fair city. Obviously, I love June because its nice out and the higher education goes on hiatus, but it doesn't end there. I believe that there are some unappreciated subtelties that the month offers us as well, for instance, no hallmark holidays. Sometimes I think that June in Minnesota makes January worth it. Other times, I'm less of an idiot.

Anyhoo, my surplus of time this month has made this post possible, so, have some theses, kids.

Postulate #9: I just played a game of tetris that was totally unfair.

I always turn the piece statistics function on, because I'm a geek like that, and this is what it showed at the end of my ludicrously short and infuriating game.

13 ┬

10 ─┐

6 ┌┘

7 ‮‮ ‮‪‮‮‮‪□

6 └┐

9 ┌─

3 ──

Way, way too few straight pieces, I'm thinking.

If tetris were truly giving me pieces randomly and non-maliciously, we would expect each piece to appear 54/7 times. In the stats world we call this the "expected cell count".

The test statistic Q is calculated by summing the total from the quantity of each piece's expected count "u" minus the actual count "y" squared, divided by the expected count.

Mathematically, it looks something like this: Q= ∑(u-x)²/u

For our data, we calculate Q= (54/7-13)²/54/7 + (54/7-10)²/54/7 + (54/7-6)²/54/7 + (54/7-7)²/54/7 + (54/7-6)²/54/7 + (54/7-9)²/54/7 + (54/7-3)²/54/7 = 8.22

Under the hypothesis of randomness, then Q should follow a Chi-Square distribution with six degrees of freedom (7 cells, minus a degree of freedom for our estimate of u).

The 95th percentile for such a distribution is 7.815 according to Degroot and Schervish, my stat theory textbook. (See how useful it is? I'll sell it to whoever's interested at a reasonable price... anyone? anyone?)

Therefore, we can conclude that this game of tetris was significantly deviant from randomness at the p<0.05 style="font-style: italic;">Postulate #10: Having a girlfriend doesn't make me any less of a nerd.

See postulate #9.

Postulate #11: The world would be a better place if we just gave North Dakota back to the buffalo.

I went to a wedding in Bismarck last weekend, which cost me $126 in gas to cover the 1,000 insanely boring miles from and back to Minneapolis. North Dakota loses population every year, mostly because its residents are starting to realize how badly it sucks. Big, unused expanses of grass do pretty much nothing for our economy; however, buffaloes probably enjoy them or something. I dunno.

At least, if they're not ready as a state to throw in the towel quite yet, they should either A) make their state capitol building not look like a dorm or B) change their state motto. My first suggestion for a new tagline would be would be "We're sorry... we're really, really sorry."

This picture is better in a metaphorical sense, as the end of the rainbow is probably at the Minnesota border. To me, this was in fact a pot o' gold.


Boo Nodak. If I come back, it will be to exact revenge.