Everybody plays each other. That's all anybody ever does. We play parts.

Saffron ,'Our Mrs. Reynolds'


Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier  

A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.

Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych


Burrell - Mar 13, 2003 12:09:07 pm PST #7439 of 10001
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!

On item 3: How will rounding be handled? If the mean ends up 22, will we round down to 20, but if it is 23 will we round up to 25?

That's what I had assumed.


Jesse - Mar 13, 2003 12:12:15 pm PST #7440 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

I predict that the final number will be somewhere between 15 and 40.

Me too.


Cindy - Mar 13, 2003 12:17:54 pm PST #7441 of 10001
Nobody

Why are we rounding?

eta -

I could understand the "5" thing if instead of saying "pick any number in the range" we were going to offer choices of

5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50... 
100

But what's the sense of rounding to the nearest 5?


Sophia Brooks - Mar 13, 2003 12:26:13 pm PST #7442 of 10001
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here

John (or maybe Jon) suggested rounding when he first made the proposal because we didn't want to have the number "23.84365" be the number of buffistas needed.


amych - Mar 13, 2003 12:27:27 pm PST #7443 of 10001
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

we didn't want to have the number "23.84365" be the number of buffistas needed.

Understood, but then why round to the nearest 5 instead of the nearest unit?


Cindy - Mar 13, 2003 12:28:04 pm PST #7444 of 10001
Nobody

Right - that's what I meant. Why not round to the nearest whole number?


Sophia Brooks - Mar 13, 2003 12:30:54 pm PST #7445 of 10001
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here

That I do not know. I think whoever it was just thought it would be odd even to have 23 be the number.

I am not speaking for myself, though, so I don't really know.


Jesse - Mar 13, 2003 12:32:28 pm PST #7446 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

I like rounding to the nearest unit. It'll be fun to have the number be 23. Or whatever.


Sophia Brooks - Mar 13, 2003 12:45:30 pm PST #7447 of 10001
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here

John H "Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier" Mar 11, 2003 10:02:27 pm EST

This was the original post. I think discussion is on either side.


bicyclops - Mar 13, 2003 1:17:38 pm PST #7448 of 10001

Back at #7289, John H said:

Hate me for asking, but what's a Binary Walk?

Did we ever get a (serious) answer for this? If so, I missed it. A link that explains it or a email to profile addy would be fine so as not to over-mathify the list. I'm just curious. Googling turned up lots of explanations of walks through a binary tree, but I'm not sure if that is related.

On rounding, I'm with the nearest integer crowd.