hannah in wonderland

insane child

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rollsoffthetongue: HEADS OR TAILS? THE 50-50-90 RULE: ANYTIME YOU HAVE A 50-50 CHANCE OF GETTING SOMETHING RIGHT, THERE’S A 90% PROBABILITY YOU’LL GET IT WRONG   What’s so funny about this? This “rule” makes no sense unless you’ve experienced it, which most of us have. A 50-50 chance is the usual expression, and it refers to the probability of something happening 50% of the time. It’s one-half or one chance out of two. The best example of this is a coin toss or flip. A coin has two sides, normally called “heads” and “tails”. It’s kind of common sense where these names come from, namely the top and bottom of a human or animal. Furthermore there frequently is the head of a famous person on one side of the coin; the other side doesn’t have a picture of a tail, but it came to be that in reference to the opposite of “head.” But why do we say the words in the plural form? I haven’t found any definitive answer to this but the most reasonable possibility is that when we flip a coin we’re talking not about the specific head or tail of that coin; rather, we’re referring to the general concept or symbol of the two sides of ALL coins; hence we get heads and tails. Anyway, there is a 50-50 chance that a head will come up and a 50-50 chance that it will be tails. So how did the 90% enter into the rule? Call it irony. Some people are luckier than others; we’ve all seen this among the people we know. Rationally we know there is a one chance in two of something happening but depending on whether we are natural optimists or pessimists, we all have an expectation of the result. The person who made up this rule is definitely a pessimist; she or he expects to lose. There is also the phenomenon of acting on our expectations. If we expect to lose, if we expect the worst to happen then some of us act that way and actually contribute to making the worst happen. That’s why many losers always lose. They are “glass ½ empty” kinds of people. And THAT’s what’s so funny! Listen to the podcast: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1457610-heads-or-tails

rollsoffthetongue:

HEADS OR TAILS?

THE 50-50-90 RULE: ANYTIME YOU HAVE A 50-50 CHANCE OF GETTING SOMETHING RIGHT, THERE’S A 90% PROBABILITY YOU’LL GET IT WRONG

 

What’s so funny about this? This “rule” makes no sense unless you’ve experienced it, which most of us have. A 50-50 chance is the usual expression, and it refers to the probability of something happening 50% of the time. It’s one-half or one chance out of two. The best example of this is a coin toss or flip. A coin has two sides, normally called “heads” and “tails”. It’s kind of common sense where these names come from, namely the top and bottom of a human or animal. Furthermore there frequently is the head of a famous person on one side of the coin; the other side doesn’t have a picture of a tail, but it came to be that in reference to the opposite of “head.” But why do we say the words in the plural form? I haven’t found any definitive answer to this but the most reasonable possibility is that when we flip a coin we’re talking not about the specific head or tail of that coin; rather, we’re referring to the general concept or symbol of the two sides of ALL coins; hence we get heads and tails. Anyway, there is a 50-50 chance that a head will come up and a 50-50 chance that it will be tails. So how did the 90% enter into the rule? Call it irony. Some people are luckier than others; we’ve all seen this among the people we know. Rationally we know there is a one chance in two of something happening but depending on whether we are natural optimists or pessimists, we all have an expectation of the result. The person who made up this rule is definitely a pessimist; she or he expects to lose. There is also the phenomenon of acting on our expectations. If we expect to lose, if we expect the worst to happen then some of us act that way and actually contribute to making the worst happen. That’s why many losers always lose. They are “glass ½ empty” kinds of people. And THAT’s what’s so funny!

Listen to the podcast: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1457610-heads-or-tails