Irish Class, April 22, 2013
<!–
Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
–>
Níl féar a ghearradh ann.
Am maith leat éin? Is féidir leat go héasca a féachaint ar na spideoga dorcha ar an sneachta bán.
Cealaitear comhdhláchta deacair.
Má bhainann tú ag obair amach, is laoch tú ansin. Beidh oibrithe eile ag fanacht sa bhaile.
Tá bialanna don séasúr ann.
Irish Class, April 15, 2013
<!–
Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
–>
Is féidir go mbeadh an Taoiseach buidéal uisce beatha a thabhairt don Uachtarán. Ní fadhb é inniu. Ach bhí
George W. Bush Uachtaran SAM cúig bliana ó shin. Ní dhóladh Uachtaran Bush deochanna alcólacha.
Má thug an Taoiseach dó uisce beatha, bheadh scéalta grinn faoi Uachtaran Bush. Cuimhin linn go raibh
scéalta grinn go leor Bush cheana. Bheadh sé bronntanas breá do Jay Leno agus David Letterman.
Putin unveils $50 bn Russian space drive
The total proposed NASA budget for Fiscal Year 2014 (which starts Oct. 1, 2013) is $17.7 billion. This is $55 million lower than 2012, and $170 lower than 2013. That’s a drop of roughly only 1 percent, which these days can be considered holding steady.
Irish Class, April 8, 2013
<!–
Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
–>
| craiceann | skin | |
| go mall | slowly | |
| foireann | staff, team | |
| cul an tí | back of the house | |
| easna | rib | f4 |
Will was back, so we went over the first part òf the homework from last time. Corrected notes follow.
After posting about The Prosecutor’s Fallacy I recalled a similar case with the Defense in the O.J. Simpson trial. The issue was summarized in What is your favorite problem for an introduction to probability?:
… one of Simpson’s lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, noted that even though Simpson beat
his wife, that hardly mattered, because in the United States, four million women are
battered every year by their male partners, yet only one in 2,500 is ultimately
murdered by her partner (1 in 1000), so, by the ‘reasonable doubt’ criterion, this is
irrelevant. The jury found that argument persuasive, but it’s spurious. The relevant
question was what percentage of all battered women who are murdered are killed by
their abusers, which ain’t 1 in 1000, but rather 9 in 10.
For a clear explanation of the details see Chances Are, by Steven Strogatz, which is reprinted in his excellent book, The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity.
Want to be an Astronaut? Learn How to Speak Russian
You may wonder: “Shouldn’t Cosmonauts have to speak English?” I expect most of them learned it long before joining the space program.
In fact the situation is not symmetric. American astronauts as well as Russian Cosmonauts fly to space from a Russian-speaking site (the Baikonur Cosmodrome) in a Russian vehicle (the Soyuz).
Bayes’ Theorem … A Simple Example
Notation: Prob(A) means “the probability of event A” and Prob(A|B) is “the probability of event A, given that event B has happened.”
Bayes’ Theorem: Prob(A|B)xProb(B) = Prob(B|A)xProb(A)
Now, Prob(A|B) and Prob(B|A) are often confused by even the most intelligent of people. The confusion often appears in legal cases and is sometimes called the Prosecutor’s Fallacy. Bayes’ Theorem relates these two distinct conditional probabilities.
Followed by a straightforward example of why this really matters.
Irish Class, April 1, 2013
<!–
Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
–>
<!–
–>
Will was sick, so our class did not meet. However, I had done the reading and made notes
on the homework.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 