Selecting a random sample from a set is simple. But what about selecting a fair random sample from a set of unknown or indeterminate size? That’s where reservoir sampling comes in, and [Sam Rose] has a beautifully-illustrated, interactive guide to how reservoir sampling works. As far as methods go, it’s as elegant as it is […]
The simple definition of a mean is that of a numeric quantity which represents the center of a collection of numbers. Here the trick lies in defining the exact type of numeric collection, as beyond the arithmetic mean (AM for short, the sum of all values divided by their number) there are many more, with […]
Many languages feature a random number generator library for help with tasks like rolling a die or flipping a coin. Why, you may ask, is this necessary when humans are perfectly capable of randomly coming up with values? [ex-punctis] was curious about the same quandary and decided to code up an experiment to test the […]
You may not know the name Abraham Wald, but he has a very valuable lesson you can apply to problem solving, engineering, and many other parts of life. Wald worked for the Statistical Research Group (SRG) during World War II. This was part of a top secret organization in the United States that applied elite […]
People take their tabletop games very, very seriously. [Andrew Lauritzen], though, has gone far above and beyond in pursuit of a fair game. The game in question is Star War: X-Wing, a strategy wargame where miniature pieces are moved according to rolls of the dice. [Andrew] suspected that commercially available dice were skewing the game, and […]