HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

AlastairMeeks said:

This is what Little England conjures up for me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Englander

No doubt committed Leavers don't make this association, but I expect that it is one widely made.

Jesus. You're very thick for a supposedly bright bloke.

Most people won't have a clue about the derivation of "Little England", or its association with xenophobia or whatever. The phrase hasn't been widely used in 20 years.

All they will hear is the word "Little" attached to "England", and done in a sneering tone. It's a basic, silly error, of which REMAIN have made quite a few in recent weeks.

Cameron can lose England and win Britain by a narrow margin if he wins London and Scotland and Northern Ireland by big margins

Scott_P said:

@dats: Strong words from Tony Blair on Corbyn: https://t.co/NEingMukMr https://t.co/AtAe2UCWMR

kjohnw said:

From Cameron's statement looks like anyone who registered last night or today they are trying to ensure get a vote . Don't know what the legalities of that will be?

HYUFD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

AlastairMeeks said:

This is what Little England conjures up for me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Englander

No doubt committed Leavers don't make this association, but I expect that it is one widely made.

Jesus. You're very thick for a supposedly bright bloke.

Most people won't have a clue about the derivation of "Little England", or its association with xenophobia or whatever. The phrase hasn't been widely used in 20 years.

All they will hear is the word "Little" attached to "England", and done in a sneering tone. It's a basic, silly error, of which REMAIN have made quite a few in recent weeks.

Cameron can lose England and win Britain by a narrow margin if he wins London and Scotland and Northern Ireland by big margins

You are aware that London is part of England right?

Yes, Remain could win London comfortably and still lose England so the point remains

GIN1138 said:

kjohnw said:

From Cameron's statement looks like anyone who registered last night or today they are trying to ensure get a vote . Don't know what the legalities of that will be?

I was wondering about that...

The government had better make sure this is legally water-tight because if there's a narrow win (on either side) you could see the whole thing ending up in the courts...

welshowl said:

AlastairMeeks said:

@SeanT I gave the Wikipedia link precisely to illustrate that it is a normal understanding of the phrase.

I appreciate that those who want to puff out their chests, smear themselves in woad and ride chariots with blades mounted in the wheels won't care for the phrase. That is not the intended audience.

Small historical note: Woad and chariots with bladed wheels (though I don't think they did actually "blade" them), is surely evocative of Boudiccea (she of various spellings, but whose name best translates as "Victoria" - cf modern Welsh for "victory" buddugoliaeth ), who was a Celt of the Iceni tribe of present day Norfolk.

Thing is she almost certainly spoke Ancient British and so if she was anything that could be culturally laid claim to after 2000 odd years she's Welsh. I'm sure the old lass would've been livid at the thought of being called a "little Englander" not that the phrase would've meant anything to her given the entire concept of anybody being "englisc" lay at least 400 years in the future.

Retreats to pedant's corner.

Philip_Thompson said:

HYUFD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

AlastairMeeks said:

This is what Little England conjures up for me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Englander

No doubt committed Leavers don't make this association, but I expect that it is one widely made.

Jesus. You're very thick for a supposedly bright bloke.

Most people won't have a clue about the derivation of "Little England", or its association with xenophobia or whatever. The phrase hasn't been widely used in 20 years.

All they will hear is the word "Little" attached to "England", and done in a sneering tone. It's a basic, silly error, of which REMAIN have made quite a few in recent weeks.

Cameron can lose England and win Britain by a narrow margin if he wins London and Scotland and Northern Ireland by big margins

You are aware that London is part of England right?

Yes, Remain could win London comfortably and still lose England so the point remains

It's a tad redundant to include London in your post. That's like saying they can lose England and win Britain if he wins Liverpool, Manchester and Scotland and NI by big margins.

Liverpool and Manchester (like London) are entirely irrelevant to the point you were making. It is the non-English (ie Scots, NI and Gibraltans) that matter.

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

AlastairMeeks said:

This is what Little England conjures up for me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Englander

No doubt committed Leavers don't make this association, but I expect that it is one widely made.

Jesus. You're very thick for a supposedly bright bloke.

Most people won't have a clue about the derivation of "Little England", or its association with xenophobia or whatever. The phrase hasn't been widely used in 20 years.

All they will hear is the word "Little" attached to "England", and done in a sneering tone. It's a basic, silly error, of which REMAIN have made quite a few in recent weeks.

Cameron can lose England and win Britain by a narrow margin if he wins London and Scotland and Northern Ireland by big margins

RodCrosby said:

Barnesian said:

RodCrosby said:

FPT"RodCrosby said:
Puzzle time.

a) I toss a coin 100 times. I find that the longest run of tails is six. Is there anything I can conclude about whether the coin is unbiased or not?

b) I toss a coin a million times. What is the longest run of tails for me to conclude the coin is biased towards tails (or heads)?

You can guess if you like..."

Any more guesses?

I toss an unbiased head/tail coin in an unbiased way 100 times and it comes up heads each time. I toss it again. What is the probability that it comes up heads again?

a) > 50% a momentum argument
b) exactly 50% it is an unbiased coin with no memory
c) < 50% a reversion to the mean argument

The problem with that is if you'd tossed your coin once a second, every second, since the beginning of the Universe, you still wouldn't expect to get a run of 100 heads (either in the total, or treating each batch of 100 as a separate trial).

Are you sure the coin is unbiased? (^_-)

A more reasonable and true example is as follows, however...

One night in 1913, at the roulette wheel in Monte Carlo, black came up 26 times in a row. The house won millions with punters betting on red [argument c)], and maybe a few betting on black for the 27th spin [argument a)].

26 blacks in a row! About 68,411,591 to 1 against. Impossible, or at least highly unlikely.

Yes, for that particular table.

However, when all spins on all roulette wheels in the history of the world are considered, it's entirely unremarkable. You would only need about 500 million spins to have heard on one such run of 26 blacks, and I don't think we've heard of another...

NEW THREAD NEW THREAD

HurstLlama said:

welshowl said:

AlastairMeeks said:

@SeanT I gave the Wikipedia link precisely to illustrate that it is a normal understanding of the phrase.

I appreciate that those who want to puff out their chests, smear themselves in woad and ride chariots with blades mounted in the wheels won't care for the phrase. That is not the intended audience.

Small historical note: Woad and chariots with bladed wheels (though I don't think they did actually "blade" them), is surely evocative of Boudiccea (she of various spellings, but whose name best translates as "Victoria" - cf modern Welsh for "victory" buddugoliaeth ), who was a Celt of the Iceni tribe of present day Norfolk.

Thing is she almost certainly spoke Ancient British and so if she was anything that could be culturally laid claim to after 2000 odd years she's Welsh. I'm sure the old lass would've been livid at the thought of being called a "little Englander" not that the phrase would've meant anything to her given the entire concept of anybody being "englisc" lay at least 400 years in the future.

Retreats to pedant's corner.

Well said, Mr. Howl.

And just to be a little pedantic myself; one doesn't retreat to Pendant's Corner one should march proudly towards it with head held high, comfortable in the knowledge of a job well done. There to lurk ready leap out the next time one's services are needed.

Philip_Thompson said:

GIN1138 said:

kjohnw said:

From Cameron's statement looks like anyone who registered last night or today they are trying to ensure get a vote . Don't know what the legalities of that will be?

I was wondering about that...

The government had better make sure this is legally water-tight because if there's a narrow win (on either side) you could see the whole thing ending up in the courts...

I'm surprised if the law doesn't give the discretionary right to an extension in the event of technical problems.

Philip_Thompson said:

HYUFD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

HYUFD said:

Philip_Thompson said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

AlastairMeeks said:

This is what Little England conjures up for me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Englander

No doubt committed Leavers don't make this association, but I expect that it is one widely made.

Jesus. You're very thick for a supposedly bright bloke.

Most people won't have a clue about the derivation of "Little England", or its association with xenophobia or whatever. The phrase hasn't been widely used in 20 years.

All they will hear is the word "Little" attached to "England", and done in a sneering tone. It's a basic, silly error, of which REMAIN have made quite a few in recent weeks.

Cameron can lose England and win Britain by a narrow margin if he wins London and Scotland and Northern Ireland by big margins

You are aware that London is part of England right?

Yes, Remain could win London comfortably and still lose England so the point remains

It's a tad redundant to include London in your post. That's like saying they can lose England and win Britain if he wins Liverpool, Manchester and Scotland and NI by big margins.

Liverpool and Manchester (like London) are entirely irrelevant to the point you were making. It is the non-English (ie Scots, NI and Gibraltans) that matter.

Liverpool. Manchester and Scotland combined have a lower population than London, it is London which makes it possible to win Britain without England, if London did not exist and it was just provincial England that would not be the case, however London + the Celtic fringe does equal a UK wide majority if there are big majorities there for one side and a small majority in provincial England for the other

No it is not f***ing possible for London to make it possible to win Britain without England as London is part of England. It is included in the English tally!

London is just a part and parcel of England, no more no less.

RodCrosby said:

Puzzle time.

a) I toss a coin 100 times. I find that the longest run of tails is six. Is there anything I can conclude about whether the coin is unbiased or not?

b) I toss a coin a million times. What is the longest run of tails for me to conclude the coin is biased towards tails (or heads)?

You can guess if you like..."

Any more guesses?

RodCrosby said:

a) It turns out that the expected value for the run of tails for any number of tosses n is ROUND(log2(n) -1). In the case of 100 that would be six. So we certainly cannot conclude the coin is biased.

b) Applying the above formula we find the expected value is 19. But how far from this would we have to be to be suspicious. This is where it gets interesting...

It turns out the 95% confidence interval is [-3,+3] around this value, and for large n >=50, this range is independent of n. It never changes! The 99% confidence interval is [-3,+6] for any large n.

So depending on your view, a run of 26 tails in 1,000,000 tosses would be very unlikely. But so would a maximum run of only 15!

Addressing Robert's final point. We might have the sequence HT repeated 500,000 times. The coin is clearly unbiased between heads and tails, but there is definitely something wrong with it!

Apparently, this technique can be used in forensic accountancy, and also to identify ballot fraud [too many consecutive ballots]

Casino_Royale said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

AlastairMeeks said:

This is what Little England conjures up for me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Englander

No doubt committed Leavers don't make this association, but I expect that it is one widely made.

Jesus. You're very thick for a supposedly bright bloke.

Most people won't have a clue about the derivation of "Little England", or its association with xenophobia or whatever. The phrase hasn't been widely used in 20 years.

All they will hear is the word "Little" attached to "England", and done in a sneering tone. It's a basic, silly error, of which REMAIN have made quite a few in recent weeks.

Cameron can lose England and win Britain by a narrow margin if he wins London and Scotland and Northern Ireland by big margins

I think the Remain strategy is quite clear now.

FeersumEnjineeya said:

RodCrosby said:

rcs1000 said:

a) It turns out that the expected value for the run of tails for any number of tosses n is ROUND(log2(n) -1). In the case of 100 that would be six. So we certainly cannot conclude the coin is biased.

b) Applying the above formula we find the expected value is 19. But how far from this would we have to be to be suspicious. This is where it gets interesting...

It turns out the 95% confidence interval is [-3,+3] around this value, and for large n >=50, this range is independent of n. It never changes! The 99% confidence interval is [-3,+6] for any large n.

So depending on your view, a run of 26 tails in 1,000,000 tosses would be very unlikely. But so would a maximum run of only 15!

Addressing Robert's final point. We might have the sequence HT repeated 500,000 times. The coin is clearly unbiased between heads and tails, but there is definitely something wrong with it!

Apparently, this technique can be used in forensic accountancy, and also to identify ballot fraud [too many consecutive ballots]

I've just been out on my bike and was thinking about this again.

a) There is a (1/2)^6 = 1/64 chance of each of the first 94 coins being the first of a run of 6 or more heads (and no chance of the last 6 coins being such).
So there's a 63/64 chance of each of the first 94 coins not being the first of a run of 6 or more heads.
So the total chance of none of the coins being the first of a run of 6 is (63/64)^94 = 0.228.
So the chance of there being a run 6 or more heads is 1 - 0.228 = 0.772.
So the chance is significantly greater than evens that at least one run of at least 6 coins will appear when using an unbiased coin. So, no, you can't conclude anything about the bias of the coin.

Generalising, the probability of at least one run of r or more heads in a sequence of n tosses is then 1 - [1-(1/2)^r]^(n-r). For 100 tosses this gives the following values:

r = 1: ~ 1 - 1.6 * 10^-30
r = 2: ~ 1 - 5.7 * 10^-13
r = 3: 0.9999976
r = 4: 0.9980
r = 5: 0.9510
r = 6: 0.7724
r = 7: 0.5178
r = 8: 0.3024
r = 9: 0.1630

etc, etc, which I think agrees with the formula you quoted (since the gap is biggest between r = 6 and r = 7).

Patrick said:

Hurst Llama you asked me a question the other day about small arms calibres. My PC died as I was sending t so I'll try a reprise:

Think of small arms calibre names as brand names. The market is terribly crowded around the popular bore sizes. There are so many .30 calibre (imperial) calibres that they can't all call themselves '.30 calibre'. So...most are purely nominal. It's also vital to remember that rifles are rifled. Duh! They have grooves and lands. The groove to groove diameter is bigger than the land to land diameter - and different calibre 'brand names' refer to different diameters - groove, land or actual bullet. Some stick to calibre but differentiate themselves on other things. So, for example, a Falklands War vintage SLR is a 7.62 and so is an AK47, but the SLR is 7.62 x 51 NATO whereas the AK round is 7.62 x 39 Russian (the other number in this case referring to case length). The nominal rounds are the most confusing as they are just that - nominal. A '.303 British' bullet is actually .312 inches across! A 7.92mm bullet is 8.22mm across. In both cases these were driven partly by Groove to groove approximations as the 'brand name' was selected. My advice is, as I said, think of calibres as brands and try to remember the technical specs for each as you need them.