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(49 replies, posted in Episodes)

Basically, if the incidence of the disease/defect is very low, even with a super accurate test the number of false positives will swamp the number of actual cases.

So, in the case at hand, if we test an appropriate sample of 10,000 people, 9999 of them won't have the disease, and the test will correctly tell us that in 9999 * 0.999 = 9989 of of the cases.  However, the test will also throw up 10 false positives.  Put that together with the one actual positive in 10000, and your chances of being that one are 1/11, or a hair over 9%.

I remember reading that they gave this question to actual doctors, and like 40% of them got the wrong answer.

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(49 replies, posted in Episodes)

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(49 replies, posted in Episodes)

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(108 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(108 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Probably lucky that I was in super-important work meetings basically all day yesterday, but from what I've seen of the summary/overview...jesus.  Having grown up in the DC area, anybody who went to Georgetown Prep is automatically an asshole until proven otherwise, but this guy really seems like a Major League bellend. 

Also helps being all out of tears because of the fucked-up clown car crash that my adopted country is at the moment.

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(356 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(27 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I think the obvious one for the last few years (post Game of Thrones) was Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series.  I googled it a couple of weeks ago thinking "Geez, how can nobody have ever even tried to make this?" and saw an announcement from more than a year ago that the Walking Dead guy was doing it for TV, but nary a peep since then.

Didn't realize there was a thread for this, so I'll repeat this request I made in passing ages ago in another thread:

I have this really hazy memory of a near-future sci-fi...police show I think it was...from like the early-mid 90's maybe.  It was on TV -- might have been a short-lived series or a movie-of-the-week failed pilot.  Don't think it was a feature film.

All I remember about it is that there's a running sub-plot about how everybody's trying to get tickets for 'the concert'.  It's this big deal, and they never really let on what it is until the end, when somebody finally says something to the effect of "Man, I wish The Who would have a 'farewell tour' and actually mean it".  I remember just about falling off the couch laughing, since they'd been doing farewell tours since like 1982.

Ring any bells with anybody?  Googling is getting me absolutely nowhere.

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(991 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(356 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(16 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(85 replies, posted in Off Topic)

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(5 replies, posted in Movie Stuff)

I really need to try and watch this again.  I got through about the first hour of it maybe a year or so ago but ended up feeling so ground down that I bailed on it.  I just had trouble getting past the "Let's watch 1950's Alpha Males!  Doing 1950's Alpha Male Things!! In the 1950's!!!!" vibe that the whole thing had.  And I had trouble caring much about any of the characters because it seemed like it was all just all one big dick-swinging contest.  So, The Right Stuff maybe, but for The Wrong Reason.