Graham wrote:
so vast we sometimes struggle to comprehend it.
I remember flying over the desert southwest on a nice clear day in my Cessna 140, at a few thousand feet. The evidence of human activity was slight, to say the least – as far as the eye could see. I realised that if I did a forced landing there, and couldn’t get anyone on the radio, they might not find me for weeks – if ever.
alioth wrote:
I realised that if I did a forced landing there, and couldn’t get anyone on the radio, they might not find me for weeks – if ever.
Some years ago (2007) during the search for missing Steve Fossett, the various search parties, notably the Civil Air Patrol, found an amazing number of airplanes that had crashed years and decades earlier. This was in the Sierra Nevada and adjacent desert.
I think the only European areas that come anywhere near the vastness of the US West are the northern regions of Scandinavia.
It really looks like there have been two fire extinguishers in his trousers:
This is a ridiculously staged event.
Imagine the pick-up lines though, “Are you excited to see me, or is that a fire extinguisher in you pants?!”
Not as good as the “I have a cure for virginity; it’s called penissilin” one 
I used to know a guy who made a good use of it; got a ~10% success rate. That’s 10% chance per attempt, so if you try it 10x, I leave it to someone to calculate the eventual success rate… 50%?
But… how much money has this guy made out of this? Seriously, can one guess? 13k likes, 1.2M views, 130k subscribers. Conclusion: lots of people watch this trash.
I leave it to someone to calculate the eventual success rate… 50%?
65% (1-0.9^10). For large n (10 is pretty large) 63% is a good approximation (1-1/e).
I’m pretty amazed he got 10%, he must have been choosing his target audience carefully.
johnh wrote:
for large n (10 is pretty large) 63% is a good approximation (1-1/e).
?
For 1,000, it would be 99.997%. (1-0.9^100)
I meant where the probability for n tries where the probability for any given one is 1/n. Of course no matter what the individual probability, if you try enough then the overall probability tends to 1.
Greater thread drift than the Cirrus Ferry Pilot thread?
johnh wrote:
I meant where the probability for n tries where the probability for any given one is 1/n.
Ah, so applied to my example it would be 1,000 tries with a 0.1% chance each? That makes sense, thanks.
