Matrinox Rants

Rough Drafts & Everything

How do people get their facts?

Read the article and then come back.

NPD and comScore show Apple at around 30% while actual data points towards 50%.  That’s actually a big difference.  Because comScore put Android at 51% and NPD put it at 61%.  Where did they go wrong?

Well, it turns out the much trusted NPD uses surveys to collect data.  It makes me laugh.  Just like Nielsen and pretty much most market research.  In fact, the most common form of market research is in the form of surveys.  Focus groups are kind one kind of survey.

What’s a survey?  I got this definition from the New Oxford Dictionary:

1 a general view, examination, or description of someone or something:

And here’s a definition from our much loved Wikipedia:

Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population

I took a basic Stats course and from what I learned, the larger your sample size, the more accurate your results will be.  It’s all scientific, really.  ”Scientific”.  You see, in science, you do a bunch of experiments and record all the data.  The more data you get, the more accurate your information will be.  You see, there’s a lot of variables that could go wrong and to be really sure, you have to do it a 1000 times (figuratively speaking, of course.  You probably have to do way more).

The biggest problem with Stat, in my opinion, isn’t how well the survey and statistical analysis is carried out.  I’m sure people in marketing have that all packed down.  I think the biggest problem lies with the source of the data.  My audio mentor would always say, “it can only be as good as the source”.

What’s wrong with the source of these surveys?  Well, for one, people.  I don’t mean to be mean to people (myself, included) but we aren’t exactly the most accurate beings.  We forget things.  Our memory is funky.  There’s selective memory and a few other memory concepts I’ve forgotten.  Your brain will heighten certain facts, forget others, and add things.  Why?  Sometimes it’s because your brain is trying to make sense of it all.  It’s new stuff, after all.

So how well do you remember what you bought 3 months ago?  When was the last time you bought your phone?  How often do you use Facebook every day?  I mean, the last question is pretty good.  Someone might say 10 minutes but in fact, it’s more like an hour because they go Facebook binging on the weekends after they party.

That’s just one issue.  There’s an even bigger issue at hand.  Motive.  Why would you want to spend 5 minutes (or more) filling out a dumb survey?  It’s not like it benefits you.  So usually it’s in the form of money.  That can hurt the integrity of surveys.  If people are filling out the survey because they want money, how accurate can it be?  Since there are no right answers, wouldn’t it be easier to just quickly hit the “next” button?  I know I did.  I would fill out a few surveys a day to win scholarship money (never did win any) and the first few responses were the only remotely truthful answers there were.

The last issue is about selection.  However, marketing people will say that they try to be as random as possible when selecting candidates.  Although it may be true that they do succeed in grabbing candidates with different ethnicities who live in a variety of states, there’s still the issue of which candidates will volunteer themselves to this survey.  This ties in with the last point.  Motivation.  So unfortunately, the marketing people will always end up with the same people who are only there for the money, be them old or young.

I’ve been very against statistics because many treat it as a science.  It’s not.  Well, in a way it is.  The theories, the formulas, the chi-squares… they are scientific and they are proven in those regards.  It’s just the source that never is as accurate.  It makes me laugh when I see stats like 61.2%.  Really?  Your buddy over there got 48.9%, where’s the degree of error?  Usually it’s only the last significant digit that is off, but most stats are off by the first digit.  It’s just embarrassing.

The data isn’t accurate and it sure as hell ain’t precise to more than 2 significant digits.  Because we’re human.  And humans don’t have more than a 3-point scale (some say 5).

Anyways, I do have a way to fix up these bogus stats.  Why don’t we get the data from the source?  You know, from actual sales numbers?  Instead of surveying 10,000 people what they bought in the last 3 months, why don’t we aggregate inventory sell-through for that time frame?  Instead of surveying random students how often they use Facebook, why don’t you just ask your kid?  I kid, but they could just track it with code, which I’m sure they do already.

We need to stop using people as good sources of data.  It’s honestly the most unreliable source of information.  And if you think I’m just being mean, think of the last major purchase you made and what day it was.  Now look back at your credit card bills (online, preferably) and tell me if the dates match up even remotely close.  Now repeat with other people.  If the number is higher than even 20%, you couldn’t use any of the information.  Hell, 5% is already a bit high.

1 year ago -

"In Paris, there are a lot of video game-based graffiti"

click the link, go to the part about graffiti. ya, it’s space invaders. clearly this guy doesn’t know it’s all done by one guy. and if yu read the rest, he seems like an intolerant person when he talks about Paris, assuming everyone is like the person he met.

1 year ago -

How well did you do in high school?

I never did great in school. I got the occasional B from time to time when my OCD kicked in and I wanted to do a great job in my school project. However, the better grades would be matched with F’s for not giving a fuck.

Yup. I have ADD so I couldn’t get work done for shit. The most productive I have ever been in my life was at work, not school. And there’s a reason for that.

In school, I’d either feel uninterested or feel like it was too easy. Shakespeare? That was the most boring six months of my life. And who can say they used Shakespeare in their everyday life, except those people who teach English. Math I was good at so I never complained, but I knew many who found it to be very impractical to their lives. And don’t even get me started about history.

The first real job I had was at Earl’s restaurant. I had just found out through a psychological exam from a specialty doctor that I had a mild case of ADHD. That’s ADD with an extra bit of hyperactivity. I thought I would do really terrible at work considering how much focus is needed keep up with production. Surprisingly, I managed to do quite well at work.

Why was I able to do better at work than I did at school, despite having more complex tasks at work? The same doctor that administered the exam explained that tasks that are more interesting to me heighten my focus. The same could be said of anyone, really. Which brings me to my main point.

High school is not a place for learning. I have barely used anything I learned over there, whatever it was.

My grades were terrible, usually in the C range. My most feared course was English, a class I’ve struggled with since grade 6. My reading and writing was so terrible - mostly because I didn’t care for books - that they put me in ESL, which I tell you was beyond humiliation. I’m of mixed decent, sure, but English was always my primary, and only, language. It’s like getting put in a dunces room, simply because you don’t want to answer some analytical question about why Tom Sawyer’s plans to get his buddy to paint the fence worked.

I hated poetry. Poetry is supposed to be an art, to be enjoyed by the reader. Instead, it’s treated as a literary encryption that we, the students, must decrypt into even more cryptic language.
The author used alliteration and in-line rhyming to create an upbeat piece about the irony of our political system

I can’t stress how much I hated English. A crazy series of events later and to this day I have not finished a single high school English course (that starts from grade 8 for us).

Today, English is my best subject (mind you, by best I mean a B+. Notice the plus sign). I like to write from time to time. I’m definitely not a superb writer but I’ve come a long way from “ESL”. I read the news a lot and have actually picked up a book or two in the last 6 months (the average for the world is 1 book/year).

How did I get good grades in English class now if I never passed any of the high school courses? I read, that helped. Also, Twitter. I do not kid. Trying to condense a thought into 140 characters really helps you be concise and efficient (see what I did there?). I know many laugh at that, but it’s the truth. Besides that, I can’t think of anything else that helped improve my literary skills.

Back to high school. How is it that I kept failing my English courses before? Because high school education sucks. It’s irrelevant to most people’s lives and the education is dated circa 1900’s. Shakespeare is still taught in full measure, despite better reading material alternatives that are more relevant. I’m sure Shakespeare has some good stuff in it, but how efficient is it to spend a month or two each year just putting the play in context? Why not teach a Harry Potter series instead of Of Mice And Men? Why not go see a movie instead of reading a play? There’s just as much literary power in Reservoir Dogs as there is in Romeo & Juliet.

What do you think? Have you done well in high school? There’s more than just one problem with high school. It’s not just English; there’s math, science, history, PE, and that ridiculous “Planning 10” (a course dedicated to learning basic life education). They teach trigonometry but not probability in BC, Canada. Think of how often people get their stats misunderstood compared to how often people need to figure out the angle of something. They spend a lot of time teaching what happened in history and not enough about what we can learn from it.

I have many ideas to how we can improve our education, most of it stemming from its lack of relevance to our society today.

I’ll end with an anecdote; I think it paints a decent picture of what I think education is and always has been.

A prestigious university started a computer engineering program in the 80’s and at the time, taught command-line OS and how to program one from scratch. At the time, DOS was the de facto form of computing. Sometime in the 80’s, Apple released the Macintosh, which ushered in a consumer Graphics User Interface (GUI) computer. However, it wasn’t until Windows 95 and then 98 that people really picked up this revolutionary new interface that would dominate the way we use computers for the next two decades. Back in the early 90’s, the school was deciding what they would be teaching for the next 4 years in the computer engineering program. It would take 4 years to draft and finalize the course material and another 4 to teach it. Well, in ‘92, they decided to continue teaching DOS, the old command line OS. By the time they taught it in ‘96, DOS was outdated and GUI’s was poised to become the de facto standard for computing. Unfortunately, it was a 4 year program so many didn’t sign up for it, and the ones who did not only wasted their money, but also wasted 4 years of their lives.

1 year ago -
This has got to be one of the most ridiculous cases I’ve seen in a while.  Some people aren’t too happy that Earl’s, a young and busy Canadian restaurant brand, sells a beer called “Albino Rhino”. They say it’s offensive to people who have albinism, which if I’m not mistaken is a a lack of melanin production which leads to white, pale skin. First off, it’s not offending human albinos.  Did you not see the word “rhino” right after albino?  Apparently not. And the other thing, if the marketing and selling of “Albino products is demeaning to persons with albinism”, then isn’t the marketing and selling of a Black Russian just as offensive to black Russians? People really can find anything to get their panties in a bunch.  It’s like they want to be pissed off.  Is Earl’s going out of their way to insult and belittle albinos?  No.  Albino Rhino is just a rhyming pair of words that could make for a good name for beer.  And now, wings.  Albino Chicken Wings.  It’s a brand that they have.  Not offensive to Albinos. Now, if it was Jew beer or Jew chicken wings, I can say that’s probably offensive to Jews.  Jew Rhino is offensive and even if you rhymed it - Jew Poo - it’d be offensive, mostly because there is no such thing as a Jew poo.  But there is such a thing as an Albino Rhino, at least theoretically speaking.  Other mammals can be albino. I’ll end with saying that I have nothing against albinos.  And I’m a huge supporter of more respect in our culture.  But I am also very much against frivolous lawsuits.  We as a society have so much time on our hands that we find anything to argue about.  It’s true.  Notice that the number of lawsuits have risen dramatically since the American economy became powerful.  And sadly, some Canadians have followed suit…

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous cases I’ve seen in a while.  Some people aren’t too happy that Earl’s, a young and busy Canadian restaurant brand, sells a beer called “Albino Rhino”.

They say it’s offensive to people who have albinism, which if I’m not mistaken is a a lack of melanin production which leads to white, pale skin.

First off, it’s not offending human albinos.  Did you not see the word “rhino” right after albino?  Apparently not.

And the other thing, if the marketing and selling of “Albino products is demeaning to persons with albinism”, then isn’t the marketing and selling of a Black Russian just as offensive to black Russians?

People really can find anything to get their panties in a bunch.  It’s like they want to be pissed off.  Is Earl’s going out of their way to insult and belittle albinos?  No.  Albino Rhino is just a rhyming pair of words that could make for a good name for beer.  And now, wings.  Albino Chicken Wings.  It’s a brand that they have.  Not offensive to Albinos.

Now, if it was Jew beer or Jew chicken wings, I can say that’s probably offensive to Jews.  Jew Rhino is offensive and even if you rhymed it - Jew Poo - it’d be offensive, mostly because there is no such thing as a Jew poo.  But there is such a thing as an Albino Rhino, at least theoretically speaking.  Other mammals can be albino.

I’ll end with saying that I have nothing against albinos.  And I’m a huge supporter of more respect in our culture.  But I am also very much against frivolous lawsuits.  We as a society have so much time on our hands that we find anything to argue about.  It’s true.  Notice that the number of lawsuits have risen dramatically since the American economy became powerful.  And sadly, some Canadians have followed suit…

1 year ago - 1 -

Reuters Misreports

From his site:

Inside Social Games: “Zynga Reports Highest Ever Bookings for Q1 at $329M”.
Same facts, different headline from Reuters: “Zynga Reports $85 Million Quarterly Loss”.
Funnily enough, the pro-Zynga headline is right from Zynga’s own press release.

Reuters, a prestige news company, reported inaccurate information about Zynga.  Unsurprising, given that traditional news companies have had a bad track record in regards to reporting on the tech industry.  For example, back when Apple just got famous with the iPod, they would often times turn to blogs on Apple and report news from there, which would make hilarious news headlines (funny because they were wrong).

It just shows how news is actually quite unreliable yet often times we trust it as the absolute truth.

1 year ago -

Matt Burns says an Apple Monopoly is "scary"

With Apple’s quarterly numbers on Tuesday, many analysts were disappointed by the 11.9 million iPads, which was short of their prediction for 13. Tim Cook explains that demand outstripped supply, which is generally a good problem, so long as it can be fixed.

Also, 35 million iPhones sold. That’s mind-boggling. They sold 37 million iPhones in a quarter with 14 weeks, 2 of which were the iPhone launch and the holiday shopping week. Do the math, and you’ll see that they sold more iPhones per week in the most recent quartet than they did in the holiday quarter. This can only mean one thing. Considering that the most recent quarter is historically the slowest quarter, more iPhones could have been sold in the holiday quarter. I think they did mention something about supply issues for the holiday quarter, so 37 million wasn’t even the potential amount they could have sold!

This all points to the great success Apple has enjoyed with their post-PC products. They invented them and are now leading the way, once again.

Matt Burns calls this scary. Now, I wasn’t too sure if he meant that in a good way or a bad way. So, I’m not gonna personally call him out for anything. But he did call Apple’s possible monopoly, “scary”. I don’t think a monopoly is ever scary, so long as they innovate and provide reasonable prices. Notice I said reasonable, not dirt cheap.

Apple got to where they are in the iPad market through reasonable and competitive means. They aren’t loss leaders hoping to lock their customers forever in the iOS ecosystem. They aren’t charging exorbitant amount of money for their post-PC products relative to what someone else can offer. Besides, with high prices like Apple, if they were to get a monopoly, it was because they made great products people wanted to buy. If it was an evil company who wanted to be a monopoly quick, it wouldn’t sell products at high prices.

In conclusion, monopolies aren’t a bad thing. I try to say this over and over again, because it is true. And many people think it’s not because they were taught that it’s wrong. It’s anti-competitive that is both wrong and illegal. Not innovating and not lowering prices on old products. That’s wrong. Holding a monopolistic position through fair and competitive means is fine, as long as they allow a competitors to compete fair and square.

1 year ago -
Yuck.  Bad Design #3. Who wants a clock on a phone that already shows a clock? And where’s the “fusion of elegance and technology” in this device?  It looks hideous and the analogue clock is out-of-date.

Yuck.  Bad Design #3.

Who wants a clock on a phone that already shows a clock?

And where’s the “fusion of elegance and technology” in this device?  It looks hideous and the analogue clock is out-of-date.

1 year ago -

NSFW.

I get this message in a game I used the Type 95.  Ok, it’s a cheap gun, but I suck so I nerf the gun naturally.

So I called the guy a racists and said they did nerf it.  Infinity Ward made the time between bursts longer.  If you don’t get the first shot in target, you’re dead 8 times out of ten.  And if you can’t aim, you’re screwed.  And if you’re being shot at, you’re probably screwed.  It’s not all that OP as most people say.  I hardly get killed by it anymore.

Well, I got bored one night and checked his page on Elite.  Basically, dual FMG’s on all his classes and Blind Eye, Assassin perks for all but one class.  If this guy isn’t cheap, then I don’t know what is.

What makes it worse is that he sent this message during a game where he did nothing but camp in a corner.  Camping with dual FMG’s probably.

Anyways, made me laugh.  It’s a great example of how gamers find things “noobish” only because they can’t beat them.

*Except knifing. I think it needs to be patched. I start shooting at someone and he knifes me?  That doesn’t make any sense; he doesn’t flinch and get pushed back?  That’s one of the reasons why I don’t give two shits about K/D now.

1 year ago - 4 -
Read this article and tell me if you think it is disturbing. Yes, we’ve moved on to the next viral thing. It’s as if kids suffering in Africa is just entertainment.  Like we’re watching kids suffer and throwing our cash at them for fun.  No, it’s not that it’s like that… It’s that we are.  Are we so comfortable in our red-carpet floor that we forget that people need help and it isn’t all just a movie?

Read this article and tell me if you think it is disturbing.

Yes, we’ve moved on to the next viral thing.

It’s as if kids suffering in Africa is just entertainment.  Like we’re watching kids suffer and throwing our cash at them for fun.  No, it’s not that it’s like that…

It’s that we are.  Are we so comfortable in our red-carpet floor that we forget that people need help and it isn’t all just a movie?

1 year ago -

WoW, really?

Really?  What a vague patent, I hope they don’t get away with it.

Good luck.

1 year ago -

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