Recently in the news, a tragic mountain-climbing death*1. TV reporters interview the deceased's boss who states something to the effect that "well, you either loved him or you hated him".
Now, in my mind, that's not a very sporting thing to say- even when the guy was alive. What that's really saying is "everyone i know hated him, but i can't absolutely exclude the possibility of some person not disliking him- possibly in China given they have 1/5 of the world's population. ".
When i die, i'd like to think that 95% of people would be within 2 standard deviations *2 of the mean in terms of their regard for me.
Now, in my mind, that's not a very sporting thing to say- even when the guy was alive. What that's really saying is "everyone i know hated him, but i can't absolutely exclude the possibility of some person not disliking him- possibly in China given they have 1/5 of the world's population. ".
When i die, i'd like to think that 95% of people would be within 2 standard deviations *2 of the mean in terms of their regard for me.
*1) Of people who are killed doing something crazy it is always said:"He died doing what he loved doing.". But did he love dying???? I detest people who kill themselves trying to achieve pointless goals- like being the 3rd shortest man to circumnavigate the world in a manila envelope. They had it coming. We should not rescue them.
*2) I suspect the whole equation for the 'standard deviation' is there to get rid of the 'negative' distance to the left of the mean by taking a square root of a square. Why can't you just average the distance from the mean is what i'm saying?
*2) I suspect the whole equation for the 'standard deviation' is there to get rid of the 'negative' distance to the left of the mean by taking a square root of a square. Why can't you just average the distance from the mean is what i'm saying?
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