5 ms·

> (d) Compute the mean age, and print it out as the median. It's much easier to program, and Mary Jones will probably never notice the difference. Lol. If it’s

by wzwy 4y ago

> (d) Compute the mean age, and print it out as the median. It's much easier to program, and Mary Jones will probably never notice the difference. Lol. If it’s not the most important statistic to Mary Jones, I can see why a programmer might do this. > Mary Jones in the Accounting Department tells you that she has a file of personnel records [2022 update: an Excel sheet] and asks you to develop a program to compute the median age of the personnel in the file. I’ll probably add option (e) if it’s Excel: Mary Jones, you can learn and do this yourself. Just Google it or something.

deanmen 4y ago
Excel has MEDIAN built-in https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/median-function-d0916313-4753-414c-8537-ce85bdd967d2 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/median-function-d...
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  You can also install the Analysis ToolPak add-in, select the column, click Data -> Data Analysis -> Descriptive Statistics. Gives mean, median, mode, SD and a bunch of other things. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-analysis-toolpak-to-perform-complex-data-analysis-6c67ccf0-f4a9-487c-8dec-bdb5a2cefab6 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-analysis-... Has been in Excel since 2007.
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    Since 1997 at least (except it’s under Tools there).
- cwillu 4y ago
  The problem states that Mary has an Excel file. It does _not_ state that Mary has an Excel software licence, or even a computer with which to run it.
  - k_sze 4y ago
    You have LibreOffice nowadays.
    - ZoomZoomZoom 4y ago
      The problem states that Mary has an Excel file. It does _not_ state that Mary has an access to a personal computer or a device allowing remotely accessing one.
      - k_sze 4y ago
        My bad. The problem also does not state that Mary has adequate eyesight to use a computer or that she even has access to electricity to power a computer. Life is so hard
bambax 4y ago
It's not just Mary Jones. The controversial (to say the least) French medical professor Didier Raoult last year showed he didn't quite grasp the difference between median and mean. There was some mockery on Twitter but no journalist ever called him up on it.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  I couldn't believe an Academic could be this ignorant, so I had to look it up. I found it but only basic french. I can't find a translation, does anyone know of one? https://mobile.twitter.com/cubic_logic/status/1541090247861321729 https://mobile.twitter.com/cubic_logic/status/15410902478613...
  - d1sxeyes 4y ago
    EN: '[...] some things to put together. You see that if we look at the mean or the median, the mean is when a distribution is like this [indicates a bell curve with his hands], we can calculate a mean, but when it's like this [wiggles his finger], you can't calculate a mean, you do the, the, the bar which separates them in half. And so [...]' FR: '[...] d'objets de mettre ensemble. Vous voyez que si on regarde la moyenne ou la médiane, la moyenne c'est quand une distribution est comme ça, on peut faire une moyenne, quand elle est comme ça on n'a pas [...] pour faire une moyenne, on fait, le, le, le, la barre qui sépare à moitié les uns les autres. Et donc [...]' There's a short phrase I can't quite catch at about 9s... which literally translates as 'we don't have [...] to do a mean', so I'm inferring that he means 'you can't calculate a mean' from context (previous clause 'on peut faire une moyenne' => 'we can do a mean' => 'we can calculate a mean').
    - alain94040 4y ago
      Actually, I believe he is probably correct in that case. He is discussing whether the mean is meaningful depending on the shape of the distribution. It's probably not fair to summarize his explanation as saying he doesn't understand mean and average. HN's guidelines recommend to assume the best.
pjc50 4y ago
Quite difficult now to reach this scale with personnel records, but: imagine that you're asked to provide the median of one trillion data points. This could provide lots of interesting possible approaches, since it's about the boundary between "big data" vs "do it on your laptop". And you can't just load it into Excel. (and also to ask about the range of the data!)
- raverbashing 4y ago
  For 1 trillion records I'd say: estimate the probability distribution and values and give the corresponding value as the answer
- nmstoker 4y ago
  For a trillion records, if you were in the UK government, you might just drop those above the Excel limit and proceed until journalists flagged the concern nationally. Background context here: - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/how-excel-may-have-caused-loss-of-16000-covid-tests-in-england https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/how-excel-m...
Psyladine 4y ago
re: (e), they can't. I don't mean they cannot physically operate the sequence of events (even a properly incentivized chimpanzee could do that), but that they lack the programmatic sense of problem solving that is assumed (quite arrogantly) by the programmatic crowd. In the same way people take their cars to mechanics when they can do the job themselves, or call triple A for a flat tire when the spare and jack are in the trunk, or reach for the phone instead of a plunger when the toilet backs up, people don't lack the specific skillset, they lack the openness to problems being solvable. They are in perpetual search of answers, not solutions. They don't want to learn to fish, they don't want to expend energy on process. They want someone else to do it. It's not laziness, it's not incompetence, and it's not entitlement. They are just of a mindset they cannot solve problems, and so they pick up the phone and abstract away the answer. And I promise you, no 10 minute condescending conversation with someone is going to redefine their core attitudes about life. You're just going to have your well poisoned in the break room with your piss poor attitude because she called the plumber and he told her to fix her own shit (in a manner of speaking).
- Ma8ee 4y ago
  No, it’s not that they don’t think they can do it, it’s that one of the foundations of modern economics is specialisation. I know I can repair my car myself, and even think it would be kind of fun. But the mechanic in his shop already knows exactly what to do and in which order. I’d spent hours reading and watching videos before I even could start and still make plenty mistakes. The mechanic already has the tools and know where to source the parts. I’d spend half a day just to make sure that I’d get the right parts to a reasonable price. In the end it would take me four days what the mechanic would do in an hour or two. And I buy my fish in the supermarket, for even more obvious reasons. This example make me believe you actually might be trolling. So the lady in the original examples uses that the company already employs people who are specialists in doing this kind of things, Because she has more important things to do with her time. And that you don’t understand what she’s doing all day that make her not having time for fighting with spreadsheets is your failure, not hers.

by wzwy 4y ago

deanmen 4y ago

Excel has MEDIAN built-in https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/median-function-d0916313-4753-414c-8537-ce85bdd967d2 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/median-function-d...

sbierwagen 4y ago
You can also install the Analysis ToolPak add-in, select the column, click Data -> Data Analysis -> Descriptive Statistics. Gives mean, median, mode, SD and a bunch of other things. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-analysis-toolpak-to-perform-complex-data-analysis-6c67ccf0-f4a9-487c-8dec-bdb5a2cefab6 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-analysis-... Has been in Excel since 2007.
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  Since 1997 at least (except it’s under Tools there).
cwillu 4y ago
The problem states that Mary has an Excel file. It does _not_ state that Mary has an Excel software licence, or even a computer with which to run it.
- k_sze 4y ago
  You have LibreOffice nowadays.
  - ZoomZoomZoom 4y ago
    The problem states that Mary has an Excel file. It does _not_ state that Mary has an access to a personal computer or a device allowing remotely accessing one.
    - k_sze 4y ago
      My bad. The problem also does not state that Mary has adequate eyesight to use a computer or that she even has access to electricity to power a computer. Life is so hard

bambax 4y ago

It's not just Mary Jones. The controversial (to say the least) French medical professor Didier Raoult last year showed he didn't quite grasp the difference between median and mean. There was some mockery on Twitter but no journalist ever called him up on it.

brutusborn 4y ago
I couldn't believe an Academic could be this ignorant, so I had to look it up. I found it but only basic french. I can't find a translation, does anyone know of one? https://mobile.twitter.com/cubic_logic/status/1541090247861321729 https://mobile.twitter.com/cubic_logic/status/15410902478613...
- d1sxeyes 4y ago
  EN: '[...] some things to put together. You see that if we look at the mean or the median, the mean is when a distribution is like this [indicates a bell curve with his hands], we can calculate a mean, but when it's like this [wiggles his finger], you can't calculate a mean, you do the, the, the bar which separates them in half. And so [...]' FR: '[...] d'objets de mettre ensemble. Vous voyez que si on regarde la moyenne ou la médiane, la moyenne c'est quand une distribution est comme ça, on peut faire une moyenne, quand elle est comme ça on n'a pas [...] pour faire une moyenne, on fait, le, le, le, la barre qui sépare à moitié les uns les autres. Et donc [...]' There's a short phrase I can't quite catch at about 9s... which literally translates as 'we don't have [...] to do a mean', so I'm inferring that he means 'you can't calculate a mean' from context (previous clause 'on peut faire une moyenne' => 'we can do a mean' => 'we can calculate a mean').
  - alain94040 4y ago
    Actually, I believe he is probably correct in that case. He is discussing whether the mean is meaningful depending on the shape of the distribution. It's probably not fair to summarize his explanation as saying he doesn't understand mean and average. HN's guidelines recommend to assume the best.

pjc50 4y ago

Quite difficult now to reach this scale with personnel records, but: imagine that you're asked to provide the median of one trillion data points. This could provide lots of interesting possible approaches, since it's about the boundary between "big data" vs "do it on your laptop". And you can't just load it into Excel. (and also to ask about the range of the data!)

raverbashing 4y ago
For 1 trillion records I'd say: estimate the probability distribution and values and give the corresponding value as the answer
nmstoker 4y ago
For a trillion records, if you were in the UK government, you might just drop those above the Excel limit and proceed until journalists flagged the concern nationally. Background context here: - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/how-excel-may-have-caused-loss-of-16000-covid-tests-in-england https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/how-excel-m...

Psyladine 4y ago

re: (e), they can't. I don't mean they cannot physically operate the sequence of events (even a properly incentivized chimpanzee could do that), but that they lack the programmatic sense of problem solving that is assumed (quite arrogantly) by the programmatic crowd. In the same way people take their cars to mechanics when they can do the job themselves, or call triple A for a flat tire when the spare and jack are in the trunk, or reach for the phone instead of a plunger when the toilet backs up, people don't lack the specific skillset, they lack the openness to problems being solvable. They are in perpetual search of answers, not solutions. They don't want to learn to fish, they don't want to expend energy on process. They want someone else to do it. It's not laziness, it's not incompetence, and it's not entitlement. They are just of a mindset they cannot solve problems, and so they pick up the phone and abstract away the answer. And I promise you, no 10 minute condescending conversation with someone is going to redefine their core attitudes about life. You're just going to have your well poisoned in the break room with your piss poor attitude because she called the plumber and he told her to fix her own shit (in a manner of speaking).

Ma8ee 4y ago
No, it’s not that they don’t think they can do it, it’s that one of the foundations of modern economics is specialisation. I know I can repair my car myself, and even think it would be kind of fun. But the mechanic in his shop already knows exactly what to do and in which order. I’d spent hours reading and watching videos before I even could start and still make plenty mistakes. The mechanic already has the tools and know where to source the parts. I’d spend half a day just to make sure that I’d get the right parts to a reasonable price. In the end it would take me four days what the mechanic would do in an hour or two. And I buy my fish in the supermarket, for even more obvious reasons. This example make me believe you actually might be trolling. So the lady in the original examples uses that the company already employs people who are specialists in doing this kind of things, Because she has more important things to do with her time. And that you don’t understand what she’s doing all day that make her not having time for fighting with spreadsheets is your failure, not hers.