at least from my non-engineering, more common-sense-orientated side of me

Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero.

-David R. Ellis-

There are so many things to blog about but I'm feeling so lazy to say anything here.

Okay, so today we went for a buffet lunch at some Japanese restaurant at Jurong Point; don't quite remember the name of the restaurant, though I DO  remember the oh-so-expensive cost of $30.90++.

Okay, so maybe it isn't that expensive, but I'm broke.

I spent $300 on Levi's, $200 on my Altec Lansing wireless earphones, and another $85 on my lomo camera. And I haven't even had my first month's pay yet. *ouch*

Anyways. We ate, and ate, and ate. LOL. Sorry. Not much of a food reviewer. In short, it was a decent meal. I wouldn't say it was great - heck, what would you expect from a $30 buffet - but at least they had decent food.

Goofed around with my new lomo camera a bit.

I think I look good with my camera. I should be a photographer. LOL.

After lunch, we went book shopping. Can you believe it - Zhi Vern decides to take up a new hobby: READING!!

LOL-NESS.

So we went to the Popular book store, where we were randomly browsing when I saw this particular book which caught my attention. 

 50 Psychology Ideas You Really Need To Know.

I picked it up, opened up a random page, and there I was, on some chapter about gambling. Something about the 50-50 chance and how people misunderstand it and give themselves the wrong idea.

Here's a simple question to further clarify:

Imagine a fictional town with 1000 families, all of the families have 6 children. Given two scenarios:

Scenario A: 3 of the children are girls and the other 3 are boys.

Scenario B: all 6 of the children are boys.

Which scenario is more probable to occur, when a family is randomly picked out from that town?

I want you to think and give your honest answer before scrolling down.

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Ready?

According to the book, when this question was posed to some people of higher education, surprisingly, more than 50% of them answered Scenario A.

The correct answer would be that both Scenario A and Scenario B have the same probability. Why? 

It would make sense to think that (heck, if I were in that situation, I would think this way too) if you already had given birth to 10 children whom all are boys, you would think that there should be a 99% chance that your 11th pregnancy would result in a girl.

Many people have made that common mistake. In fact, the chances that your 11th pregnancy is a girl is only a 50% chance.

In fact, in each birth, there is a 50-50 chance that either a boy or a girl would be born, and each birth is individual of all the other births. 

Interesting, huh?

But still. I think - at least from my non-engineering, more common-sense-orientated side of me - its pretty hard to believe.

Ah, the ironies of the world.

Right, I'll have to stop thinking now, it's a Sunday night *gasp*, which means it'll be Monday tomorrow *oh the horror*, and I'm gonna die coz my deadline is supposed to be on Monday but I have not done anything yet.

I'll have to take my job more seriously. =(