"Pardon My English" - June 4, 2021

[hcbirker]

OH, and let me pull a "Wendy" here, even though this is intended for hcbirker! Look what I found when I was rumaging to find my "Wind Mitigation" documents for renewing my home insurance! No disk in it, and I obviously saved it because it was a good time to put things in (I'm a packrat unfortunately - product of a post war family in NE Pennsylvania) but there it was, a piece of online history:

AOL small.jpg

Talk about dinosaurs! I probably have one of those around here!

[Henry Paul]

20A Isaac! Let me pull up my usual chair and stare at all those friendly folks basking on the beach.

[zach]

You'll find @zach & others with better spreadsheets, charts, & stats. We have some serious data savants in this club!

My calculation was that if I played for 13 years, I would have a 50% chance of winning the mug at least once. That assumes that I got the right answer every week and there were 1,000 correct entries every week.

Close. With those constraints, .999 chance that you are not chosen each week. .999 ^ (13*52) = .508 so not quite there yet. Need another 17 weeks to just push over the mark.

This is correct, and it would take about 88 1/2 years to have a 99% chance of having won the mug. This, of course, assumes a streak of 4,603 correct answers and a consistent 1/1000 chance of winning.

[MatthewL]

My calculation was that if I played for 13 years, I would have a 50% chance of winning the mug at least once. That assumes that I got the right answer every week and there were 1,000 correct entries every week.

Close. With those constraints, .999 chance that you are not chosen each week. .999 ^ (13*52) = .508 so not quite there yet. Need another 17 weeks to just push over the mark.

This is correct, and it would take about 88 1/2 years to have a 99% chance of having won the mug. This, of course, assumes a streak of 4,603 correct answers and a consistent 1/1000 chance of winning.

I was told there would be no math.

[Beth C]

Found the grid to be easy enough but the meta solve has eluded me so far. Hopefully I can figure it out this weekend...

[mheberlingx100]

You'll find @zach & others with better spreadsheets, charts, & stats. We have some serious data savants in this club!

My calculation was that if I played for 13 years, I would have a 50% chance of winning the mug at least once. That assumes that I got the right answer every week and there were 1,000 correct entries every week.

Close. With those constraints, .999 chance that you are not chosen each week. .999 ^ (13*52) = .508 so not quite there yet. Need another 17 weeks to just push over the mark.

Another 1/3 of a year?? Oh man, that makes me want to give up!

[Patty]

Ooooh! It wasn’t easy but we are on the beach. It was team effort. Always happy to bring family along for the solve

[SusieG]

Just back from vacation...still haven’t looked at last week’s puzzle (shhhh, I’m going to solve it without spoilers), but I’m ashore with this week’s puzzle. Still missing 3 letters, but I am calling it solved.

[Homer Buckle]

Naps are very helpful things. Safely ashore on this hot, late Spring day. Ready to cool off at the Tiki bar!

[ALS]

Ashore. Like others, I had an issue with the last 25%, but I back-solved, and figured it out. And like others, I found that having a certain particular skill was quite helpful.

ALS

[PeterLeea1a]

Grid and meta came together nicely. Ashore.

[FirstMax]

On shore. Like others, I spent more time back solving than solving, but this not an easy meta. I predict a lot of tears and questioning of life choices this weekend.

[FirstMax]

My calculation was that if I played for 13 years, I would have a 50% chance of winning the mug at least once. That assumes that I got the right answer every week and there were 1,000 correct entries every week.

Close. With those constraints, .999 chance that you are not chosen each week. .999 ^ (13*52) = .508 so not quite there yet. Need another 17 weeks to just push over the mark.

Another 1/3 of a year?? Oh man, that makes me want to give up!

I was reading Marilyn vos Savant decades ago in Parade magazine and I thought she said your chance of winning the lottery even if you play the same numbers is always the same since the game resets every time. Being drunk right now, I think your chance of winning the mug every week would be 1/1000 or .001 regardless of how much you play.

[Beth C]

Solved! I had to make a slight adjustment while heading down the rabbit hole. Some chardonnay, please! Good luck Muggles.

[mheberlingx100]

Close. With those constraints, .999 chance that you are not chosen each week. .999 ^ (13*52) = .508 so not quite there yet. Need another 17 weeks to just push over the mark.

Another 1/3 of a year?? Oh man, that makes me want to give up!

I was reading Marilyn vos Savant decades ago in Parade magazine and I thought she said your chance of winning the lottery even if you play the same numbers is always the same since the game resets every time. Being drunk right now, I think your chance of winning the mug every week would be 1/1000 or .001 regardless of how much you play.

Each individual game would have that probability. But that is not the same as the probability of the occurrence with multiple games.

Think of it this way. If you flip a fair coin, you will have a 50% chance of it coming up heads. But if you flip the coin 10 times, the odds are far greater that you will come up with heads at least once. That probability is 1 - (.5)^10, or 99.9% probability that there will be at least one head in 10 flips.

Any statisticians out there, feel free to correct.

[TheCatt]

At the bar. Having a birthday drink. We are stuck. We had a rabbit hole, but it either goes nowhere, or somewhere we cannot see. Hints appreciated.

[SilviaV]

Ashore with some help!

[MaineMarge]

On shore.
I got us to the 50 yard line and my solving buddy got the TD. HEY! 2 heads are better than one, especially in the middle of the night when looking for that loo-cid moment. ( love this perfect descriptive Muggle
Inspiration).

[C=64]

Solved, in three phases.
1. Grid done in ~10 minutes on Thursday afternoon, but no progress on meta.
2. Had a flash of inspiration while lounging in the backyard on Friday; figured out the key to the meta mechanism but couldn't work out the numbers.
3. Later on Friday, looked at the puzzle again. "Aha, it's one of those puzzles." Bing bang boom.

[Horsesense]

Done and Done.