Model Thinking class comes to an end

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Model Thinking notes, with rainbow (from the plastic rod thingie that you twist to change the orientation of the mini-blind slats).

I can't believe that Model Thinking is almost over.  I have one more lecture to listen to (and I want to listen to part of one of yesterday's again).  Math again, this week.  Or -- arithmetic, really.  Crowd error = (the sum of the error of the predictions of individuals) - (the variance of the individuals' predictions).  ("This is a mathematical fact.  It is just true.")  In the in-lecture question, I figured correctly that crowd error was 2500, but when I calculated out the difference between the individuals' error, and their variance, I did not get 2500....................  Infuriating to KNOW the number you're supposed to have gotten, and to spend a LONG time trying to figure out why you didn't, only to realize that you've written 40000 in three places where you were supposed to have written 43000.  !!!

Infuriating (and tiresome!) to have to watch myself like a hawk (and a slave-driver!) to make sure I'm not making stupid copying errors!!!  Or stupid computation errors -- 5 x 1 = 10????

Here's what victory looks like, around here..............

After !stubornly! working my way through that arithmetic yesterday, until I got 2500!!!!!, I laughed and laughed and laughed a little later, when Dr. Page pointed out to us that an author CHOSE certain examples for his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, and that, OF COURSE, those examples would be cases where the difference between the crowd's prediction and reality would be small.  "If crowd error was large, it would be The Madness of Crowds!"

You probably had to be there, but just thinking about The Madness of Crowds! still makes me chuckle.

Anyway.  One more lecture, one more quiz, one more exam (second half of the course, only).

I won't miss the pace, but I'll miss the new and fascinating info.............

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