Putting an end to Beyer type speed ratings

[TrifectaMike]

Originally Posted by lansdale

Hi Raybo,

You seem not to realize how strange your position is on this - and on this site you're far from alone.

First, let's keep in mind that this is a zero-sum game. By helping someone else you can hurt yourself - this is too self-evident to debate. When Alan 'entropy' Woods posted here, one of his frequent themes was that even a player who loses only the take is a serious competitor for anyone trying to make money, and that he himself never gave away anything to anyone that they could use. There is even a funny post where someone is asking for something specific and Woods says something to the effect of, 'Are you kidding, Bill would kill me.' For anyone who is making serious money at this game, that should be their attitude.

That said, it should be obvious, that unless someone has sufficient training to understand TM's posts, he can't 'give' them anything they can 'use'. To be able to use something requires the ability to understand the context of its use. And your teaching-by-simplification example is a false analogy. I have a friend who is an astrophysicist, and was a co-author of a rocks-for-jocks type textbook called 'Physics for Poets'. This is the kind of thing you're talking about, and it obviously has its place. And the students who take this course can understand the concepts in a metaphoric way, without the math, per your description, but they still can't 'do' physics, in the same way that if TM gave metaphoric lectures on Bayes (which are out there in cyberspace), you still wouldn't be able to do the necessary math. In addition, I assume that TM, if he's still teaching, is working with postdocs or at least grad students, and hasn't been near a 101 course in years, if ever. As he says, that's what Google is for, and you're surely someone who is smart enough to use it.

Just think about your (and others.) reasoning process: 'I really don't know anything about what TM is doing with numbers, but he might be doing something that's profitable, although I don't know enought to know whether it is or it isn't. And the idea the it might be, really annoys me. And on top of that TM, you know the way he writes, he just wants to rag on me.' Does this not sound childish? I see at least a few people doing this every time I check the site.

Finally, despite all this, TM 'does' put things out there that non-math or semi-math people might be able to use and does so explicitly saying he's offering a 'simplified' or crude version that won't hurt his bottom line. There's even one of those in this thread, and someone thanked him for it. He posts something like this roughly every other week.

Cheers,

lansdale

Let's make this simple. If there aren't at least 10 people who find my posts useful, I'll simply stop posting.

Mike

[Magister Ludi]

The other day, some friends were watching a competition on television. The competitors trotted out their routine and then the judges assigned numerical scores to the competitors. After several minutes of observation, one of the friends began to give highly accurate forecasts of the scores given to the competitors by the judges.

At one point, another friend exclaimed, "That's amazing! I thought that the competitors in that round performed much better than the score which that judge gave to them. How did you forecast the exact score which the judge gave to the competitor?

The first friend replied, "You are trying to forecast the score from the competitors' performances. I am forecasting the score from the past performance of the judges."

[Magister Ludi]

Originally Posted by TrifectaMike

Let's make this simple. If there aren't at least 10 people who find my posts useful, I'll simply stop posting.

Mike

I thank you for your many selfless and illuminating contributions to this forum. I wish you and yours a truly heartfelt happy holidays.

[TrifectaMike]

Originally Posted by Magister Ludi

I thank you for your many selfless and illuminating contributions to this forum. I wish you and yours a truly heartfelt happy holidays.

Thanks and the same to you.

By the way, your little gift is NOT so little.

Mike

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by Robert Goren

What you get is broad hints. You can chose to believe their claims or not, but nothing is gained by calling them a liar.

I do not think this is the case. Just asking somebody to backup his claims with evidence is completely different from calling him a liar!

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by Robert Goren

Nobody is going to give away anything too profitable here.

"GIVING AWAY" THE IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS IS NOT THE SAME AS PROVIDING SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF A CLAIM

[ReplayRandall]

Delta, thanks for pushing me to think deeper and never settling for mediocre results.......Καλά Χριστούγεννα και ευτυχισμένο το νέο έτος!

[DeltaLover]

Originally Posted by ReplayRandall

size=3]Καλά Χριστούγεννα και ευτυχισμένο το νέο έτος![/size]

Ευχαριστώ, επίσης..

[TexasDolly]

Originally Posted by TrifectaMike

Let's make this simple. If there aren't at least 10 people who find my posts useful, I'll simply stop posting.

Mike

Hi TM,
I have found your posts and exchanges to be quite useful.
Thank you,
TD

[Cratos]

Originally Posted by raybo

Fine and good, I would expect someone of your obvious higher education to take that kind of stance. However, I never said anything about anyone here giving away anything that might impact their own success, or espoused success. But, if someone enters into a topic, and offers some highly technical suggestions that obviously are not understood by the majority of people participating in the thread/topic, what is the point in posting these types of things without at least explaining or describing the general subject matter in such a way that those less highly technical participants can at least know what the heck they are talking about? As I said, "Googling" subjects like those are invariably dead ends, because of all the prerequisite study required, many times, several years of it. Are those people expected to spend the money and time required to take all those courses, just to comprehend the basic subject matter?

I sincerely agree, and defend, that anyone here has the right to post anything, on any subject they choose, but when it becomes absolutely obvious that the subject matter one posts about is not being understood by people other than a couple of similarly highly educated individuals, shouldn't one make the conscious effort to try to explain things more simply, in order for others to at least have some basic knowledge base from which to relate? Or, should one continue, without that effort, and further aggravate the situation?

The general explanation/description of a particular highly technical, and educationally challenging subject, can indeed take place, without "giving away the farm". Why post something that requires others to have an MBA or PHD (or a BS degree for that matter) just to understand the subject? Obviously, explaining something that requires years of education and experience, isn't likely to "help" them decrease one's own success, especially when you're talking about something like horse racing where the age demographic is so high. I doubt anyone here will go back to college and take courses just so they might be able to better participate when a common topic suddenly becomes "rocket science" material.

While I'm sure it becomes extremely boring to guys like you, and Magister Ludi, and TM, and Cratos, and a couple of others, to discuss less technical subjects, likewise, it also becomes boring and frustrating for the rest of us when things are so far over our heads that we can't relate, even in general terms. At least you guys understand those less advanced subjects, that's a heck of a lot more than the rest of us can say about your subjects.

Raybo,

I understand what you are saying, but in my 10 years on this this forum I have read posts that have traversed the spectrum of horserace handicapping and many were straightforward with their points of view while others might have been somewhat vague or even evasive, but to me it didn’t matter because the intellectual challenge in learning is to understand.

Maybe it’s my formal education training, but I was always endeared to provocative thought in quantitative analysis and had the initiative and self-drive to do the required research to obtain a better understanding of the material/problem presented to me.

I realize that this forum is not an online “education institution” in the formal sense, but it does offer its posters/readers an education (free I might add) if they are willing to learn.

[ReplayRandall]

Originally Posted by DeltaLover

Ευχαριστώ, επίσης..

Eίστε ευπρόσδεκτοι..

[Greyfox]

Only 10 people truly understood Einstein?

[classhandicapper]

Sometimes it's not the content of posts that can cause backlash, it's the attitude that comes through.

[Cratos]

Originally Posted by DeltaLover

I do not think this is the case. Just asking somebody to backup his claims with evidence is completely different from calling him a liar!

You are correct, but sometimes to back up a claim it requires mathematical/statistical calculations that are not easily simplified; if they can be simplified any further at all.

I see your argument as a clash between the “trial and error” methodologists versus the “scientific methodologists” two different worlds and two different approaches to get to the same result.

[Greyfox]

Originally Posted by Cratos

I see your argument as a clash between the “trial and error” methodologists versus the “scientific methodologists” two different worlds and two different approaches to get to the same result.

Cratos the majority of scientific findings are a result of Trial and Error.
Believing the scientists start out with a hypothesis and a procedure to test it is a myth.
Most go up a number of blind alleys until they find something new.
That it is reported in Scientific journals neatly as an problem, procedure, and results, contributes to masking over the fact that much trial and error was involved.