Amazing Race Asia – Who Will Win?

As the finale of the Amazing Race Asia draws close, who will win?

Let us first review some amazing stuff, which will mostly end on questions. Previously, on the Amazing Race Asia…my blog, I had pondered the randomness of the race. That was part one of the randomness… this is not part 2 (because part 2 entails karma, chaos theory, and the like). This is a question of who will win in the coming finale.

First off, we have the positions as of Episode 12-

The Amazing Race Asia Standings as of Episode 12 Continue reading Amazing Race Asia – Who Will Win?

I’m Tired, and I Type Too Fast

I’m a little tired today, so the writing of the review of Death Note 2: The Last Name will have to be postponed. Yep, I’ve watched it. But here’s something for today:

The error message is: The following message could not be delivered because you have exceeded the maximum number of messages per minute. Please . . . → Read More: I’m Tired, and I Type Too Fast

Amazing Race Asia – Randomness

Last Thursday’s Amazing Race Asia was a relaxing episode. Contestants had fun while doing the tasks, and even though Mardy and Marsio were out, my favourite team (Andrew and Syeon) are still in, and they’re the top three. (Yay for alliteration here)

Of course, you don’t read about me blogging about the Amazing Race Asia, which I have been following since the start, so why today?

Simple. Because of Andrew’s dream. And randomness. And the matter of probability.

Right. So, I had too much time on my hands, so with cfgt‘s help (he’s the statistics genius and actuary student), I wrote a little something in Excel’s VBA just to show that Andrew and Syeon had a lot of luck. Maybe not.

Here’s the lowdown for those who didn’t watch: There were 42 carriages in the Eye of Dubai (which pitifully copied the Eye of London, of which the Eye of Kuala Lumpur also pathetically copied), and in each of the 42 carriages, there were envelopes. However, only 5 of these envelopes are clues, while the others contain a message: “Sorry, Try Again”.

Andrew told Syeon (and us) that he had a dream, in it which he won the Amazing Race Asia, and it had a number – 19. So based on the dream, Andrew and Syeon picked carriage number 19 for their first carriage to explore, and lo and behold, they found the correct carriage with the clue.

Andrew and SyeonTechnically, there was a 5/42 chance (or 0.11904761) chance in getting a clue first. That would mean, that Andrew and Syeon, arriving at the Eye of Dubai, had that amount of chances to get a clue on the first try. Of which, they did get the clue on the first try.

Easy enough. But for us idle television watchers, for Andrew and Syeon to get it right on the first time in Carriage 19 is actually roughly a 1/250 (with a relatively large variance) chance. This means, if the round has to be played over and over again, the chances of us watching Andrew and Syeon get it right on the first time in Carriage 19 is 1 in every 218 times (Approximately). This is also, assuming that the producers of the show randomly distribute their clues, and is reset each time a new round begins.

Continue reading Amazing Race Asia – Randomness

New (York) Theme – A Live Test

As the new year approaches… this is a new theme. I will release it after a few days of code tweaking. Currently, it sucks in IE with 1024×768 resolution. I am looking to fix it. And the code is not xHTML valid yet, so I am still fixing it. Also, I am going to cut down . . . → Read More: New (York) Theme – A Live Test

A Life More Interesting (Featuring Death)

Life has certainly gotten, well.. more interesting. Well, some may think I am putting it in a bad way, but trust me I am not. What is interesting is on Friday, I had signed up for my tutorials (and getting a parking ticket with it along the way), and Ms. Jana, my Law 101 lecturer was still alive and well, still joking and all. The next day, Saturday, she was involved in a rafting accident and drowned. And it had all started with a rumour…

This certainly proves 2 things: a) In Malaysia, rumours are most likely true. b) Death gets to everyone, sooner or later, tragically or comfortably (Yes, I wholeheartedly agree, though I prefer if they’d died comfortably – less complaining this way) Continue reading A Life More Interesting (Featuring Death)

Stamina

Dear blog,

Woke up on Saturday morning, 9.00 a.m. Bored. Checked my mail. 32 important ones, 22 unimportant ones, 159 spam messages. Bored. Watched TV. Bored. Lunch. Bored. Planned somethings, administrated some logins. Bored. Talked to Hashie about some important stuff. Bored. (He was boring)

4.00 p.m. – cfgt called to confirm. There was a mad rush to find my router. Called u238 to manufacture some CAT-5 wire.
6.00 p.m. – Still can’t find router. The box marked “Networking Devices” happened to be empty. Bored.
8.00 p.m. – Skipped dinner. Found router. Asked my mom to buy root beer and dinner. Bored. Raining. Bored while waiting for cfgt to arrive.

HA! And you thought this was a post about my boredom! Unfortunately, you’re kinda wrong. Continue reading Stamina

The Ticket

Today isn’t exactly a fine day. Katabana woke me up in the morning, and told me that the Tutorial Grouping starts at 9 a.m., not at 10 a.m., which was what I was told (so were most of the students). The time he called? 9.22 a.m.. I hadn’t even breakfasted yet!

Quickly, I had my breakfast and bathed et. all, and sped my way to college. Because I was out of time, I parked right outside the college building. And this is what it got me: Continue reading The Ticket