Logic Question

Mason Malmuth · #1 10-08-2004, 01:24 AM

Hi Everyone:

I spent the weekend in Santa Monica with Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie working on the manuscript of the new book. In the evening we took a dinner break and walked down the street looking for a restraurant. One of the first places we passed had a sign up that said something like "Rated one of the top five buffets in the world."

Obviously that's pretty good. But the question is of the top five, which number is it?

Best wishes,
Mason

Piz0wn0reD!!!!!! · #2 10-08-2004, 01:28 AM

Well, prolly #5.

Otherwise it would say "#1" or "top 3"

slickpoppa · #3 10-08-2004, 01:35 AM

I don't see how this is a logical question, but i would guess that the number is 5. If they were, say, the third best buffet in the world, it would advertise itself as "Rated one of the top three buffets in the world." If it were ranked any better than five, it wouldn't want to shortchange itself by saying that it is among the top 5.

Piz0wn0reD!!!!!! · #4 10-08-2004, 01:38 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I don't see how this is a logical question, but i would guess that the number is 5. If they were, say, the third best buffet in the world, it would advertise itself as "Rated one of the top three buffets in the world." If it were ranked any better than five, it wouldn't want to shortchange itself by saying that it is among the top 5.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just said exactly that in many less key strokes.

BTW I used very simple logic to figure this out.

slickpoppa · #5 10-08-2004, 01:47 AM

You go girl!

Piz0wn0reD!!!!!! · #6 10-08-2004, 01:57 AM

waPOWN!

mmbt0ne · #7 10-08-2004, 02:38 AM

I think it could just as easily be #4. We tend to like top 10s 5s and 3s, so saying top 4 not only would look weird, but would give away the ranking as well. Obviously 1-3 are out of the question, but I don't see a reason to dismiss 4 so quickly.

Piz0wn0reD!!!!!! · #8 10-08-2004, 02:44 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I think it could just as easily be #4. We tend to like top 10s 5s and 3s, so saying top 4 not only would look weird, but would give away the ranking as well. Obviously 1-3 are out of the question, but I don't see a reason to dismiss 4 so quickly.

[/ QUOTE ]
Very good point. So it can be 1, 3, or 5. If it were #1 it would say, so its either 3 or 5.
Top 3 is kinda weird sounding so id put my money on #5.

I wonder what mason has to say, this post is weirder than some of sklanskys.

RocketManJames · #9 10-08-2004, 03:13 AM

While I think in terms of logic, it has to be #4 or #5, I believe that there is definitely a possibility that this buffet was rated in the top 5 in an unranked "best 5" list.

What comes to mind is the list of "Great Steakhouses" that seems to be in every airline magazine... the one that includes Gene and Giorgetti's and Rainwater on Kettner's. It's some unranked list of "best" restaurants.

-RMJ

RiverTheNuts · #10 10-08-2004, 06:07 AM

I think that the same person doesn't go and eat at every buffet in the world, so you can't really distinguish between the top 1, 2, hell, probably 200 restaurants in the world, different strokes for different folks.

However, if this "rating" scale they use is absolute and foolproof, I would say that it could be 4 or 5