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#1
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Re: Semi Bragging and a $200 Reward
The rarity of your name is what gave you the high percentage to begin with. It seems like excluding other even more rare names is like cheating. You should have just left it open, because what are the odds that someone with fewer than 50 family members plays poker, reads here, and has published authors in the family?
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#2
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Re: Semi Bragging and a $200 Reward
"The rarity of your name is what gave you the high percentage to begin with. It seems like excluding other even more rare names is like cheating. You should have just left it open, because what are the odds that someone with fewer than 50 family members plays poker, reads here, and has published authors in the family?"
For the most part you are wrong. Of course if there were some name with thirty members that had ten authors, they automatically win. In fact six for thirty could be called more impressive. But not four out of thity or three out of fiteen or two out of ten. Can't you see that? On the other hand I would grant you that 18 out of two hundred or 70 out of a thousand deserves consideration for more impressive stats. But I don't think you will find anything close to that. Meanwhile, if I'm wrong, it could very likely be found out by a non family member. |
#3
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Re: Semi Bragging and a $200 Reward
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand I would grant you that 18 out of two hundred or 70 out of a thousand deserves consideration for more impressive stats. But I don't think you will find anything close to that. [/ QUOTE ] So I took a stab at this. My line of thinking was that my best bet was to use Professors' (obscure) last names. First attempt: Goldwasser From whitepages.com: 258 listings matching "Goldwasser, United States" (36 non-published listings) From amazon.com: All 81 results for Goldwasser Going through the list of 81, I manually (and maybe also erroneously) tried to remove all duplicate authors (does Amazon do this automatically? couldnt find it..) and also editors (although not stipulated to). The result: Alan Goldwasser Anita Goldwasser Charles Goldwasser Dan L. Goldwasser Dorothy Goldwasser Dovid Goldwasser Edwin L Goldwasser Henry Goldwasser Israel Edwin Goldwasser James Goldwasser Jane Goldwasser Janet Goldwasser Julie Goldwasser Katherine Goldwasser M Goldwasser Marvin Goldwasser Michael S. Goldwasser Orly Goldwasser Samuel Marc Goldwasser Shafi Goldwasser Sharon Goldwasser Temy Goldwasser Thomas Goldwasser Vivien Goldwasser So 24 out of 258. Doesn't quite beat your stat, but it's up there. If I have more free time, I'll play around with some other names. Would be a harder (and perhaps more accurate challenge) if you stipulated that the authors must be alive and living in the United States, since presumably that's what the White Pages has listed. |
#4
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Re: Semi Bragging and a $200 Reward
The white pages found 299 Nordquists in the U.S.
I then searched authors named nordquist on amazon ignored duplicate authors. Found 27. So that's not quite 9% of the 299. ( or 6 % of the 1.5 times the white pages number) Barbara K Nordquist Bruce O Nordquist Carol L Nordquist Craig E Nordquist Delmar L Nordquist Elise Dallimore Nordquist Eric Nordquist Gerald L Nordquist Gerda Nordquist Gullog Nordquist John Nordquist Kay Nordquist Kjell Nordquist Lowel E Nordquist Marko Nordquist Marty Nordquist Maxine Winsor Nordquist Myron H Nordquist Niklas Nordquist Olga Nordquist Phillip A Nordquist Richard F Nordquist Sven Nordquist Shari Nordquist Ted A Nordquist Walter S Nordquist Dr. William D. Nordquist It should be noted that I don't myself live in the U.S. but I still wanted to try the experiment, and it wouldn't work in canada because there's only... 120 Nordquists in Canada. |
#5
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Re: Semi Bragging and a $200 Reward
Bad example. Or maybe a good one - it shows how faulty the available data for this is. I'm related to the Anita Goldwasser on the list. She's my Dad's first cousin. Neither of her 40+ year old sons (who both live in the U.S. not at home) are on the list.
Also, interestingly isn't Hank Goldwasser (probably 'Henry' from the list) a popular poker blogger? Not sure if I'm related to him by marriage, but I stumbled on his blog and found it pretty entertaining. Can't remember what its called though. |
#6
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Re: Semi Bragging and a $200 Reward
[ QUOTE ]
For the most part you are wrong. Of course if there were some name with thirty members that had ten authors, they automatically win. In fact six for thirty could be called more impressive. But not four out of thity or three out of fiteen or two out of ten. Can't you see that? [/ QUOTE ] But you're bragging about the high percentage of family members that are published authors. So, is it not the percentage that counts then? Two of ten is still 20%, which beats 11-15%. This contest if further complicated by how incredibly difficult it is to get quality data. A search on webpages.com for the surname Aksyonv lists four published and 1 unpublished. Since Vassily Aksyonov is, without a doubt, a published author, that means 1/5 for 20%. However, there are a hell of a lot more Aksyonovs in the U.S. And moreover, this is a country of 300 million people. Are you honestly saying that there could be a family who only makes up .000000033 percent of the population, yet, 20% of that family has contributed to the literary cannon, and that is not impressive? |
#7
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Contest Over
It's closer than I thought so even if I'm right its not quite as impressive as I hoped.
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#8
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Re: Contest Over
So, what's that mean? None of us get a free book for our efforts and contribution? That's analogous to taking it from your cell-mate and not even getting a reach around. I feel so unfulfilled.
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#9
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Re: Contest Over
[ QUOTE ]
It's closer than I thought so even if I'm right its not quite as impressive as I hoped. [/ QUOTE ] Sounds like I win?? |
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