A Bout The System

[GoLDeN]

do u live with a system in ur life
i mean u have tp do every thing in it time and that all shit

[snowultra]

like a schedule ---its that what your saying?

[bigboab]

Ask the wife.:(

[DooMeD68]

some people probably have the ADRIAN MONK syndrome i suppose !

[Mr. Mulder]

fight the future

[kallieb]

We all live in systems. It's a fundamental and unavoidable fact.

Unless one can become completely self-reliant -- and I mean complete -- than we will always be dependent upon other systems to meet our needs.

Consider the basics: Food, Clothing, Shelter. How do you obtain these? Unless you harvest your own seeds, dig your own well and harvest your own garden you will have to rely upon outside systems to keep you fed; and these systems will set prices, location of stores and quantity/quality of produce. Your diet is at the mercy of the food industry!

Shelter, well unless you decide to squat somewhere, you'll have to pay rent, utilities, etc... well I won't belabour the point.

So, yup, we're surrounded by pressures of conformity whether we like it or not.

[Something Else]

^ What she said.

[thewizeard]

We all live in systems. It's a fundamental and unavoidable fact.

Unless one can become completely self-reliant -- and I mean complete -- than we will always be dependent upon other systems to meet our needs.

Consider the basics: Food, Clothing, Shelter. How do you obtain these? Unless you harvest your own seeds, dig your own well and harvest your own garden you will have to rely upon outside systems to keep you fed; and these systems will set prices, location of stores and quantity/quality of produce. Your diet is at the mercy of the food industry!

Shelter, well unless you decide to squat somewhere, you'll have to pay rent, utilities, etc... well I won't belabour the point.

So, yup, we're surrounded by pressures of conformity whether we like it or not.

..and I always thought that wise Canadians were a conflict in terms...:)

[kallieb]

Can't resist a bragging moment!!!:01::01:

A little bit about my country:

In 2004, a study by Statistics Canada found that 59.1% of Canadians aged 25 to 54 had a post-secondary certificate or university degree, 8.0% had taken some post-secondary education, 20.1% were high school graduates, and 12.9% had less than a high school education.

And in terms of our overall Standard of Living, I pulled this off the net:

Canada's Rank in UN Index

Index of Living Conditions

The United Nations ranked Canada sixth on its Human Development Index for 2006. The country's standard of living, health care system, educational attainment, housing, cultural and recreational facilities, level of public safety and tourist opportunities are all of an exceptionally high quality. Rank Country
1 Norway
2 Iceland
3 Australia
4 Ireland
5 Sweden
6 Canada
7 Japan
8 United States
9 Switzerland
10 Netherlands
11 Finland
12 Luxembourg
13 Belgium
14 Austria
15 Denmark
What do they say about myth vs reality:whistling:whistling

OK, I'm off my soap box now!!

[Barbarossa]

In 2004, a study by Statistics Canada found that 59.1% of Canadians aged 25 to 54 had a post-secondary certificate or university degree, 8.0% had taken some post-secondary education, 20.1% were high school graduates, and 12.9% had less than a high school education.

The most impressive thing about those statistics is that they add up to 100.1% :O

[kallieb]

In 2004, a study by Statistics Canada found that 59.1% of Canadians aged 25 to 54 had a post-secondary certificate or university degree, 8.0% had taken some post-secondary education, 20.1% were high school graduates, and 12.9% had less than a high school education.The most impressive thing about those statistics is that they add up to 100.1% :O

It is because they have to round it off. The actual statistic is likely a long number. For example, take 20.1 percent. In fact it is likely 20.0934859, so they round up to the highest number ergo 20.1. When you do this multiple times you end up with a tad more than 100.0% as a pure figure, thereby giving you 100.1%.

In a nutshell, it comes with the territory when one is doing statistical analysis.

[Barbarossa]

:happy: :coffee:

I probably would have rounded them to whole percents then, i.e. 59%, 8%, 20% and 13%.

Ergo attaining a total of 100% exactly :dabs:

[dinsdale]

Didn't statistics start the second world war? Or was that Hitler?

[kallieb]

:happy: :coffee:

I probably would have rounded them to whole percents then, i.e. 59%, 8%, 20% and 13%.

Ergo attaining a total of 100% exactly :dabs:

The problem with that approach is that the gap between 20 and 21 percent encompasses far more people -- when you are doing demographic-type studies, thus, you might be over or under reporting your study results by literally 1000's (or 100,000's) depending upon your population base. For example, a country like China - which has a population of 1 billion (give or take), if you fudge 1% you are talking about 10,000,000 people.

Thus, you conclusions may end up being somewhat challenged on principles of reliability and validity because you are not narrowing your results well enough. I'd just as soon be content to see 20.5 -- as this is more near the acutal number, than underreporting it as 20%, or over-reporting it as 21%.

What you suggest is compelling, but when you weigh out the nitty-gritties of statistics, close to precision is always the aim to shoot for.

Interesting discussion BTW

[thewizeard]

The most impressive thing about those statistics is that they add up to 100.1% :O

:huh:

It is because they have to round it off. The actual statistic is likely a long number. For example, take 20.1 percent. In fact it is likely 20.0934859, so they round up to the highest number ergo 20.1. When you do this multiple times you end up with a tad more than 100.0% as a pure figure, thereby giving you 100.1%.

In a nutshell, it comes with the territory when one is doing statistical analysis.

Now is that wise?..

[Defy]

Routine is boring. I always do my best to keep things fresh. :)

[sear]

1 Norway
2 Iceland
3 Australia
4 Ireland
5 Sweden
6 Canada
7 Japan
8 United States
9 Switzerland
10 Netherlands
11 Finland
12 Luxembourg
13 Belgium
14 Austria
15 Denmark
What do they say about myth vs reality:whistling:whistling

OK, I'm off my soap box now!!

Australia pwns Canada...:P

[DooMeD68]

try to be spontaneous - otherwise it can become monotonous !!

[Mr JP Fugley]

If there are 4 options and you only have to deal with 0.1% then your adjustment is only 0.025% on average for each of them. Whilst that may represent a reasonably large number of people, depending on the base, it is statistically insignificant, which is more important. Certainly better than reporting 100.1%.

The proper way to do it would be to both round up and round down, resulting in a figure of 100%.

[kallieb]

1 Norway
2 Iceland
3 Australia
4 Ireland
5 Sweden
6 Canada
7 Japan
8 United States
9 Switzerland
10 Netherlands
11 Finland
12 Luxembourg
13 Belgium
14 Austria
15 Denmark
What do they say about myth vs reality:whistling:whistling

OK, I'm off my soap box now!!

Australia pwns Canada...:P

see!!! never make assumptions. Who would have though good ol' down-under-land would be in the top 3. With all that, you need a better spokesman than Paul Hogan:D

[kallieb]

If there are 4 options and you only have to deal with 0.1% then your adjustment is only 0.025% on average for each of them. Whilst that may represent a reasonably large number of people, depending on the base, it is statistically insignificant, which is more important. Certainly better than reporting 100.1%.

The proper way to do it would be to both round up and round down, resulting in a figure of 100%.

There is debate about that, as I recall from my Stats class. One principle so drilled into my memory was (to quote as I'm too tired to remember all the nuances):

Precision and Rounding Be sure in your percentage tables (and, indeed, in any analysis) to claim no more precision than your data warrant. Retain only significant digits--that is, digits that are reliable and in which you have confidence. In practice this usually means you should round percentages off to either whole numbers or one decimal place. This guideline has exceptions, but not many when working with social scientific data. Percentages with more than one decimal place usually make false claims to precision. Calculators and computers usually give many decimal places (often as many as eight), but most of those digits are not significant.
As a general rule in statistics, keep as many digits as you can while applying formulas and calculating in order to minimize rounding errors during computation. Then round off your final number to no more than one more decimal place than you started with. If you begin with whole numbers (as in tallies of cases), round your final numbers (e.g., percentages) to one decimal place or perhaps even whole numbers. Since this is only a general rule, it has exceptions. As always, therefore, think about what you are doing and decide how many digits you have confidence in.
Ridiculous extra digits (generally those beyond one decimal place) normally should be rounded to the nearest number. Some examples: Round 21.32 to 21.3 and round 15.66 to 15.7. What about rounding a number ending in 5 like 48.65 or 17.35? A common practice is to round 5s off to the nearest even number. Thus, for example, 48.65 is rounded to 48.6, while 17.35 is rounded to 17.4. This "even rule" for rounding insures that in the long run about half of numbers ending in 5 are rounded up and about half are rounded down.

Since the authors of the study considered it significant enough to retain the extra digits (for reasons they didn't post, but we must presume) their end result of 100.1% was purposeful, and according to Statistical references, quite appropriate.

My goodness my brains are rusty in this regard. This discussion is refreshing.

[Mr JP Fugley]

Thing is tho' they only went to 1 decimal, which is what caused the 100.1%, because of the rounding up. Had they thought that accuracy was important then they ony had to go to another decimal place, maybe 2 to get it to 100%.

Since they went to only 1 decimal, for a large group, that suggests that the figures were more intended as illustrative than statistically accurate. Meaning, to my mind, that doing a small bit of rounding down, in addition to the rounding up, to get it to 100% would have been a better idea.

[kallieb]

to get it to 100% would have been a better idea.

Probably, because if they would have done so originally (rounding down/up to keep in all as 100%) they could have saved debate on the math!!

[Mr JP Fugley]

to get it to 100% would have been a better idea.

Probably, because if they would have done so originally (rounding down/up to keep in all as 100%) they could have saved debate on the math!!

Nazi.

[kallieb]

Atilla is my middle name