General Questions Thread

[monster]

Originally Posted by Zero-2

Is there a pro wrestling discussion thread in Gen. Chat?

There is this thread: http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=15104

[Guernsey]

I thinking about joining the Americorp but can anyone tell me more about it? I got an application form my local library and from I read it involves computer literacy training for rural libraries.

[Zephuros]

May I ask what are the "active" fan page site(s) left for Nobuo Uematsu and Yoko Shimomura?

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Guernsey

I thinking about joining the Americorp but can anyone tell me more about it? I got an application form my local library and from I read it involves computer literacy training for rural libraries.

Talk to a recruiter. Americorps is basically a domestic version of the Peace Corps -- you'll be paid some wages (not high; never high), and work in some high-need areas with nonprofits, schools, government agencies, whatever, depending on what you're doing for them. And yes, the jobs are very diverse. You could be everything from a teacher to an urban planner in that program.

With such a huge program, your mileage may vary. Some people have the most fulfilling years of their lives; others feel wasted. I'm also not sure how Americorps stands prestige-wise with employers, but I know the Peace Corps is highly respected.

[Haak]

Question about Light Novels.

I've noticed that all the popular Light Novels are always listed under the "shonen" demographic. Is there any official reason for this (e.g. like how Weekly Shonen Jump manga can be considered shonen) or are those just educated assumptions (like the Genre listings)?

If there are official reasons for this then are there any "shoujo" Light Novels? If not then how come?

[oompa loompa]

Originally Posted by Haak

Question about Light Novels.

I've noticed that all the popular Light Novels are always listed under the "shonen" demographic. Is there any official reason for this (e.g. like how Weekly Shonen Jump manga can be considered shonen) or are those just educated assumptions (like the Genre listings)?

If there are official reasons for this then are there any "shoujo" Light Novels? If not then how come?

I'm not quite sure that Toradora counts as a shounen light novel...

EDIT: never mind, it IS counted as shonen! Huh.. how about that.. Now I'm curious too. Maybe because the MC is a dude? comipedia has a list with genre tags, and there are a few shoujo, josei light novels, so they do exist, if they're tags have any meaning

[LKK]

Originally Posted by Haak

are there any "shoujo" Light Novels?

There are "shoujo" light novels. Three come to mind right away: Ghost Hunt, Earl and Fairy, and Saiunkoku Monogatari. I'm sure there are more.

[Kotohono]

Originally Posted by Haak

Question about Light Novels.

I've noticed that all the popular Light Novels are always listed under the "shonen" demographic. Is there any official reason for this (e.g. like how Weekly Shonen Jump manga can be considered shonen) or are those just educated assumptions (like the Genre listings)?

Many of the series published thru Dengeki Bunko Magazine are targeted at shounen generally I believe, and they're responsible for more than just a few LN adaption series, such as SAO, Accel World, Toradora, Toaru Index, Mahouka, Horizon, Maou-sama!, and OreImo just to list a few.

So I would guess the shounen genre comes from the author choosing to work with Dengeki Bunko.

[Haak]

Thanks for the answers.

So apparently Shoujo light novels do exist but they appear to be few and far between (All of LKK's examples are light novels that began at least a whole decade ago). I've also noticed every single Shoujo light novel I've come across is either a fantasy and/or historical. Can't find a single "highschool setting" shoujo light novel.

Anybody know why they're so unpopular? Kinda feel like it's a bit of an untapped medium.

[MrTerrorist]

I haven't watch Riddle Story of Devil (Akuma no Riddle) so i'm trying to catch up.
Since the show is both streaming by Funi and CR, is there any difference like censoring or something?

[Zephuros]

Does anyone know that..the remastered Cowboy Bebop's resolution supposed to be..

960x720p or 1280x720p?

[oompa loompa]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I've heard in a bunch of places that pigs are smarter (or as smart as) dogs. What is their method for measuring intelligence? How do you quantitatively measure and rank an animals intelligence, and how are these comparable? It doesn't seem to make much sense.. Anyone know?

EDIT:

Rather, can anyone give any insight into the validity of these tests?

[risingstar3110]

Anyone know much about standard deviation?!?!

My boss has been obsessed with it just for the shake of having a SD. Even going so far to force everything have be done three times just to get SD. I still more on, if we repeat everything, or random sample and get exact results, we are doing something correct.

So what i want to ask is: what is the precision (or accuracy) if you get a SD of only 3 samples? Is there any articles/ book/ statistics rule-of-thumb to discourage people from taking SD of only 3 samples (since it will mostly only mislead audiences)?

[oompa loompa]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Anyone know much about standard deviation?!?!

My boss has been obsessed with it just for the shake of having a SD. Even going so far to force everything have be done three times just to get SD. I still more on, if we repeat everything, or random sample and get exact results, we are doing something correct.

So what i want to ask is: what is the precision (or accuracy) if you get a SD of only 3 samples? Is there any articles/ book/ statistics rule-of-thumb to discourage people from taking SD of only 3 samples (since it will mostly only mislead audiences)?

Do you have 3 seperate samples, or 3 data points? If you only have 3 data points don't bother, any statistical analysis you do is meaningless. If you're repeating your sample it's not the number of times you sample but the sample size that matters. If you're doing a repeated experiment, and each time you repeat the experiment it yields a data point, again, 3 repetitions is pretty much meaningless. Btw, if you google it, there are several 'rule of thumb' sample sizes, but don't worry too much about them, as they are sort of misleading. However, (regardless of the distribution the sample is drawn from), as your sample size increases the precision on your estimates of sample mean and sample variance increases. By precision I mean the probability that the true sample mean, or variance (from which you get SD), lies within a given interval increases, or for a given probability (say 95%), the size of the interval decreases. So, if you only have 3 data points, either there is a low probability that it lies within a fixed interval of the true sample mean, or there is a massive interval in which both the true sample mean and your sample mean lie. SO, if you only have 3 data points, do NOT try to do statistical analysis, anyone who knows stats will tear you a new one.

EDIT:

If you would like I have a few very useful pdf's on the subject from a class i took last year. PM me and I can mail them to you. Otherwise any stats textbook will do, I recommend Probability & Statistics by Degroot. It'll take a little bit of searching but you should be able to find a pdf online.

EDIT:

Rule of thumbs on google generally ask for a sample size of about ~100, but I think if you have 35-40 it'll be doable. If you do end up using very few, say 10-15 repetitions, just make sure you mention that it isn't precise because of the small sample size. If you want, you can also calculate the corresponding confidence intervals for a given confidence level (usualy 95%)

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

My boss has been obsessed with it just for the shake of having a SD. Even going so far to force everything have be done three times just to get SD. I still more on, if we repeat everything, or random sample and get exact results, we are doing something correct.

Demanding 3x repetition doesn't need to be for the sake of statistics. If you do something once, how can you be sure that everything worked as expected and that the result is true? If you do something twice and both outcomes differ, how can you know which is true? Doing something three times is the bare minimum number that can be done to show that something is reproducible (but not necessarily "correct") and to resolve a dispute between two results.

In that regard I don't think it's misleading. Having the standard deviation simply shows that you have done something multiple times.

[oompa loompa]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Demanding 3x repetition doesn't need to be for the sake of statistics. If you do something once, how can you be sure that everything worked as expected and that the result is true? If you do something twice and both outcomes differ, how can you know which is true? Doing something three times is the bare minimum number that can be done to show that something is reproducible (but not necessarily "correct") and to resolve a dispute between two results.

In that regard I don't think it's misleading. Having the standard deviation simply shows that you have done something multiple times.

But it is misleading. It's misleading because if you reproduce the experiment a 4th time, there's a high chance that the deviation will be greater than that of your 3 experiments. If you did the repetition a 100 times, there is a much smaller chance that the 101'st experiment will lead to a result with a deviation more than those already observed. Of course, it's not misleading if you say, "we repeated the experiment 3 times, and this was our standard deviation" , because you're saying it exactly as it is , but it isn't a reliable indicator for how future experiments will pan out, most importantly whether a result is abnormal or within expectations. Having said that, it's much better to do an experiment thrice than once, no one is arguing that, but you can't possibly expect 3 repetitions of an experiment to be a reliable predictor of the results of future experiments, and if there is no interest in predicting the expected results of future experiments, why bother with standard deviations at all?

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by oompa loompa

But it is misleading. It's misleading because if you reproduce the experiment a 4th time, there's a high chance that the deviation will be greater than that of your 3 experiments. If you did the repetition a 100 times, there is a much smaller chance that the 101'st experiment will lead to a result with a deviation more than those already observed. Of course, it's not misleading if you say, "we repeated the experiment 3 times, and this was our standard deviation" , because you're saying it exactly as it is , but it isn't a reliable indicator for how future experiments will pan out, most importantly whether a result is abnormal or within expectations.

I don't disagree entirely, but why should we stop at 100 repetitions? That's nothing compared to 1,000 repetitions... or is it? Standard deviation isn't anything overly complicated, and there's no P-value. It's just a way of presenting some repetitions. For more complicated statistical analyses people generally present their number of data points (N). What constitutes a good sample size? That depends on what we're trying to observe, and we can judge the strength (or power, to speak statistics lingo) of the study based on N.

But getting back to the repetitions of a single data point, something more than three points would be nice but I don't feel that it would be any more or less misleading. Seeing that something was done even three times convinces me that it wasn't just a one-time fluke, but I can still take issue with the technique or some other variable. Someone could repeat something even 1,000 times and it wouldn't answer that concern.

This isn't to say that I'm against the idea of doing more than three repetitions, or even stating how many repetitions were performed.

[oompa loompa]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I don't disagree entirely, but why should we stop at 100 repetitions? That's nothing compared to 1,000 repetitions... or is it? Standard deviation isn't anything overly complicated, and there's no P-value. It's just a way of presenting some repetitions. For more complicated statistical analyses people generally present their number of data points (N). What constitutes a good sample size? That depends on what we're trying to observe, and we can judge the strength (or power, to speak statistics lingo) of the study based on N.

But getting back to the repetitions of a single data point, something more than three points would be nice but I don't feel that it would be any more or less misleading. Seeing that something was done even three times convinces me that it wasn't just a one-time fluke, but I can still take issue with the technique or some other variable. Someone could repeat something even 1,000 times and it wouldn't answer that concern.

This isn't to say that I'm against the idea of doing more than three repetitions, or even stating how many repetitions were performed.

Well yes, there is a reliable sample size, depending on the amount of variables, and the distribution it comes from, because you fix the probability of precision, (usually 95%, I don't remember if that's just convention or if it maximizes power somehow), so your gains from increasing sample size beyond a point decrease dramatically.

Also, since you calculate your SD from your variance, it is again important to have a large sample size because variance IS something you can test statistically, not with a p-value, but still. In this example, the number of variables isn't given, but if it's more than 3 I can definitely say that 3 is not enough. Besides, SD is a useless statistic without a sample mean (which I'm assuming is also being calculated), I'm a little rusty (and generally stats is not my strong suit) but since the sample mean is derived from a normal distribution by the CLT, there is going to be an associated t-statistic and p-value.

It's not misleading if you're not trying to mislead anyone. It is misleading if the claim is that an SD with 3 data points (and less than 3 variables) is a good predictor for what the deviations of the results of future experiments will be. For example, if you get a result greater than x number of SD's for your 4th experiment, how will you know if something went wrong or right? Forget SD, if you don't have a reliable mean, how will you know whether your result was close to what the 'usual' result is or not? If you don't have a reliable variance, how will you know how much deviation is acceptable without being called an abnormality?

At the same time, I agree with you that 3 is better than nothing. Its always going to help, but one would have to say that the results are merely indicative, and not a reliable predictor for how future experiments will pan out.

[Frailty]

Sometimes, whenever I upload a jpeg image on the internet, the image quality somehow downgrades. Any particular reason for this? Is it the bandwidth? how can I upload the image with assurance that the quality won't be lowered?

sorry for the multiple questions

[bhl88]

Is there a proper way to use a bow? (as far as I know, they say that she's handing the bow wrong, but I don't know why [some ads NSFW])