{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2873",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2873,
    "subject": "pair o' dice no paradox, men",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-12-15T15:43:35+00:00",
    "last": "2001-12-15T15:43:35+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0031-urth.v031.n017.3@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-12-15T15:43:35+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) pair o' dice no paradox, men",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Thanks Sunanda!\n\nJoel Sieh also caught this and I thought he and I had posted to the list!\nHere is my quote and response to him."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Joel Sieh wrote:\n6 different throws on each of two sided dice gives us 36 possible throws.\n\nPossible combinations equalling 7:\n\nDie 1\tDie 2\n1\t6\n2\t5\n3\t4\n4\t3\n5\t2\n6\t1\n\nTotal combinations:  6\nProbability = combinations equalling 7 / all possible combos\n= 6 / 36 = 1 / 6 = 16.6%.\n\nFollowing these calculations, rolls of 2 or a 12 would each have a\nprobability 1 / 36.  I agree that these are much less probable than\nrolling a 7 (the most probable roll with two six sided dice), but it seems\nthat 1 / 6 is still against the odds, if you consider \"against the odds\"\nto mean less than 50%."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Wow, you are right!\n\nWhat was I thinking?\n\nWell, I was working off the fact that in games involving two dice, 7 is\nthe middle of the bell curve.  I was erroneously thinking in terms of the\nodds of rolling >= 7 or <= 7 (which is a 58% probability), rather than\njust 7.\n\nWith regard to the text I was also puzzled as to why a 7 would mean death,\nwhen, for example, there are 10 men.  Up until the moment I typed it in, I\nsort of thought there were only 7 men, and the dice were saying how many\nwould die (all, in this case); but the dice tell a group fate, not a\nfractional amount (all die or none die).  On my first reading I thought he\nwas supposed to roll a number related to the number of crewmen, like, say\n= 8 (42% chance).\n\nEven as I was typing it in this evening, and there was a glimpse of the\ntruth (that rolling a 7 really is a 1/6 chance), I veered away from this\nand into the notion \"Why not just use one die, if one-in-six is the\ndesired probability -- then the roll of a =1= would make the whole thing\nquite obvious.\"  And the waste of a perfectly nice bellcurve (as opposed\nto the \"flat\" curve of a single die)!\n\n(The reason why one-in-six is important is made clear in the text: that is\nthe fatality rate for sunmen.)\n\nThe reason why a 7 means death is because that is the only way to squeeze\nout a 1 in 6 chance out of two dice!\n\nAnyway, I was wrong.  Thanks for correcting me! (I still wonder why\nHarness would choose to use =two= dice when one die would work better.\nWell, work better for =me=, at least!)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Addendum: we both arrived independently at the notion that Harness is\nprobably talking about the dice game \"craps,\" which, in the\npre-wargaming/pre-rpg world, was the most common exposure to dice games.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nHas Moved To\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}