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User talk:DemiserofD

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Crab Pots

Hi Demiser -- regarding your recent edit to the Crab Pot page, what is an "open hand"? I honestly have no idea what this refers to. Can you please specify? Thank you! margotbean (talk) 15:33, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello; an empty hand, an open hand, a hand with nothing in it. You do have to make sure you have enough free spaces that you don't inadvertently fill your hand with fish or trash, but otherwise it works perfectly. Note; I do use the PC version, so I'm only certain it works there. DemiserofD (talk) 18:09, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

That makes a lot more sense than collecting fish with one hand on the Nintendo Switch and the other hand petting your cat or playing with a Fidget Spinner.  :D
Thanks for clarifying that! margotbean (talk) 18:24, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Fertilizer

The numbers are not "my numbers" they are the numbers found in the game code. It might be helpful to you to do an internet search on how random number generation in computers is never truly random. margotbean (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter; even computer 'random numbers' approximate randonomity, which is is failing to do, beyond any reasonable probability of doubt. You're missing something, somewhere.DemiserofD (talk) 11:26, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Margotbean, I know you're a big advocate of reading the code, and I genuinely grant you its usefulness. But I must point out again its weaknesses also. Humans do not think like automatons. Engineers (I was one once) release code, tested as best possible, only to have a customer come back and say it's not working right. Then many eyes start reading the code again, sometimes for hours, sometimes without finding what they're looking for. It's just not a rarity to miss stuff, even when it's not a bug you're looking for. And DemiserofD is right that in computing common practices are all pseudo-randomness, not real randomness. One of the best things you can take away from reading code is a sense of the programmer's intent. And I'm sure that's what you have.
However, to be scientific with probability is to be mathematical. If one wants to look at the probability of errors in probability theory, one will soon be squinting through microscopes to locate anything of comparable size. Hardly so with computer code. So I would say that the coding intent for the game may well have been what you say, but mathematical probability says that its pseudo-random properties have caused it to deviate from true randomness, and we now have a reasonable data set from which to conclude what are the actual median outcomes the code produces. That's what the Wiki user is looking for, not a theoretical value based only on the source code. Butterbur (talk) 15:20, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
I again extend my invitation to both of you to look at the source code for yourselves and find any errors. margotbean (talk) 16:17, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
My point isn't that your viewing of the source code is inaccurate, just that it's not *useful*. If the wiki page says that the chances are one thing, but reality is different, then what use is the wiki page to actual players of the game? DemiserofD (talk) 10:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I grant you, the page may not be terribly helpful to you on your machine, but we need to see the numbers deviate on more than one machine before we add a note to the page. If 20 users found the same results, then we'd have something. Until then, it's merely anecdotal evidence, no matter how thoroughly it was analyzed. margotbean (talk) 16:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
This is a narrow view, Margotbean. If one occurrence does not satisfy, it still does not require 20 to prove the behavior, and the behavior is still what matters. The evidence is not "merely anecdotal". It simply arises from one experiment. But that experiment, nicely analyzed, yields results that ought to rivet your attention, for if true, they commandingly put the lie to the published stats. Let the experiment be repeated on another machine. That is what scientists would do. But I don't think we'll need to go quite to full scientific lengths to prove the point before the evidence would be sufficient to include it on this Wiki, right?
So, DemiserofD, what machine did you run the test on? And where do I find the description of the test? Butterbur (talk) 05:14, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
All I did was plant 700 pepper plants with basic fertilizer and farming level 10, and collect them all four times, and count the number of each quality that I got. Using a windows 10 computer with an i5-6300 and a 1060. Results were: 1156 gold, 1225 silver, 510 regular, 2891 combined. ~40% gold, ~42.5% silver, ~17.5% regular. DemiserofD (talk) 14:09, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Ok, great, thanks. But your analysis found that an equal percentage distribution in a sample of 600 was already evidence for overwhelmingly improbable skew. So I propose to collect 600 crop count, in line with the limit of the analysis.
My machine is a Windows 10 computer (on Steam) with an i7 8-processor, unfortunately not too different from yours, but at least somewhat different computational hardware. To introduce more variety in factors that theoretically should not influence the results, I propose to grow 600 parsnips: different crop, non-repeatable, different season. If this sounds like a reasonable verification test to you, I'll go ahead.
Margotbean, I would like to remind you that it is a known fact that common computing randomization techniques do not produce true random results. You must realize, then, that reading the code is useless for determining the distribution of results. Empirical means such as these tests are the only possible way to do so. And surely you must realize that empirical methods are not scientifically invalid. The sum total of scientific evidence could be described as "anecdotal" in the sense that it is experiential, but it's a carefully controlled, observed, and analysed experience. A demand for basing everything upon a reading of the code, however, is illogical. I don't discount its usefulness either, but it's not a universal remedy. Butterbur (talk) 16:14, 11 November 2017 (UTC)