Coin flipping.
Hi all,
here is the location of my ruby script for flipping coins (that is, when you run it you will hit the enter key whenever you feel like it, which will re-seed the random number generator and yield either a "+" (positive) or a "-" (negative). Feel free to play with it here:
http://www.greatblondelf.com/sustain/number_guesser.rb
I would like to use this to explore non-random sequences of events. Specifically, I'd like people to run this code, and hit the button while trying to get positive results to come up, and then email me (at gmail, this same handle) the text file produced.
Now, you do have to have a ruby interpreter to run it, but if anyone out there would be so kind as to give it a shot, I'd be appreciative.
Oh, since I plan to do some careful analyses of these runs, a few things are absolutely imperative, if you're going to send me a text file:
0. Erase the output text file before beginning the run (so a new file is created).
1. Decide beforehand which run is going to be the one you'll send, and send the text file without fail, at the end, even if the result does not look good.
2. Decide beforehand how many button presses to use, and make sure to carry through with that many. (like, say, 50 or 100 presses).
3. Try to concentrate on getting positive results all the way through the experiment.
These things are of absolute importance to avoid "incorrect reporting," where the subject "waits for a positive result" to end the experiment, skewing the statistics in the end. It's important that you don't "change your mind" in any way after seeing the results.
Thanks a million!
here is the location of my ruby script for flipping coins (that is, when you run it you will hit the enter key whenever you feel like it, which will re-seed the random number generator and yield either a "+" (positive) or a "-" (negative). Feel free to play with it here:
http://www.greatblondelf.com/sustain/number_guesser.rb
I would like to use this to explore non-random sequences of events. Specifically, I'd like people to run this code, and hit the button while trying to get positive results to come up, and then email me (at gmail, this same handle) the text file produced.
Now, you do have to have a ruby interpreter to run it, but if anyone out there would be so kind as to give it a shot, I'd be appreciative.
Oh, since I plan to do some careful analyses of these runs, a few things are absolutely imperative, if you're going to send me a text file:
0. Erase the output text file before beginning the run (so a new file is created).
1. Decide beforehand which run is going to be the one you'll send, and send the text file without fail, at the end, even if the result does not look good.
2. Decide beforehand how many button presses to use, and make sure to carry through with that many. (like, say, 50 or 100 presses).
3. Try to concentrate on getting positive results all the way through the experiment.
These things are of absolute importance to avoid "incorrect reporting," where the subject "waits for a positive result" to end the experiment, skewing the statistics in the end. It's important that you don't "change your mind" in any way after seeing the results.
Thanks a million!