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Bring a micrometer screw gauge to the table, and test everyone's dice for regularity. Discard any that exceed acceptable limits.

MikeMcSomething wrote:Putting dice in a special cup, jiggling it in little circles or whatever, or forcing your opponent to wait while he watches you sift through your dice for ones that you think have special powers isn't the wargaming equivalent of enlightenment. It's just slowed.

Some would argue that pointless superstitions add flavour to the game.

Foxtale wrote:

MikeMcSomething wrote:Putting dice in a special cup, jiggling it in little circles or whatever, or forcing your opponent to wait while he watches you sift through your dice for ones that you think have special powers isn't the wargaming equivalent of enlightenment. It's just slowed.

Some would argue that pointless superstitions add flavour to the game.

Those people are very silly!

Psyker_9er wrote:True, there are plenty of reasonable arguments AGAINST the concept of luck or using rituals and yadda yadda...
The difference between those of us who still listen to the voices from the corners of our minds, and those who listen to the voices of long dead scientists:

We still have hope, and have plenty of room to grow. Those who stick to the laws of others have already given up, and bound by those laws they shall go no further.

There's plenty of excitement and wonder in the world without dreaming of magic dice.

Kilkrazy wrote:
Bring a micrometer screw gauge to the table, and test everyone's dice for regularity. Steal any that exceed acceptable limits.

Fix'd that for you.

At any rate, this is getting silly. Everyone knows that dice have the same probablility of coming up with any number on a face. If this wasn't the case, no-one would use them.

We also know that if any of these bizzare rituals actually influenced the outcome of the dice roll, you can bet your life casinos would ban them within 5 seconds.

I suppose all that's left is for someone to build a spreadsheet proving it...

ph34r wrote:

Psyker_9er wrote:The difference between those of us who still listen to the voices from the corners of our minds, and those who listen to the voices of long dead scientists:

We still have hope, and have plenty of room to grow. Those who stick to the laws of others have already given up, and bound by those laws they shall go no further.

Sweet. Time to ignore logic, reason, and fact, just because the truth is constricting! Fight da powa! Down with those evil scientists!

Psyker_9er, that has got to be the dumbest post I've read all month. Congrats, I'm pretty sure there is an award for that somewhere.

Thanks, glad I can entertain you. will there be a ceremony when I am given my award? Should I write a speech?

Science is not always correct by the way. It has been wrong before, and what might have been called logical at one point in the past, has been wrong as well. Any time any one dared to push those boundaries before, they too where laughed at with scorn... If they stopped dreaming, rolled over and obeyed the laws set down by others we would never have flown off the ground, the world would still be considered flat, we never would have personal computers, or many of the medical cures we have today...

I am not "ignoring" science, I am simply doing the experiments for myself. Instead of drowning in the flood of information society has deemed "truth", I am searching for it myself.

You have a very skewed idea of what science involves.

Dastardly Dave wrote:
At any rate, this is getting silly. Everyone knows that dice have the same probablility of coming up with any number on a face. If this wasn't the case, no-one would use them.

They don't, though. There's been a lot of research that shows that most 'gaming dice' are not square by an amount such that certain faces will come up more often after the thousands of rolls. Theoretically perfect dice should be even, or close to it, after thousands of rolls.

Some dice are better, but there's almost always limits to manufacturing.

Personally, I don't sweat it, but that's just me.

Dastardly Dave wrote:
We also know that if any of these bizzare rituals actually influenced the outcome of the dice roll, you can bet your life casinos would ban them within 5 seconds.

Or if they do, perhaps casinos have rooms of 'dice hexers' that work tirelessly to adjust the luck of dice before they go out on the tables?

Dastardly Dave wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
Bring a micrometer screw gauge to the table, and test everyone's dice for regularity. Steal any that exceed acceptable limits.

Fix'd that for you.

At any rate, this is getting silly. Everyone knows that dice have the same probablility of coming up with any number on a face. If this wasn't the case, no-one would use them.

We also know that if any of these bizzare rituals actually influenced the outcome of the dice roll, you can bet your life casinos would ban them within 5 seconds.

I suppose all that's left is for someone to build a spreadsheet proving it...

What I am saying is that there is good theoretical and research basis to believe that dice do not roll randomly if their construction is asymmetrical in certain respects.

If you care about it enough to worry, then precision engineering tools are available to sort the bad dice.

Personally I feel that most people in 40K are rolling handfuls of completely un-individualistic dice, so worrying about slight imperfections of individual examples is pointless, until you see someone carefully choosing their special dice for particular throws.

I have two cubes. One of them went to Platinum Devil, and a cube came back, damn me if I know whether all the dice in it were the ones I took with me... As far as I remember, everyone I played was using GW dice cubes.

Foxtale wrote:

MikeMcSomething wrote:Putting dice in a special cup, jiggling it in little circles or whatever, or forcing your opponent to wait while he watches you sift through your dice for ones that you think have special powers isn't the wargaming equivalent of enlightenment. It's just slowed.

Some would argue that pointless superstitions add flavour to the game.

Rolls like "OH SNAP TIME FOR THIS IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP ROLL! GET EVERYONE IN THE STORE HERE TO CHECK THIS OUT...WHAT AM I GONNA ROLL? THIS WILL BE GREAT" etc etc add flavor and (exaggerated) dramatic tension to the game.

Being forced to watch some genius sift through his dice like he has the magical formula to make leadership rolls? It's obnoxious, and makes the player look slowed. These are usually the same people that whine about junk like "Well YOUR plasma guns never self-wound but MINE always do!" etc etc. You might as well be throwing salt over your shoulder.

Psyker_9er wrote:Thanks, glad I can entertain you. will there be a ceremony when I am given my award? Should I write a speech?

Science is not always correct by the way. It has been wrong before, and what might have been called logical at one point in the past, has been wrong as well. Any time any one dared to push those boundaries before, they too where laughed at with scorn... If they stopped dreaming, rolled over and obeyed the laws set down by others we would never have flown off the ground, the world would still be considered flat, we never would have personal computers, or many of the medical cures we have today...

I am not "ignoring" science, I am simply doing the experiments for myself. Instead of drowning in the flood of information society has deemed "truth", I am searching for it myself.

I'm not sure about a ceremony, but a speech is always good. You could use it to expand on your irrational hatred of science that has been proven time and time again. Perhaps you could also announce any findings you have on the effects of whispering magic words to your dice on the roll outcomes.

Your fear of established science is not normal.

asmith wrote:You have a very skewed idea of what science involves.

ph34r wrote:Your fear of established science is not normal.

Thank you both, I generally get a very similar response from people I meet... Maybe not about science, but in general...

ph34r wrote:I'm not sure about a ceremony, but a speech is always good. You could use it to expand on your irrational hatred of science that has been proven time and time again. Perhaps you could also announce any findings you have on the effects of whispering magic words to your dice on the roll outcomes.

I actually am currently conducting a study about the effects of what might be called "luck". You are all cordially invited; all are welcome. It is a group project and right now we are in the gathering info phase to help categorize different types of luck. I included the link in my signature incase you missed me posting the link earlier.

I personally don't think the words "fear" and "hatred" describe my feelings of "established" science. More like distrust or discontent. But that is how I feel about "established" anything really. Even established religion. I am not poking fun at people with faith, just as long as they don't try to force their beliefs on to others. Have faith in something because it is what feels right to you, not because some one else told you to or else.

Same can be said for science. Have faith in facts because those are the ones you obtained for yourself. Take this scenario for example:
5th Grade science teacher says plants need light to live. Instead of insisting the kids take his word for it, he takes out two plants and puts one of them in a dark closet. One month later, WAAAGH LA! The plant in the dark room dies. Now the kids know for sure that plants need light to live. Does it stop there? Do ALL plants need light to live? These kids can go on believing that plants need light until some one else tells them that there are some plants that actually thrive in darkness. Or they can find out for themselves through their own research and experiments.

That is just a generalized summary of an example, but it conveys the basic thought I am trying to relay. Find out for yourself.

To move more towards the topic at hand, I will end with a joke:

Orks believe vehemently that red ones go faster, therefore they do... What if we painted all our dice red?

Psyker_9er wrote:Orks believe vehemently that red ones go faster, therefore they do... What if we painted all our dice red?

the dice would roll faster?

Psyker_9er wrote:Thank you both, I generally get a very similar response from people I meet... Maybe not about science, but in general...

Have you considered the crazy conspiracy that instead of everyone else being wrong, perhaps you are just wrong?

Psyker_9er wrote:Same can be said for science. Have faith in facts because those are the ones you obtained for yourself. Take this scenario for example:
5th Grade science teacher says plants need light to live. Instead of insisting the kids take his word for it, he takes out two plants and puts one of them in a dark closet. One month later, WAAAGH LA! The plant in the dark room dies. Now the kids know for sure that plants need light to live. Does it stop there? Do ALL plants need light to live? These kids can go on believing that plants need light until some one else tells them that there are some plants that actually thrive in darkness. Or they can find out for themselves through their own research and experiments.

You can't reasonably refuse to believe everything you haven't seen for yourself. You would disbelieve all historical events if that were the case. You could chose to dismiss all sorts of science because you don't have the capability to reproduce experiments in your garden shed. The only 'faith' you should have in science is that scientists reporting something are reporting truthfully and not attempting to deceive, and even then you are expected to query things and examine methods and other work. And the vast majority of genuine scientists are honest, they aren't attempting to deceive or distort results due to some agenda. Furthermore, all fundamental ideas are independently corroborated by other scientists.

What's you suggestion to these hypothetical children then? That they test every plant in existence before accepting that plants need light to live?

ph34r wrote:

Psyker_9er wrote:Thank you both, I generally get a very similar response from people I meet... Maybe not about science, but in general...

Have you considered the crazy conspiracy that instead of everyone else being wrong, perhaps you are just wrong?

Yes, I have thought about it. The same can be said to you, the same could be said to any one... But I would rather go to my grave trying to find out for myself.

Howard A Treesong wrote:You can't reasonably refuse to believe everything you haven't seen for yourself. You would disbelieve all historical events if that were the case. You could chose to dismiss all sorts of science because you don't have the capability to reproduce experiments in your garden shed. The only 'faith' you should have in science is that scientists reporting something are reporting truthfully and not attempting to deceive, and even then you are expected to query things and examine methods and other work. And the vast majority of genuine scientists are honest, they aren't attempting to deceive or distort results due to some agenda. Furthermore, all fundamental ideas are independently corroborated by other scientists.

What's you suggestion to these hypothetical children then? That they test every plant in existence before accepting that plants need light to live?

Well, as I said:

Psyker_9er wrote:That is just a generalized summary of an example, but it conveys the basic thought I am trying to relay. Find out for yourself.

So it was not the very best example I could give with 10 minutes to go before I clock out from work. But the basic idea still stands: Find out for yourself!

Since you mentioned it, yes, I do have an issue with established history lessons too. For this simple fact: History is written by the victorious. So you wont get the full story just from sitting in a class room. Government funded schooling is a good source of propaganda too, since obviously the government giving the lessons where the victorious ones. Like the lessons taught about any of the world wars will have differences depending on which continent your school is built on. Same basic timelines, but different key points. Since I am an American, I could choose to believe everything I am told about America being the good guy in school, or I can dig deeper on my own and find out why the other world powers did the things the way they did.

I know science is only trying to find the truth and only report the truth. I get that. I know I don't even have 1/100 of the equipment in my garden shed that they do in their labs. But the one thing I have that they don't is my brain. Perhaps they might be looking at the data with the wrong frame of mind, perhaps they might not have thought of all the possible variables to thoroughly conduct an experiment. Most of the stuff they do with all that fancy equipment I will go ahead and say, "Sure, I think that might be it after all" or even "Sounds good, keep up the good work guys" Stuff like atomic weight, nuclear bombs, electricity, indoor plumping, blah bah blah... Some things just don't sit right with me though, so I set out to try and find the answers for myself.

Dogmatic laws from the math of probabilities, like what we are discussing on this topic, don't quite feel right in my mind. Therefore I am looking to find the answer for myself. Many studies have been done, many fancy machines have been utilized, and every scientist has sworn an oath to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth... But I feel there is more to it than what I have been told, so I will keep digging.

Psyker_9er wrote:

ph34r wrote:

Psyker_9er wrote:Thank you both, I generally get a very similar response from people I meet... Maybe not about science, but in general...

Have you considered the crazy conspiracy that instead of everyone else being wrong, perhaps you are just wrong?

Yes, I have thought about it. The same can be said to you, the same could be said to any one... But I would rather go to my grave trying to find out for myself.

Howard A Treesong wrote:You can't reasonably refuse to believe everything you haven't seen for yourself. You would disbelieve all historical events if that were the case. You could chose to dismiss all sorts of science because you don't have the capability to reproduce experiments in your garden shed. The only 'faith' you should have in science is that scientists reporting something are reporting truthfully and not attempting to deceive, and even then you are expected to query things and examine methods and other work. And the vast majority of genuine scientists are honest, they aren't attempting to deceive or distort results due to some agenda. Furthermore, all fundamental ideas are independently corroborated by other scientists.

What's you suggestion to these hypothetical children then? That they test every plant in existence before accepting that plants need light to live?

Well, as I said:

Psyker_9er wrote:That is just a generalized summary of an example, but it conveys the basic thought I am trying to relay. Find out for yourself.

So it was not the very best example I could give with 10 minutes to go before I clock out from work. But the basic idea still stands: Find out for yourself!

Since you mentioned it, yes, I do have an issue with established history lessons too. For this simple fact: History is written by the victorious. So you wont get the full story just from sitting in a class room. Government funded schooling is a good source of propaganda too, since obviously the government giving the lessons where the victorious ones. Like the lessons taught about any of the world wars will have differences depending on which continent your school is built on. Same basic timelines, but different key points. Since I am an American, I could choose to believe everything I am told about America being the good guy in school, or I can dig deeper on my own and find out why the other world powers did the things the way they did.

I know science is only trying to find the truth and only report the truth. I get that. I know I don't even have 1/100 of the equipment in my garden shed that they do in their labs. But the one thing I have that they don't is my brain. Perhaps they might be looking at the data with the wrong frame of mind, perhaps they might not have thought of all the possible variables to thoroughly conduct an experiment. Most of the stuff they do with all that fancy equipment I will go ahead and say, "Sure, I think that might be it after all" or even "Sounds good, keep up the good work guys" Stuff like atomic weight, nuclear bombs, electricity, indoor plumping, blah bah blah... Some things just don't sit right with me though, so I set out to try and find the answers for myself.

Dogmatic laws from the math of probabilities, like what we are discussing on this topic, don't quite feel right in my mind. Therefore I am looking to find the answer for myself. Many studies have been done, many fancy machines have been utilized, and every scientist has sworn an oath to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth... But I feel there is more to it than what I have been told, so I will keep digging.

But dig deeper into what, your experiences with your time machine? At some point you have to realize 1) There is not enough time in your lifetime to "prove" everything with your own eyes, even stuff you might actually be capable of reproducing. 2) Some stuff is impossible, and I mean IMPOSSIBLE for you to experience first hand. Do you simply dismiss that as being untrue? Do you simply not care about stuff you cannot experience first hand? I support the sentiment to not take everything at face value, your argument as to why you should do this is fundamentally ridiculous. Instead of saying you need to observe stuff yourself, you should probably be more concerned with understanding fundamental logic and reason, so that you can immediately discern what is likely to be accurate, and what is not. Your "Feelings" on something are honestly irrelevant when you can't come up with a logical reason, observable proof supporting the idea or even a good freaking story about why a die is more likely to roll a 6 after you roll 5 1's in a row.

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Foxtale wrote:

MikeMcSomething wrote:Putting dice in a special cup, jiggling it in little circles or whatever, or forcing your opponent to wait while he watches you sift through your dice for ones that you think have special powers isn't the wargaming equivalent of enlightenment. It's just slowed.

Some would argue that pointless superstitions add flavour to the game.

Rolls like "OH SNAP TIME FOR THIS IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP ROLL! GET EVERYONE IN THE STORE HERE TO CHECK THIS OUT...WHAT AM I GONNA ROLL? THIS WILL BE GREAT" etc etc add flavor and (exaggerated) dramatic tension to the game.

Being forced to watch some genius sift through his dice like he has the magical formula to make leadership rolls? It's obnoxious, and makes the player look slowed. These are usually the same people that whine about junk like "Well YOUR plasma guns never self-wound but MINE always do!" etc etc. You might as well be throwing salt over your shoulder.

Oh yeah, but if we didn't have superstition, those people would find some other way to be annoying.

Magister187 wrote:But dig deeper into what, your experiences with your time machine? At some point you have to realize 1) There is not enough time in your lifetime to "prove" everything with your own eyes, even stuff you might actually be capable of reproducing. 2) Some stuff is impossible, and I mean IMPOSSIBLE for you to experience first hand. Do you simply dismiss that as being untrue? Do you simply not care about stuff you cannot experience first hand? I support the sentiment to not take everything at face value, your argument as to why you should do this is fundamentally ridiculous. Instead of saying you need to observe stuff yourself, you should probably be more concerned with understanding fundamental logic and reason, so that you can immediately discern what is likely to be accurate, and what is not. Your "Feelings" on something are honestly irrelevant when you can't come up with a logical reason, observable proof supporting the idea or even a good freaking story about why a die is more likely to roll a 6 after you roll 5 1's in a row.

You guys are a hoot... You really are

1) Sure, there may not be enough time in MY lifetime and I may never find the answers I am looking for, but I'm not going to just give up and stop trying because people on the Internet think I am foolish for doing so.

2) Lots of things might be impossible, but who says so? Let me be the judge of what I can or can not do. I will decided how to spend my life trying to discover what is fact or fiction. If I can't experience something first hand, true or untrue, what impact does it really have on my life in the first place? Lots of things I will just take at face value because I do actually understand the fundamentals of logic and reason, and quite well... But instead of stopping there I am trudging forward. I am in no way ignorant of the challenges, ridicule, or hardships I may face simply because of my chosen life style.

3) As I mentioned twice before, you are all welcome to take part in my experiment, so I am trying to provide, as you say: "logical reason, observable proof supporting the idea or even a good freaking story about why a die is more likely to roll a 6 after you roll 5 1's in a row." The link is in my signature. You can accept the challenge to a game of luck, or you can continue with your chosen path of life... As I will continue on mine.

Foxtale wrote:

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Foxtale wrote:

MikeMcSomething wrote:Putting dice in a special cup, jiggling it in little circles or whatever, or forcing your opponent to wait while he watches you sift through your dice for ones that you think have special powers isn't the wargaming equivalent of enlightenment. It's just slowed.

Some would argue that pointless superstitions add flavour to the game.

Rolls like "OH SNAP TIME FOR THIS IMPORTANT LEADERSHIP ROLL! GET EVERYONE IN THE STORE HERE TO CHECK THIS OUT...WHAT AM I GONNA ROLL? THIS WILL BE GREAT" etc etc add flavor and (exaggerated) dramatic tension to the game.

Being forced to watch some genius sift through his dice like he has the magical formula to make leadership rolls? It's obnoxious, and makes the player look slowed. These are usually the same people that whine about junk like "Well YOUR plasma guns never self-wound but MINE always do!" etc etc. You might as well be throwing salt over your shoulder.

Oh yeah, but if we didn't have superstition, those people would find some other way to be annoying.

That's very possible, but I would prefer they had one less tool at their disposal!

And anyone engaging with that Psyker guy is just feeding the trolls.

MikeMcSomething wrote:That's very possible, but I would prefer they had one less tool at their disposal!
And anyone engaging with that Psyker guy is just feeding the trolls.

derr dee derr i'm a troll la la la i comunicate with 3rd grade name calling school yard shenanigans blah blah troll troll dooo deee dooo

My opinion happens to be different from yours, get over it. Life would be very boring if every one just walked around agreeing with everyone else. If you don't want to read my comments then don't. It is a free cyber country, go read some other thread if you want... I'm still trudging through your stuff. The same recycled holier than thou dribble that most people like to spit out on to the topic of probabilities... But because I have something different to say I'm a troll...

I'm not afraid to express myself and stand up for what I believe in, so therefore I must be a troll... My opinion is not the same as yours and this makes me a troll too... Many of you have asked for proof of being able to change dice rolls, so I created a topic to try and provide some proof, but I'm a troll so I understand if you don't want to take place in that experiment... Through slander, scoffs, name calling, and abuse I still stand firm with my side of the debate because I'm a troll and that is what trolls do.... GRRR I'm a troll... Grrr

Psyker_9er wrote:3) As I mentioned twice before, you are all welcome to take part in my experiment, so I am trying to provide, as you say: "logical reason, observable proof supporting the idea or even a good freaking story about why a die is more likely to roll a 6 after you roll 5 1's in a row." The link is in my signature. You can accept the challenge to a game of luck, or you can continue with your chosen path of life... As I will continue on mine.

If a die throws five 1s in a row then it's not more likely to throw a six next time. I don't know what you are trying to question, the laws of reality or physics. If anything is starting to being indicated by throwing five 1s, it's that the die has a bias making it it throw ones. If the die has a bias then it's definitely not 'more likely' to roll a six next time. And if it's a fair die, well by definition it's not more likely to roll any number any more than any other. To claim otherwise in either case is just bizarre.

Some things you can discover for yourself, sure, but many simple things you can read in a book. A basic grasp of statistics and probability would help. You say that you understand the fundamentals of logic and reason, well why the gross failure here?

Because he doesn't understand the fundamentals of logic and reason, obviously.

Of course, the easy way to do it would be to get a job in a casino, but just going by his posting tone it's going to be a good few years before that would be legal.

Speaking from that perspective though, you see some amazing runs of luck (since we're talking about dice, I'll use craps) where someone's dice seem to be really on fire, that every time they need a number, they roll it. While watching it happen you can't stop yourself from think, 'wow, that guy's got good luck.' It's not until you take a step back and consider all the players for day that you see that that one's guys spike was expected.

Because if luck was truly an applicable power, the casinos
are where you'd see it manifest. If it's an application of will, of need or desire, given the incentives to get the dice to come up in your favor, that is where you'd see it happen, not over a wargame.

It is possible actually to study mathematics and see how the probability equations are derived by proofs given in the text books.

If you disbelieve that, there is the option of discarding all mathematical knowledge developed in the past 5,000 years, and building your own system of mathematics from first principles.

Bookwrack wrote:Speaking from that perspective though, you see some amazing runs of luck (since we're talking about dice, I'll use craps) where someone's dice seem to be really on fire, that every time they need a number, they roll it. While watching it happen you can't stop yourself from think, 'wow, that guy's got good luck.' It's not until you take a step back and consider all the players for day that you see that that one's guys spike was expected.

A lot of superstitions of the kind suggested in this thread come about through Confirmation Bias. People remember what they did when they got lucky and believe they have identified a pattern, further successes are remembered, failures forgotten and the incorrectly identified pattern is reinforced.

It's why water dowsers and the like convince themselves they can actually find sources of water, when testing has shown they can only identify water sources at an average equal to guessing. When I've seen them tested and they get it right, they are thrilled by their abilities, but when they fail it's all excuses, "I must be having an off day", "I wasn't able to stand directly over the buckets", "It doesn't work if there's metal around"...

Howard A Treesong wrote:
One roll is independent of another. That fact that you have rolled one six makes no difference to the fact that next time you roll the dice you still have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a six.

Interestingly, there is no mathematical proof for this.
This is assumed to be true, accepted to be true, and in a great deal of studies, shown to be true in the context of those studies.
The assumption of causation is an argument of philosophy, backed up with a great deal of observation.

If the dice are random (which they aren't), the Statisticians belief in this philosophy will tell you it doesn't matter which die you roll, and your chances are the same for the 21st 6th as it is for the 20th 6th.

Whole branches of mathematics have been created by looking at what is assumed to be true, and making another assumption. In basic geometry, if you have a line, and a point, you can draw exactly one line through that point that parallels the first line. In two other branches of geometry, you can draw zero lines, or an infinite number of lines.

So for everyone who says, go take a statistics class; I agree. Go take one if you haven't. Then go take another few math classes, and some philosophy. If you can find a philosophy of mathematics class, I would highly recommend that as well.


On a side note, anyone notice that GW's little red and white dice roll hot (meaning high)? A physicist buddy of mine noticed it and we tracked out a few thousand rolls; (on a rainy day, with a few growlers of beer). At least rolling on felt that covered our steel table top (it kept magnetized models from sliding during a game), those dice rolled a statically significant higher number of 5's and 6's than you should expect. We had a very large pool of those dice, something like 300 or 400 hundred of them, that really sped up turning out the large number of total rolls. We quickly made a house rule, that if you used those dice, it was all or nothing. If you used those dice, you had to use them for everything (rolls that you want low results, as well as roll that you want high).
It is good to note rolling surface. I read a study on rolling where an artificial machine rolling on one surface produced a different outcome than another surface. Dice rolled individually instead of in groups also produced different results.

Whenever I see a player with two sets of dice (these are to hit, wound and save; these are characteristic tests and break tests), I tend to believe they are cheating. While it might just be their belief, it is very possible that they have found high dice and low dice.

On the other side, if you use GW's red measuring stick that is exactly 25mm per inch, instead of 25.4, the higher dice might become insignificant compared to the quarter of an inch that you lose out in shooting and movement.


-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:On a side note, anyone notice that GW's little red and white dice roll hot (meaning high)?

The most amusing thing about this post is that a year or so back we had someone with too much time and too many GW dice on his hands, posting about how his studies showed that GW dice were much more likely to roll a 1.

Bookwrack wrote:The most amusing thing about this post is that a year or so back we had someone with too much time and too many GW dice on his hands, posting about how his studies showed that GW dice were much more likely to roll a 1.

I don't recall, but all dice will have a bias because they are not perfect, so that is believable. They aren't exactly cube shaped, they can contain air bubbles, the corners are squiffy, the dots effectively mean the weight it unequally distributed. But the die will always have that bias whether we know it or not. The hypothesis on this thread is that the specific result of one die throw will influence the result of a second cast of the die, which doesn't make any sense...at all.

As I said earlier, it's like someone winning the lottery one week, and then asking if they are more or less likely to win it again the next week if you buy one ticket just as they always do. Anyone saying that the person stands a smaller chance of winning than anyone else buying a single ticket is just wrong.

To turn this idea on its head, rather than a situation where people want to create a linking factor where there is none, people also can't spot a linking factor where there is one. There was a famous case where a woman was locked up for killing two of her children on two separate occasions. She claimed cot death for both but the "expert witness" said that the odds of dying from cot death were 8500:1. Not tiny then, cot deaths certainly do occur and you wouldn't think it suspicious, just unusual. But this pig ignorant "expert witness" then claimed that two cot deaths were unlikely because the odds of it happening twice were 1:8500 x 1:8500 or 73 million to one. Which is fantastically small, so she probably murdered them. And the entire court heard this and the judge and defence and jury didn't see the obvious flaw and convicted her.

Across the whole population, there's a 1 in 8500 chance of cot death, sure. But the whole population includes people susceptible to cot death and people who are not, but the broad average is 1 in 8500, it doesn't account for specific individuals. Once one child dies of cot death you have effectively identified a family which are susceptible, they were at greater risk to begin with not the average for the whole population. And the fact that it occurs again is not 1 in 8500, as two children are so closely related the odds of them suffering the same affliction is quite high. Probably still a rare event and very unfortunate, but nowhere near the 73 million to 1 claimed. Of course she was innocent but she was locked up for three years. Furthermore, Roy Meadow and his abysmal application of statistics helped secure prosecutions against other women too.

Psyker_9er wrote:

ph34r wrote:

Psyker_9er wrote:Thank you both, I generally get a very similar response from people I meet... Maybe not about science, but in general...

Have you considered the crazy conspiracy that instead of everyone else being wrong, perhaps you are just wrong?

Yes, I have thought about it. The same can be said to you, the same could be said to any one... But I would rather go to my grave trying to find out for myself.

Oh, okay. How many degrees do you have, or are you in the process of getting, in that case? Or do you figure you can just "I feel this way" bs your way through advanced science?

from what i've seen in this thread, not too many folks know exactly what 'science' entails. what is accepted science evidence often varies wildly from lab to lab or experiment to experiment.

from what i've seen here, people act like experimentation, from hypothesis to conclusion, regardless of lab, agenda, funding, or method, results in consistently incontrovertible proofs that lay down immovable truths about the nature of the universe, but that's simply not so.

there may be labs being paid, for example, by pharmaceutical companies to establish that a certain chemical reacts with the brain past the blood barrier in a certain way, by binding with certain proteins that have C effect on, say, depression. across the street, lab B might be trying to prove that chemical binds with proteins, but not with results that lab A has claimed will happen. both labs will be able to write conclusions that support their agenda, because yes, money happens to pay for labs and lab workers, and yes, people like to have a paycheck at the end of the month. there are labs that can prove that cigarettes have numerous health benefits.

so skepticism of scientific conclusions is neither stupid nor should it be ridiculed, because skepticism is precisely what the method is based on. make a claim, prove it, and bob is your uncle. however, when lab B says drug Y doesn't work in spite of what lab A says, and both have lab reports and conclusions supporting the theory, the Pfizer is going to go with lab A's report and publish their results in their ads in People magazine because IT WILL SELL DRUGS.

that said, as far as things like statistics go, there is a huge body of both numerical and mathematical evidence to support that statistical analysis and laws of averages is correct. also, it's important to note that scientists (such a broad, ugly, and inaccurate word) are professionally vain and if they have a chance to prove something incorrect, they usually will. chalk one up in the Pro column for human folly.