Re: Every time ..., was Re: General formula

[Ed Gerck <egerck@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ben Laurie wrote:

> Ed Gerck wrote:
> > This also means that if you call someone and it is busy, you could call
> > right afterwards (just add the round-trip total delay time -- say, 5 sec)
> > and your sucess rate should be the same as if you would wait some
> > minutes (as people normally do).
> >
> > The reason in both cases is simple -- since phone statistics is given by
> > a Poison distribution and you don't know when the conversation actually
> > *started*, its end does not depend on the duration of your observation.
>
> I don't believe this for a moment. To take an extreme example, if people
> make, on average, 1 phone call a year, with a mean duration of 1 minute,
> then it is intuitively obvious that if I wait a day after they are busy,
> I have an almost 100% chance that they won't be busy,

Ben Laurie:

Is this how people really use the phone where you live? Is this "phone
statistics"? C'mon, give me a break-- and realize that the statistics of
your "extreme example" (what an understatement) is not even given by
a Poisson pdf.

> whereas 5 seconds
> later the chances are noticably less than 100%. Of course, I believe the
> second statement, but the first is not a consequence of it, IMNSHO.
>
> You're just making this stuff up as you go along, aren't you?

You remind me of a guy that drowned in a lake that had just one inch
of water depth, on average. Just too bad he did not realize it was an
average, though. Or, even, what an average was.

Since phone traffic statistic is hardly on-topic here, I might help you off
list if you consider this important for your understanding of certificate
lifetimes.

And, Ben, next time you don't understand something, just ask and say what
part of my text you did not understand. You don't need to become aggressive
in order to receive my reply.

Cheers,

Ed Gerck