Re: KDE v. Gnome

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#1005

From: Donal K. Fellows
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 00:00

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In article <bttuv6.59.ln@grapefruit.ndirect.co.uk>,
Mark Evans  <mark@grapefruit.ndirect.co.uk> wrote:
> It also shows the problem with average figures quoted on their
> own being misleading. Also without indication as to the average
> being the arithmetic mean, the mode or the median.

Or even the (little-used outside certain specialised applications not
including population studies) geometric mean.

> With arithmetic
> mean (which is often treated as synonymous with "average") being
> the least accurate way to summarise a diverse population.

It depends on the distribution.  However, if anyone is going to sling
about (arithmetic) means, then they should also say what the standard
deviation is.  At the very least, it lets people ascribe a confidence
to how good your figures are for the particular population you studied
(generalisations up from a sample to a whole population needs much
more subtlety, and I know too little of statistics to say more
knowledgefully...)

Donal.
-- 
Donal K. Fellows    http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/    fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K. +44-161-275-6137
--
If you staple a penguin to the head of a gnu, the result won't catch herring...

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From: fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk (Donal K. Fellows)
Subject: Re: KDE v. Gnome
Date: 1998/10/15
Message-ID: <704s30$hlf$1@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>
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References: <36210bb8.21864159@news.concentric.net> <908141707snz@vision25.demon.co.uk> <yq3emsdlelf.fsf@nasrullah.tchden.org> <bttuv6.59.ln@grapefruit.ndirect.co.uk>
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Manchester, U.K.
Newsgroups: uk.comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss

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