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thomblake comments on The Quick Bayes Table - Less Wrong Discussion

33 Post author: farsan 18 April 2012 06:00PM

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Comment author: thomblake 18 April 2012 06:44:18PM *  1 point [-]

Your odds ratios, and thus your decibels, are imprecise. I don't know if that was approximation on purpose to simplify calculation, or what?

For example, 1% is an odds ratio of 1:99, which is 10 * log(1/99) =~ -19.96.

Comment author: farsan 18 April 2012 06:53:01PM *  2 points [-]

Exactly, I used approximations on purpose, but the real approximated value in this case is the 1%. The ratio that actually gets -20 dB is 1:100.

I felt that getting approximated but round results was worth the imprecision. If I used values like -19.96 on the table, then people without the patience to handle maths wouldn't be able to use it as well.

Should I explain about the imprecisions of this table better in the article?

Comment author: thomblake 18 April 2012 06:59:59PM *  2 points [-]

It seems like the obvious thing to do, but it's worth having a tiny note that percent values are approximate, just because they look exact.

Comment author: farsan 18 April 2012 07:23:27PM 3 points [-]

Ok, note added.

Comment author: David_Gerard 18 April 2012 11:01:36PM -1 points [-]

It's a commonplace in sound that 6dB = twice the signal, even if it's actually 1.995.