Chapter 10

Module 10 has definitely been the hardest one to personalize for me. It’s very dry, but I’ll do my best.

The book mentions a game at the county fair as an example of decomposition. This reminded me of a giant debate I’ve had across several social circles. The question is, if you roll two six-sided dice, is the total of the two numbers more likely to be odd or even? My answer is it’s 50/50. The example I use to explain it is if I roll one die and it comes up 3, 50% of the numbers make it even, and 50% of the numbers make it odd when added together. I’ve gotten dozens of different answers to this question including from someone who worked at a casino, and he insisted it’s more likely to be even. I’d be curious to see the data on the answers I’ve gotten.

One thing that is slightly easier to relate to is how websites harvest data about you. While I don’t use Facebook much, they infamously settled a $725 million lawsuit regarding personal data. In class, we were shown how web browser cookies are used to change the advertisements you see on web pages. While I don’t love the idea of hyper specific advertising, I think it’s a lot less harmful than a company potentially selling my personal information to advertisers.

I’ve recently made a TikTok account, and the more I use it the more I notice its algorithm changing the content based on data it’s received from me. My friend and I had a conversation about the voice actor who plays Bender from Futurama, and without searching or typing anything about that actor into TikTok, the next time I used it I was getting videos about him. Maybe it’s a weird coincidence but it was oddly specific.