Comments on: Help Me Catch My Big Break (TODAY ONLY!)

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:10:25 +0000

Ah, guess I couldn’t explain it well in words, i could have just put [47!]. Ah, Algebra II…

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:36:04 +0000

Wow, nice math skills Guy! I’m glad they didn’t employ the same formula for the “open” period before the quarter-finals, when there were 383 entries in the category. Instead they allowed 190, which isn’t such a big number when you spread it out over three weeks.

By: Guy

Guy — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:27:15 +0000

Mike: It’s not 48×47 because then many matches would be counted twice. It is actually the sum of an arithmetic series of 1 to 47 [with a difference of 1] because each song is matched against each other song, but each match is only done once so when you get to the last song then all of its matches have been counted already. That is every possible pairing of 48 objects: The first song is matched to 47 others, the second song matched to 46 others (it’s been matched to the first already), the third matched to 45 and so on until the last is matched to none. So yes, if you vote in every round you do get to judge how well every single song compares to every single other song. You would vote that Color Theory is unbelievably better than another song exactly 47 times. The sum of the natural numbers from 1 to 47 is (47+1)*47/2=1128

I can hardly believe I remember that from high school. Who would have thought there’d be a use for it?

By: teni

teni — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:36:20 +0000

tap tap tap….

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:33:32 +0000

An hour and a half, and I’m #2 behind “Tennessee.” This is going down to the wire!

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:10:41 +0000

Two hours to go and my song is hanging on to #1. Let’s push it through! I’ll have done the full 1128 battles in twenty minutes or so.

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:43:57 +0000

Thanks so much for trying Andrea! I know it’s the middle of the night for you in Spain right now, so I appreciate it all the more. Maybe you’re just a victim of geography. It’s been moving along briskly for me. We’ll know the result when you wake up!

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:29:04 +0000

Sorry Brian. Tried to help you out but it didn’t work. Registered and started trying to judge but didn’t seem to be coming out right. Two bands would be listed but only one would play. The other one’s music player wouldn’t appear–maybe after listening to the whole song but I’m sorry that I don’t have time to do that for all the bands (15 seconds no problem though). Tried to reload the page several time to no avail. Maybe it was my connection.

Good luck! Let us know how it went.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:39:43 +0000

1128 judging votes seems pretty steep, but after you listen to 15 seconds of it, it just flies! But it’s fairer than the last round because every song shows up the same amount of time, because if there’s 48 songs, the most one time one-on-one match-ups would be 48×47 songs, since you can’t go head to head against yourself. And I think they figured 2256 would be a bit much, so they cut it in half? That’s my guess, it sounds like you know a lot more about it than I do. Anyways as always, best of luck!

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:30:02 +0000

I really appreciate it Edith!

I’m just waking up after catching a couple hours sleep, and the standings are all over the place. I was #5 and now I’m #22, the song that is #1 now was #23, and the guy that was dead last is #15. So don’t worry where I stand just yet. We should be able to make some reasonable judgments in a few hours.