On 30/03/07, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
The next round number above 0.4% is 0.5%.
Yes, but I was stating what I would have expected the value to be, not
stating the value presented with some rounding.
On a sample of visitors to BBC home page - an inflation of over
1000% (as you are suggesting now - 0.4% to 5%) is, frankly, unlikely.
Odd then that an official BBC news article claims that the value is
closer to 6% isn't it?
Quote:
However, analysts believe that approximately 6% of computers users run Linux
Link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6506027.stm?ls
(Incidentally Thursday's most popular story)
If you'd argued that Linux use was more likely to be 0.5% than 0.4% you'd:
a) Possibly have a point
b) Have been wasting everyone's time.
I am (or was) arguing that it was likely to be closer to the 5% mark
than the 0.4% mark (approximately one order of magnitude out).
However, in your
previous posts, you state that as the BBC stats suggest that Linux
use is only 0.4%
Indeed, what do you think they suggest?
, they are obviously wrong due to a conspiracy, and
that Linux use is, in 'fact' (with no evidence), over 1000% higher
than that.
I don't _remember_ using the word conspiracy.
The chances of them being completely accurate is extremely remote.
Hitting such a small target (the true value) without taking account of
inaccuracies would be more to do with luck than actual statistics.
a 1000% difference isn't unrealistic considering we are dealing with
the low end of the percentages. And the fact one of the things that
was not accounted for is the traffic generated by spam robots. In
email traffic spammers contribute to 90% (rounded down figure from the
Guardian) of the traffic. I.e. Only 1 in 10 messages are genuine. Why
are you assuming that they would not be generating similar traffic
over HTTP? In fact it would make sense for it to be higher. (Harder to
filter out hacked home boxes over HTTP than email, no dynamic IP
should ever be passing on mail, in HTTP you would expect connections
from dynamic addresses).
Possible inaccuracies do not cover that kind of imagined
error margin.
Then maybe there is something to your conspiracy theory. Seem as the
BBC's stats disagree with the BBC news articles. Something is not
quite right wouldn't you agree?
Either:
1. Browser stats are inaccurate
2. BBC news article is wrong
3. The BBC is attracting less of the Linux users to it's site
(something that should be looked at seriously as this could be an
indication the BBC is interfering with commercial markets).
Pick one. (or add another).
Andy
--
First they ignore you
then they laugh at you
then they fight you
then you win.
- Mohandas Gandhi
-
Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please
visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html.
Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
