[EM] Reposing a message that didn't post before

[Michael Ossipoff]

I got a message saying that this didn' post because I mistyped the address:

Warren said:

he underlying theoretial attack is
exactly
that suggested by Mike Ossipoff for his "bias free Webster" method

I reply:

Wait a minute--that isn't the name of any of my 4 methods. I have 
Cycle-Webster, Bias-Free, and Weighted Bias-Free (BFW). BFW takes into 
account the state-size frequency distribution.

Warren continues:

, except
that the underlying probabilistic model is now an exponential distribtuion
not a uniform "distribution"

I reply:

Ok, you must be referring to Bias-Free, which, of my four methods, is the 
only one that assumes a uniform distribution.

(I use the word in quotes since Ossipoff has in
various ways
ignored the requirements of probability theory, e.g. in his recent attack on 
the
idea
that probability distributions need to be normalizable

I reply:

A probability distrilbution can take all sorts of forms. For instance, a 
fair roulette table has a uniform probability distribution, over the numbers 
that could come up. Yes, some common naturally-occurring distributions 
involve exp. But the roulette table's uniform probability distribution is 
still a probabililty distribution. Someone could devise a program so that 
the screen-printing of a number from a set of numbers has a probability 
distribution of any shape that he wants to give it.

As I said, B/(q+1) can roughly approximate the density function of states 
over the range of populations. It won't duplicate it exactly. As I said, 
that's all I claim, and that's all I propose to use it for. You seem to be 
having a problem about that for some reason.

I'm going to send this before this computer loses the Internet.

Mike Ossipoff