Attention Congress Players

[Matt Mackenzie]

I hope he does one way or another! From what I can tell from the example I know of, survival on writing chess books/articles etc seems to be possible but astonishingly hard work.

Not, maybe, for a certain somebody who has been much featured in a particular blog recently

[David Sedgwick]

"This work ethic is eased somewhat by recycling material from other persons publications without attribution along with past publications from ones own portfolio"

Not, maybe, for a certain somebody who has been much featured in a particular blog recently

Plagiarism can be accidental.

[John Hickman]

"This work ethic is eased somewhat by recycling material from other persons publications without attribution along with past publications from ones own portfolio"

Not, maybe, for a certain somebody who has been much featured in a particular blog recently

Plagiarism can be accidental.

[David Sedgwick]

Thus endeth John Hickman's run of special prizes at the Guernsey International Chess Festival

[Roger de Coverly]

A poor career choice and not one to be recommended in my opinion.

There can be a choice at a lower level. If after university you can choose to study for professional exams or otherwise, you can have a lower stress and lower paid job with plenty of time to play chess or a higher stress job with exam commitments, but potentially much higher paid. If you aren't good enough even to reach the give-away title of CM, taking the money is very tempting.

[Richard Bates]

Significantly more than 50% of the UK population earn less than the national average wage. Clearly avoiding making a "poor career choice" is not a simple matter...

[John McKenna]

Richard's post above could imply that the average persons in the UK working population earn significantly less than the national average wage. Anyway, for average people a "poor career" would seem to be a simple matter of fact and not much of a choice at all.

[Robert Stokes]

Significantly more than 50% of the UK population earn less than the national average wage. Clearly avoiding making a "poor career choice" is not a simple matter...

It depends on what measure of average you use. If you use the median, then by definition 50% earn less and 50% earn more. I think that the median is usually quoted in national statistics about wages for the reason below.

The median is a better measure of average than the mean in this context because a few very highly paid individuals skew the mean upwards and so it is not a good indicator of 'central tendency'.

Robert

[Jonathan Rogers]

I know nothing about this, but intuitively, why wouldn't one exclude both the 2% top and 2% bottom earners, and look at the mean which results? Or would this be just an even more meaningless figure, being neither one thing nor another?

[Robert Stokes]

You could do this but it isn't one of the recognized ways of doing it.

Robert

[Stewart Reuben]

When the game fee level used to be voted on by Council we were told by Tennant-Smith, a statistician, that the median of the opinions expressed was better than the average. I am sure this was right. Otherwise people could skew the result, e.g. voting for £1 million.
I am pretty sure most people at Council were well enough educated to know that median and average were two quite different words.
I am pretty sure most members of the general public have no idea.

[Robert Stokes]

Just a small correction. Stewart. The word 'average' is used for any measure of central tendency. The two most common ones are the mean (which is what I think you are using average for) and the median. This difference is taught in mathematics lessons in schools (or at least it was before I retired).

Robert

[John Hickman]

Thus endeth John Hickman's run of special prizes at the Guernsey International Chess Festival

My comment was meant as a joke on the concept of plagarism by copying a comment that had already been made. I'm disappointed that it has been taken as a personal attack and/or caused offence, and I apologise for making it.

There is already too much animosity in the community and it is neither my intent or nature to add to it.

I'm looking forward to the Guernsey International Chess Festival, and there's still plenty of time for more of you to enter with an added incentive of an additional special prize now being available http://www.guernseychessclub.org.gg/fes ... stival.htm.

[Matthew Turner]

Significantly more than 50% of the UK population earn less than the national average wage. Clearly avoiding making a "poor career choice" is not a simple matter...

It depends on what measure of average you use. If you use the median, then by definition 50% earn less and 50% earn more. I think that the median is usually quoted in national statistics about wages for the reason below.

The median is a better measure of average than the mean in this context because a few very highly paid individuals skew the mean upwards and so it is not a good indicator of 'central tendency'.

Robert

I think you'll find average wage is generally quoted because the average wage generally goes up, but the median wage has really done nothing for the past 3 or 4 decades. This generalisation is most often noted in the US and UK, but the general trend is apparent in pretty every country regardless of political regime or stage of development. I seem to remember Australia is a notable exception.

[Chris Rice]

Thus endeth John Hickman's run of special prizes at the Guernsey International Chess Festival

My comment was meant as a joke on the concept of plagarism by copying a comment that had already been made. I'm disappointed that it has been taken as a personal attack and/or caused offence, and I apologise for making it.

There is already too much animosity in the community and it is neither my intent or nature to add to it.

I'm looking forward to the Guernsey International Chess Festival, and there's still plenty of time for more of you to enter with an added incentive of an additional special prize now being available http://www.guernseychessclub.org.gg/fes ... stival.htm.

I thought your joke was very amusing John and I'm certain David was joking too.