So being in the middle of exams provides the perfect motivation to update this otherwise much neglected blog. Instead of studying for my exams which is now rather alarmingly, occurring in less than 12 hours, I was on the rainbow candy filled brick road that is the Candy Crush Saga. A tasteless choice of wasting time by any standards, but nonetheless it does the job of being a distraction at hand from exams as needed.
Anyhow so I don't play it very seriously but over time I've wondered why some people seem to be really good at this game. I mean I never bother to plan more than a move ahead and I usually rely on pure luck because if you play the same level enough times eventually the game gives you some nicely placed bricks which kind of all falls in the right place and allows you to clear the level. But being the facebook/social integrated blah blah app that it is Candy Crush always tells you the top scorers for each level and from my obeservation it seems to be the same few people.
So I wonder why that is - could it be that a few of my friends and acquaintances are just champions at placing blocks next to each other? Is there a secret sauce that the general population just doesn't know about? After much thinking and observation (really. I'm like, up to level 120 or something), I have concluded that this might be a case of survivor ship bias.
This survivorship bias means that we observe the repeat winners (Candy Crush Champs) because they are the only ones in the game. Along the way I had a few levels when I was the top scoring player out of all the people I have on facebook not because of dedication to doing so but because of random luck - the game just decided in all its wisdom to give me all the Candies I wanted.
Assuming any normal person would get bored after the first 10-20 levels because it involves the same monotonous randomness that is Candy Crush, that only leaves a small handful of people who are dedicated/unlucky enough to have something even more boring that Candy Crush serves as a palatable diversion (Exam study. Or Law, so I've been told). Hence as you keep on playing the same people will show up again and again because they've had more chances to get a high score because they're playing more. In short, because most people are not on Candy Crush and/or leading actually fufilling lives out there, you see the same people.
Not that I'm discounting the possibility that people can be good - the point is, if you keep at something long after everyone else gets bored of it, you might actually get good at it, because 'good' is relative. Even if you have no skills you can still be good at something. I guess this means in terms of study you should pick a Subject that no one else is studying, and then keep at it.
Now for some inspirational words from Swang:
Me:" Study is going at a snail pace..."
Swang:"Keep going, snails will make it to the end!"
Just hope you make it before the party's over.
