Is it time for Random Thoughts - Part 4?

[BobG]

So, what is the Law of Averages? Is the crime being average or not being average?

The crime is not behaving randomly in an orderly pattern. In other words, in order for the Law of Averages to work, everyone's behavior has to be random, but their random behavior has to be in a pattern that's easily predictable.

For example, the Law of Averages say a certain number of people will die this year in automobile accidents. But this dying in car accidents should appear random enough that those dying in car accidents this year have no clue ahead of time, else they'd foil the Law of Averages by not driving at all and then where would we be?

We'd have random chaos - that's where we'd be!

Auto insurance companies wouldn't know how much to charge us if they can't predict how many people will die each year! The department of transportation wouldn't know how much gasoline tax to charge us in order to maintain our roads if they could no longer rely on us to drive a set number of miles each year in fuel guzzling SUVS!

 

[zoobyshoe]

Auto insurance companies wouldn't know how much to charge us if they can't predict how many people will die each year! The department of transportation wouldn't know how much gasoline tax to charge us in order to maintain our roads if they could no longer rely on us to drive a set number of miles each year in fuel guzzling SUVS!

I get it: all about the money.

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

Shark week.

Shark Week's gone down the crapper. They've had multiple segments which, after their airings, Discovery has admitted were entirely false: fake scientists, fake victims, fake sharks.

Although it can still be fun if you treat it like the History Channel and are simply interested in seeing what they'll come up with next

 

[micromass]

Shark Week's gone down the crapper. They've had multiple segments which, after their airings, Discovery has admitted were entirely false: fake scientists, fake victims, fake sharks.

Although it can still be fun if you treat it like the History Channel and are simply interested in seeing what they'll come up with next

Didn't they say last year that they discovered a living megalodon?

 

[WWGD]

The crime is not behaving randomly in an orderly pattern. In other words, in order for the Law of Averages to work, everyone's behavior has to be random, but their random behavior has to be in a pattern that's easily predictable.

For example, the Law of Averages say a certain number of people will die this year in automobile accidents. But this dying in car accidents should appear random enough that those dying in car accidents this year have no clue ahead of time, else they'd foil the Law of Averages by not driving at all and then where would we be?

We'd have random chaos - that's where we'd be!

Auto insurance companies wouldn't know how much to charge us if they can't predict how many people will die each year! The department of transportation wouldn't know how much gasoline tax to charge us in order to maintain our roads if they could no longer rely on us to drive a set number of miles each year in fuel guzzling SUVS!

What do you mean here, that the expected value /variance (as an integral) does not converge? Still, then I think you still have some order, as in the Cauchy distribution.

 

[BobG]

Shark Week's gone down the crapper. They've had multiple segments which, after their airings, Discovery has admitted were entirely false: fake scientists, fake victims, fake sharks.

Although it can still be fun if you treat it like the History Channel and are simply interested in seeing what they'll come up with next

I'm finding Shark Week pretty entertaining:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLt5rBfNucc

 

[zoobyshoe]

Shark Week's gone down the crapper. They've had multiple segments which, after their airings, Discovery has admitted were entirely false: fake scientists, fake victims, fake sharks.

I read about them "creatively" editing interviews with scientists such that the scientists seem to be saying things they actually never would have said, but this is the first I've heard of fake sharks and fake victims.

 

[dlgoff]

Too much time on my hands. Web length = 22.3 feet

 

[zoobyshoe]

Too much time on my hands. Web length = 22.3 feet

Fake. Spider Week's just around the corner.

 

[edward]

Fake. Spider Week's just around the corner.

Yep it just seems to creep up on us. <(@^@)> darn I wish my smiley face worked.

 

[zoobyshoe]

<(@^@)> darn I wish my smiley face worked.

Just fake it.

 

[edward]

Just fake it.

:) somehow it just isn't the same

I hope that there is a fake poop week. I may get to be on TV.

Come to think of it there is already plenty of fake poop on TV. Wait a minute, the poop on TV is real.

 

[OmCheeto]

Too much time on my hands. Web length = 22.3 feet

...

Me too. Today, I bought my [STRIKE]first[/STRIKE] third bicycle. [The last one being purchased] [STRIKE]in[/STRIKE] 35 years [ago]. The circumference of the front [STRIKE]wheel[/STRIKE] tire is 2.107 meters.

It's a nice bike. Very much like my last one. Both French of course.

Except for the Japanese bits, from what I've just read.

 

[edward]

Me too. Today, I bought my [STRIKE]first[/STRIKE] third bicycle. [The last one being purchased] [STRIKE]in[/STRIKE] 35 years [ago]. The circumference of the front [STRIKE]wheel[/STRIKE] tire is 2.107 meters.

It's a nice bike. Very much like my last one. Both French of course.

Except for the Japanese bits, from what I've just read.

Oops I got diameter and circumference confused there for a minute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny-farthing#mediaviewer/File:Pennyfarthing-1886.jpg

Edit:

Schwinn has a new version of this bicycle at Walmart.

http://cf.collectorsweekly.com/stories/McCBgM0bkZn5CZ5cxHIacg.jpg

 

[dkotschessaa]

Too much time on my hands. Web length = 22.3 feet

I was just listening to a podcast about Galapagos. So the first thing I thought when I saw your post here was "Darwin would have been proud."

-Dave K

 

[B. Elliott]

ps. I was just thinking of you. Do you know what an "MG" is? And were you guys still cursing the electricians back aft when they messed up the 400 Hz system?

Oh, we still have them. When they're working, at least! lol

Believe it or not 400 was pretty reliable.

 

[OmCheeto]

Oh, we still have them. When they're working, at least! lol

Believe it or not 400 was pretty reliable.

Yay! They finally fixed something.

ps. I can't remember whether or not we replaced the Lithium-Bromide beast with an R-114 refrigeration unit on my old boat.

pps. Have we thrown you a welcome back party yet?

 

[Lisa!]

If only I could find a job when I could sleep during the day and be up all night...:zzz:

 

[Mr.maniac]

It's the obligatory evil laugh that all villains have to do.
He just scalped Cruella and wore it* as a fur-coat, you see.
*(the scalp)

dalmatians run as fast as you can I will get skinned for you
cause me a maniac

 

[collinsmark]

'Been hammering the vis viva equation all day.

Derived the optimal transition between two possible interplanetary injection/ejection strategies involving circular + hyperbolic orbits (one has an elliptical orbit as an intermediate step). And as a bonus, found the optimal parking orbit for refueling stations. And that orbit is the same for either strategy!

Then verified that the math works using Kerbal Space Program.

I just love it when the math works out. It's one of the greatest joys in life, me thinks.

 

[Modest Learner]

It could be worse. They could make it a 5 part trilogy.

Ahem...5...part...trilogy??

 

[B. Elliott]

Yay! They finally fixed something.

ps. I can't remember whether or not we replaced the Lithium-Bromide beast with an R-114 refrigeration unit on my old boat.

pps. Have we thrown you a welcome back party yet?

Oh, plenty of scares from R-114 leaks underway. Most of the time it was just the pos atmosphere analyzer going out of cal and alarming. "HEY EVERYONE, WAKE UP! I'M JUST A FALSE ALARM!"

Not yet. :D

 

[collinsmark]

Ahem...5...part...trilogy??

I believe it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy.

 

[jim hardy]

As in Tappet Brothers' "third half of our show"...

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

If only I could find a job when I could sleep during the day and be up all night...:zzz:

That would be ideal.

I always thought, when I was a lot younger, that if I became an astronomer I would just get to work with observatories at night and sleep during the day, but really researchers just get little time slots, take a butt-load of data, and then have to sleep at night like normal people

 

[Astronuc]

Why do some people drive their car into a flooded area?

http://news.yahoo.com/video/monsoon-rains-floods-threated-southwest-001655682.html

 

[AlephZero]

Something you can't do with an e-book: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-28252813

(Note, the book itself was not part of the library's stock, but an "anonymous donation".)

 

[DennisN]

A very nice photo/animation site, if you like geometry, fractals, design and...hmm...various stuff...
http://parametricworld.tumblr.com/

e.g.

 

[Pond Dragon]

Part of me wants to teach the second level of calculus somewhere once I get my PhD.

The reason is simple. Eventually, there will be some trouble-making kid in my class, who will inevitably cause a problem on the day I introduce Taylor series. Then, I could tell him to "cool his jets."

Hope this counts as a (pseudo)random thought.

 

[BobG]

Why do some people drive their car into a flooded area?

http://news.yahoo.com/video/monsoon-rains-floods-threated-southwest-001655682.html

Because I have drain plugs in the floor of my Jeep. It would be a shame to never use them.

 

[OmCheeto]

I always thought the road in front of my house was pretty flat. Once you start doing bicycle physics experiments, you discover it is not so.

The same thing happened to me 5 years ago when I brought my then new truck home for the first time. I always thought my driveway was perfectly level. None of my previous 5 cars moved when I parked. But my truck took off, like a rat out of an aqueduct. Voom! Fortunately, it slopes away from the street, and the lawn gently caught her.

 

[dlgoff]

I always thought the road in front of my house was pretty flat. Once you start doing bicycle physics experiments, you discover it is not so.

The same thing happened to me 5 years ago when I brought my then new truck home for the first time. I always thought my driveway was perfectly level. None of my previous 5 cars moved when I parked. But my truck took off, like a rat out of an aqueduct. Voom! Fortunately, it slopes away from the street, and the lawn gently caught her.

Bicycles? Truck coasting uphill? Level road?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRzwNycQTok

 

[OmCheeto]

Bicycles? Truck coasting uphill? Level road?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRzwNycQTok

Ok. Maybe my road and driveway are flat. But the only explanation of unexplained time-space curvature would be micro, non-evaporative, black holes, planted, by, aliens...

 

[zoobyshoe]

There's something really wrong with the Contour commercials.

 

[Borek]

Bicycles? Truck coasting uphill? Level road?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRzwNycQTok

I know of two similar roads in Poland. One near Wiele, other near Żar mountain.