There can be only one (the sequel)
* did numbers. I got asked to do something fun at work recently. I got asked to make an argument in favour of something. It's something deeply unpopular, so I've had to spend the last couple of months gathering number and today I got to crunch them. It was lovely. I learned some interesting number-crunching techniques on the 6 sigma thing I did last week. The covered a lot of stats stuff and favoured continuous data over more manager-friendly discrete data, but also gave tips on how to render them in ways that are instantly intelligible. Box graphs are beautiful.
* found a tenner in my laundry. This is god's way of telling you that you should buy beer in Tesco.
* encountered mind-numbing stupidity. The whole "There's a new star sign, argh!" thing today was a lovely instance of bored scientists trolling the gullible. It was fun to watch astrologers fall over themselves to face this challenge (which the Babylonians who invented astrology apparently new about but decided to ignore). But while reading about it on Twitter I saw this:
@ZodiacLife ALERT: Your zodiac sign is based on the location of the stars at the time of your birth. Ophiuchus did not appear until 2009.Ignoring the obvious issues involving physics and, y'know, reality there, one of the depressing things was the amount of times that was retweeted unquestioningly. It's easy to dismiss those people as stupid, but I think it's something more insidious: confirmation bias. I've been noticing it around a lot recently. Clever or smart, left or right, right or screamingly wrong, people will generally believe anything that largely fits into their worldview. As a species, we are excellent critical thinkers when it comes to criticising the thinking of others.
* watched Scott Pilgrim.I liked it! I wasn't sure if I would, but Edgar Wright really knows what he's doing. It's annoying in places, profound in others, but generally fun.
* found a tenner in my laundry. This is god's way of telling you that you should buy beer in Tesco.
* encountered mind-numbing stupidity. The whole "There's a new star sign, argh!" thing today was a lovely instance of bored scientists trolling the gullible. It was fun to watch astrologers fall over themselves to face this challenge (which the Babylonians who invented astrology apparently new about but decided to ignore). But while reading about it on Twitter I saw this:
@ZodiacLife ALERT: Your zodiac sign is based on the location of the stars at the time of your birth. Ophiuchus did not appear until 2009.Ignoring the obvious issues involving physics and, y'know, reality there, one of the depressing things was the amount of times that was retweeted unquestioningly. It's easy to dismiss those people as stupid, but I think it's something more insidious: confirmation bias. I've been noticing it around a lot recently. Clever or smart, left or right, right or screamingly wrong, people will generally believe anything that largely fits into their worldview. As a species, we are excellent critical thinkers when it comes to criticising the thinking of others.
* watched Scott Pilgrim.I liked it! I wasn't sure if I would, but Edgar Wright really knows what he's doing. It's annoying in places, profound in others, but generally fun.