My #2 son likes reading books. Although that’s a touch inaccurate. Really he likes sitting on someone’s lap and getting them to read a book to him. He’s only 18 months so I think that’s forgivable.
I am pretty sure that he knows something that we don’t though. Whenever I get to the last page of a book he keeps trying to find another page. He scrabbles at the cover and tries to prise another page open. Now normally these are board books and so he can be forgiven for thinking there is another page, but I just ownder if one day a new page will open and create more of a story for him. I’d consider that magic.
Testing Heaven And Hell
In my last communication I stated that I thought the difference between my two relative frequencies was not significant. I think I have now performed a test, but whether it is valid or not can be up to you.
If Heavy Metal focuses on the dark side of life then there should be many references to to Hell in the song title. Conversly, there should be only a few references to the term Heaven in song titles. If this is the case then it could be expected that the frequencies of each would be independent of each other, assuming the subject matter for songs is random and the use of words follows this.
My Calculations follow, but essentially I have found that, at a 5% significance level, the distribution of Hell and Heaven is random and that the frequency of hell is close enough to the frequency of heaven for this to be so.
I am fully aware that I have really pushed the limits of my significance test and it probably doesn’t even work properly for this type of problem. But, my happiness about this communication remains about 75% (+- 3% for 95% confidence level).
Heaven and Hell
I’ve been thinking about the dark nature of heavy metal music and I am not sure that the reputation is deserved!
My hypothesis is that heavy metal music and hard rock is not at all as bad-ass as people think. I predict that the number of song title references to Hell will be fewer than those that reference Heaven. At the time of writing this is just a confirmation bias speaking.
Assuming that my music tastes for heavy metal and hard rock are reasonably consistent with the music genre and assuming that I have a random collection of this type of music in my library I will perform a count of the words in the song titles of my library.
This really is being done live. I don’t know the results at the moment. Here goes:
Heaven:
- Heaven’s Dead
- Heaven Sent
- When Heaven Comes Down
- In Heaven
- Heaven Can Wait (Gamma Ray)
- Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
- Heaven Can Wait (Iron Maiden)
- Stairway To Heaven
- Heaven Help
- Heaven For The weather, Hell For The company
- Heaven Can Wait (Meatloaf)
- Good Girls Go to Heaven
- Christmas In Heaven
- I Wish U Heaven
- To Be With You In Heaven
- South Of Heaven
- Heaven’s Gate
- Super-Charger Heaven
- Heaven and Hell
- Heaven Tonight
- Heaven Beside You
So that’s 21 song titles that include the word Heaven out of around 5000 songs in my library.
Now for Hell:
- Cold Day In Hell
- Right Next Door To Hell
- Highway To Hell
- Go To Hell
- Heaven for the Weather, Hell for the Company
- To Hell We Ride
- Hell Child
- Bat Out Of Hell
- Into The Lungs Of Hell
- Green Hell
- Hotter Than Hell
- Help Me I Am In Hell
- Hellraiser
- Run Like Hell
- Come Hell Or High Water
- To Hell And Back Again
- Hell Awaits
- Hellbound
- Hell Raisers
- Heaven and Hell
- Hells Bells
- Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be
- Hell Or High Water
- Private Hell
- Hell To Pay
- Earth On Hell
So that’s 26 references to Hell in a song title out of about 5000 songs in my library.
Now, I have no idea if that a significant statistical difference. It doesn’t seem so to me. It also appears from the titles of some of these songs that perhaps the context in which the title is used might be more important. A couple of the Heaven songs seem more to do with the dark side that good stuff and some of the Hell songs come from sayings.
I don’t think any conclusions can be drawn from this initial study. Perhaps with a research grant I’d be able to investigate the context of these words within the Heavy Metal form and get a good answer.
Rock On!
Angel
Here’s a picture of the guardian angel I have looing over my Christmas tree. We have a non-religious star at the top of the tree and this chap is standing to attention just below that. It’s nice to consider him overlooking the children and keeping an eye on them. Much like Obi-Wan in this comminication.
Table
I was called to the front room the other day as son #1 wanted to show off his handy work. He had set up his play crockery set as a tea party on the little table. I was very surprised by the symmetry and neatness of it all! Quite pleasing to the eye. What have I created?
Meme
One of the standard explanations and examples I use when teaching the mechanics module of A Level is to consider driving a car around town. Most pupils have experienced, or are aware, of people thier age who drive circuits around the local town trying to get noticed. I used to just talk about this practice but a few months back a friend was talking about his teenage experience of this form of behaviour and he used the term:
Barry Laps
This term didn’t really need any explaination as I already knew what it meant. I’ve never really partaken in the the Barry Lap experience. I think the closest I got was riding around Bishop’s Stortford on my Honda NTV 650 with Daryl on his Silverwing just after we had set up radio communication between us. We went around town a few times chatting to each other on the way. Being able to easily communicate between different bikes was far more of a novalty than trying to get attention from onlookers. This was in 1999 and quite before either of us owned mobile phones.
Anyway, I hope that with my continued use that the term Barry Lap might one day make it into the OED!
Testament – KoKo
Went with my best man and best pal to watch Testament at KoKo in Camden on Fri 30 Nov 2012.
They were good and very good fun to watch. Not a great front man but the music was hard and fast.
Liked the venue. Small and intimate.
Here are my photos:
Upgrade
It’s coming up to the time when I can upgrade my phone. Upgrade is a curious term as essentially it means I sign up for two more years on an increased tariff. So although it sounds like I’m getting something for nothing it’s the mobile carrier that makes the money!
I need to get a phone with more memory. I don’t like having to delete apps because I want more music on my phone. My iPhone 4 has 32Gb of memory and it’s not enough. This means I have to go for a 64Gb phone. Also, as I have completely bought into the closed garden that is the App store and iTunes. I don’t want to have to spend a load of money re-buying all the apps I have for iOS on another OS. However, if the contract and phone is a ton cheaper that might be the most cost effective way to get what I want.
Anyway. In a few weeks I will trundle down to the Vodafone shop and sign up to spending a ton of money with them so I can have a phone that will fit all the stuff I have bought from Apple. The thing is that along with the new phone I need a case, screen protectors and new cables given that Apple have decided to “improve” their USB connector. That’s even more money. Is it worth it given that the network coverage in my house is rather shabby!
IF Vodafone are willing to give me a Sure Signal box then I am going to stick with them. It’s a box that connects to my hub or switch and gives me a good signal throughout my house. At the moment if I am in the lounge then WW can’t get in touch although I guess she could call the home phone if I knew where that was!
If Vodafone can’t do the deal then come March I’m off to another carrier that has a good signal throught my entire house.
Analytics
Since creating the www.whatuseismaths.com website I have been trying to increase my understanding of who might be visiting this website. You can see a widget on the right giving page views and from where they are being accessed but I am currently trying to get a better picture.
Step forward, Google Analytics. Hopefully with this I will be able to satisfy my curiosity as to who reads this stuff. I know some friends in the USA do and a few people in the UK but the others come as rather a surprise.
I have added a little plugin to this site to help me track via Google Analytics what is going on. I’m just curious. Also, my site seems to be happy to cope with the plugins. There was a period of about a month last year when the site seemed to be running very slowly but over the last six months I haven’t had any issues with it.
So, a more analyitical approach to my ego awaits!
Vindication
The BBC News website carried a story yesterday about a high speed yacht that broke the world record. I was instantly interested as my final year project at university was the conceptual design of a high speed yacht.
The major design innovations of my yacht were:
- outrigger
- hydrofoils
- aerofoil shaped sail
Here’s a picture of my concept:
Here’s a technical drawing of the main body of the yacht:
And so, to compare, here’s some pictures taken from the Vestas Sailrocket website.
So, the sail is in a different place and at an angle but I think my original choices for my final year project have been vindicated. I feel quite pleased that I managed to conceptualise a design that, in general, has worked.
Well done to the Vestas Sail Rocket Team.