Category: Social

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I’ve Seen The Future

Ok, now these are impressive. I was at the Kiddicare store in Thurrock, Essex and I noticed that the shelf tags looked quite a bit different to the card barcode things you normally get in a superstore or shop.
I looked a bit closer at these tags and was pretty sure they were LCD displays with some sort of stock count thing going on. While closely inspecting a shelf tag a store worker came along with a bar-code reader device and so I asked if the tags were LCD.

YES!

I also asked if they were radio controlled with real time stock updates.

YES! The stock tags update every five minutes.

I was so impressed with this use of tech that I nearly forgot what I went into the shop to buy. I have seen the future, and it will be.

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Magic Page

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.

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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.

hell1

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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).

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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!

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Tasteful Conversion

In Faversham today and I was really impressed with how Tesco had converted an old industrial unit into a supermarket. It looked nice.

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Not Really Necessary

Snuck into a Costa Coffee this morning to while away the time before attending a course. This was at the Costa inside Tesco’s in Faversham.
Now, I’m quite impressed with Faversham really. It has a crazy road system and a lovely provincial feel and look. Very nice and a little weird! Perhaps this phenomenon is just a Kent thing but they were selling super size biscuits in Costa! They are your classics; a bourbon, a Jamie dodger and a custard cream.
This picture tells you all you need to know! For scale, the bourbon is about 13cm long. Crazy times. I’m pretty sure it’s a ploy to make the world (or at least Faversham) a fatter place.

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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!

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Cleared For Landing

In the field at the back of our house there rests a large number of geese. They come at this time of year and chill out over night before going on their way somewhere. The can be hundreds possibly thousands. Tonight I caught some on final approach but you might have to squint to see them.

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Also, here’s the moon. It looks bigger in real life but then that’s just an optical illusion.

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Two Rules

My personal rules for the bands in which I have played are:

  • No Girls
  • No Keyboards

    • Pretty much anything else goes. I don’t think I have to justify these either, the rules stand by themselves!

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