Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Chris116 said:

All three can take a long walk on a short pier as far as I am concerned although I might enjoy trying to save the two ladies!!!!!

What will you save them for? 

[Chris116]

1 minute ago, PhilJ W said:

What will you save them for? 

Certainly not singing!

[Ozexpatriate]

10 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Probably the most misleading of all statistical functions (calculations? what’s the correct term?) is arithmetic mean or average. Just a few outliers can seriously alter the average. I was taught that median is frequently the more useful tool.

Outliers can significantly impact the mean, but I find median to  be equally misleading. 

 

One of the most common uses of median is in things like "median home price". This is done precisely because of the outlier problem, (greatly exacerbated by high-end luxury homes), but in the case of home prices, it presents a 'rosy' (more affordable) view particularly if there is any bi-modality in the low-end versus high-end of the population (in the example the home market).

 

 

Obviously these examples are contrived, but this sort of thing can be quite common.

 

Arguably as a single index they are both unreliable and other assessments like standard deviation, mode and a graphical representation of the data distribution are essential to better understand the data.

[Chris116]

Well I had better work out my ten favourite singers, I don't have albums, and I will list the best songs from each, in my opinion. My first shot at a list had 19 acts so I need to reduce it but not sure how!

 

Ashley McBryde

Blake Shelton

Chase Rice

Chris Stapleton

Darius Rucker

Deanna Wheeler

Dixie Chicks

Highwomen

Jessica Lynn

Josh Turner

Katy Hurt

Lainey Wilson

Lauren Jenkins

Luke Combs

Miranda Lambert

Sarah Darling

Shania Twain

Tanya Tucker

Ward Thomas

 

I will go away and have a think about it!

[Coombe Barton]

I give students this:

Enter on a spreadsheet and find the mean, median and mode:

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 11

 

Does it mean, that if these are test scores that 90% of the class has failed?

 

Or is the 11 a typo?

 

And outliers. I also give them exercises to find how much outliers affect the result. 

 

And I get fed up with hearing people say, without evidence "it's an outlier, we can ignore it."

 

[AndrewC]

1 minute ago, Coombe Barton said:

I give students this:

Enter on a spreadsheet and find the mean, median and mode:

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 11

 

Does it mean, that if these are test scores that 90% of the class has failed?

 

Or is the 11 a typo?

 

And outliers. I also give them exercises to find how much outliers affect the result. 

 

And I get fed up with hearing people say, without evidence "it's an outlier, we can ignore it."

 

Oooo in stereo 

[Ozexpatriate]

28 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

What will you save them for? 

 

26 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

Certainly not singing!

Should we be so lucky to still be here and coherent twenty or so years from now, I think we will find that their music (or in particular that of Ms. Swift) will still be remembered fondly in much the same way that there are pop performers from each decade whose hits are fondly remembered even if it wasn't "cool" at the time.

 

Randomly:

60s The Mammas and the Papas, The Grass Roots, Dusty Springfield

70s ABBA

80s (girl or girl-fronted bands) Bangles, GoGos, Katrina and the Waves

90s No doubt, The Black-Eyed Peas

etc.

[Coombe Barton]

I'm also annoyed when PhD supervisors tell people to encode data numerically without justification. Favourite is when they encode males as 1 and females as 0.

 

Then I ask what the mean is.

 

Then I ask is that the score for average sex.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Coombe Barton

[Ozexpatriate]

7 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

Well I had better work out my ten favourite singers, I don't have albums, and I will list the best songs from each, in my opinion. My first shot at a list had 19 acts so I need to reduce it but not sure how!

Given your list Chris and the fact that Taylor Swift started out as a strictly 'country' performer in her very early career, I'm surprised at your initial reaction.

[Ozexpatriate]

3 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Favourite is when they encode males a 1 and females as 0.

It's the "Y" chromosome count.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[Coombe Barton]

5 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

It's the "Y" chromosome count.

Yeah, but then spend bleedin' ages doing it, make mistakes when they could use =COUNT() or variants in Excel.

 

[EDIT] Preferably =COUNTIFS()

Edited May 17, 2020 by Coombe Barton

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

I wonder if there is a secret RMweb member among them who reads ERs?  Maybe you could try a few magic passwords like P4 (on second thoughts probably not that one), or Hornby (too common perhaps?), or Bachmann?

It might be best to avoid terms like “back-to-back” or “flange depth”

 

Birthday continues to go well with Messenger calls having been enjoyed with sister and family (learning in the process that Middle Nephew has ended 13 years of “making rich people richer” and is joining the NHS) and with friends in a very sunny Lostwithiel (which apparently remains Lost despite the nearby Gardens of Heligan now having been found).   
 

A bottle of Bordeaux was enjoyed and SWMBO has continued to provide food and dish-washing services throughout the day. 
 

Fully dressed for dinner. Warning - some may find white socks offensive! 
 

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

26 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

Well I had better work out my ten favourite singers, I don't have albums, and I will list the best songs from each, in my opinion. My first shot at a list had 19 acts so I need to reduce it but not sure how!

 

Ashley McBryde

Blake Shelton

Chase Rice

Chris Stapleton

Darius Rucker

Deanna Wheeler

Dixie Chicks

Highwomen

Jessica Lynn

Josh Turner

Katy Hurt

Lainey Wilson

Lauren Jenkins

Luke Combs

Miranda Lambert

Sarah Darling

Shania Twain

Tanya Tucker

Ward Thomas

 

I will go away and have a think about it!

Hmmm, i only one on that list that i would even consider!

[Chris116]

27 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Given your list Chris and the fact that Taylor Swift started out as a strictly 'country' performer in her very early career, I'm surprised at your initial reaction.

I was not keen on her when she was country and recently she has done some new songs that are close to country but still not that keen although I would not turn the radio off when she is on.

[Happy Hippo]

A bit of alternative.

 

The question is, which one is New Bryford?

 

 

[Coombe Barton]

25 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

 

 

 

0:57 in is the relevant passage.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Coombe Barton

[Chris116]

13 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Hmmm, i only one on that list that i would even consider!

I am not surprised and I could add lots of others I enjoy like Steeleye Span, Dusty Springfield, ABBA, Supremes....... the list is endless and I also enjoy some classical music so I have just listed the ones I listen to most evenings on Spotify.

[Coombe Barton]

You all know my tastes in music, would be just repeating the blog.

[J. S. Bach]

26 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

I am not surprised and I could add lots of others I enjoy like Steeleye Span, Dusty Springfield, ABBA, Supremes....... the list is endless and I also enjoy some classical music so I have just listed the ones I listen to most evenings on Spotify.

My first album on the list would be MY FAIR LADY, original Broadway cast in glorious mono. The rest of the list would vary according to my taste on the day that I compose the list.

[Tony_S]

37 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

A bit of alternative.

 

The question is, which one is New Bryford?

 

 

My nephew plays banjo and is very fond of bluegrass jazz fusion. When he was at university he liked to play in bands but there wasn’t much demand for banjo so he played bass. If the demand for GPs disappears he could always busk for a living. 

[AndyB]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

It might be best to avoid terms like “back-to-back” or “flange depth”

 

Birthday continues to go well with Messenger calls having been enjoyed with sister and family (learning in the process that Middle Nephew has ended 13 years of “making rich people richer” and is joining the NHS) and with friends in a very sunny Lostwithiel (which apparently remains Lost despite the nearby Gardens of Heligan now having been found).   
 

A bottle of Bordeaux was enjoyed and SWMBO has continued to provide food and dish-washing services throughout the day. 
 

Fully dressed for dinner. Warning - some may find white socks offensive! 
 

 

 

I'm definitely going colour blind. For a moment I thought this young gentleman was sporting the Ballater Victoria Week tartan.

 

 

 

 

[petethemole]

Happy Birthday Rick.

[AndyB]

Evening all.

So a letter arrived a couple of weeks ago telling me that a pension pot had to be repaid to me. 

Technically this was one of the lowest paid and shortest term jobs I ever had; so not the largest sum any of us will have seen!

Nevertheless I did the sensible thing and invested it offshore. 

An emporium on the IoM to be precise.  

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by AndyB

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

Fully dressed for dinner. Warning - some may find white socks offensive! 

Been said already and at risk of repetitive posts, happy birthday Rick!

 

Will your good lady accompany you with a tartan of her own?

[Gwiwer]

46 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

0:57 in is the relevant passage.

 

"White stockens" (white stockings) is said to refer to Trevithick's steam engine emitting white steam around its lower regions as the "Wheels went aroun' " rather than human attire but the link to my white stockings is also appropriate.  

 

At 2m 34s the replica of Trevithick's engine is indeed climbing Camborne Hill - the correct one - as many folk including some long-time Camborne residents wrongly assume "Camborne Hill" is the much steeper Trevu Road leading from the railway station up to Beacon and Troon.  The Y-reg on the vehicle looks rather out of place however and refers to the year of construction.  Had it been a rebuild it would have qualified for a Q-plate and if an original it would have qualified for a heritage (or "ageless") plate.  

 

As a broadcast performance the full correct version was sung and not the bawdy version known from pubs which replaces the "Aived (heaved / shovelled) in more coal" verse with "I 'ad 'er I 'ad 'er I did ..... It cost me a quid ..... " 

 

In other news it has taken me fully 63 years but in our little walk around the Hill of Strawberries tonight I finally turned heads     Still attired in full Cornish Everyday garb I first gained the attention of a female neighbour still out on the lawn then around the corner a female motorist of years many fewer than mine came very close to writing off both her car and another as her eyes left the road and followed me until she was within range of a parked BMW (i.e. very expensive) car.  She returned her eyes to their sockets just in time.  Just.  She managed to stop fully an inch shy of disaster.  Try explaining that to your insurer!!!  

 

Almost time to consider checking security for the night and preparing for another morning at the House of Fun.  We know not what that will bring but are prepared for a much larger number of people travelling than of late.  It may happen that way - or not.  Former Neighbour (Upstairs) - she who has been supply teaching - has had a call from her agency asking is she will be available from 1st June as they expect demand might be high.  She has to think long and hard about when - and not if - she returns to this area and her career.  Probably in June, probably not on the 1st, she says.  

 

Keep well good people.  It has been a very good day thanks in no small measure to the amount of support and friendship offered here.  Respect is due with thanks in large measures.