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Concerning Understandable Statistics, Seventh Edition by Brase, Charles Henry Brase

I took this course last year at Warren County Community College. I found myself very interested in the subject. There were problems though. Several times I had to bite my tongue in class or while speaking one-on-one with the teacher else I show her up… and that is an uncomfortable proposition! Also, the book SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED

So, I often found myself sitting in class, not listening to the teacher and correcting the mistakes in the textbook with my pencil. And this is from someone who hasn’t ever taken Statistics before! One sunny day in the back of the classroom, I went ahead and wrote an “Authors Note to Students” on one of those pages that was intentionally left blank.

Authors Note to Students

Although this book is in its 7th edition, no care has been put into making this extremely interesting topic easy or accessible. To this end, Brase and I have made sure to not explain the variables in our equations, not describe our reasonings in “English” and not show each of the steps in the examples that we give. In addition, we have placed several exciting “Easter Eggs” in the form of incorrect or poorly reasoned answers in the Answer Key. This is designed to enhance your classroom experience by giving you all something to talk about in class.

We hope that you enjoy this text as much as we have enjoyed the boat that you have collectively bought us. Don’t forget to buy our 8th Edition, the exciting page renumbering of the popular 7th Edition!

Brace & Brace

Here’s an article about a guy becoming an eBay opium addict. I was thinking that he sounded like he was speaking from a place of authority on the matter so I checked on it…

He wrote:

There were online pharmacies on the Internet. I ordered Tramadol from Mexico and Nurofen Plus with the legal max 12.8 milligrams of codeine per tablet from New Zealand. Then that got tougher.

Illustration By Sandra Hoover
Finally, I found eBay. I had been looking for old motel stationery and fake Jackson Pollock drip paintings. They sold everything–why not drugs?

I typed “poppy pods” into the search bar.

Like anyone trolling the Internet at 4 a.m., I had been looking for some kind of temporary drug fix. I found it on eBay under Crafts>Floral Supplies>Flowers, Foliage>Dried.

Crafting. Sure. I liked art.

And, there they were! (Yes, that is a real eBay screenshot)

Now, I’m all for the legalization of most recreational drugs as long as they come with appropriate warning labels on them, but… and please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t opium a “controlled” substance?

It’s pretty intense, following the buying patterns of these buyers via their feedback. Over the course of a few weeks, first they buy a little…. and then they buy a lot. And then they buy a real lot.

The etymology of phrases is curious. For example, Captain Kirk never said, “Beam me up, Scotty”. Tarzan never said, “Me Tarzan, you Jane”. And most important of all, Doctor Bronner never said “Dilute! Dilute! Ok!” The actual quote is, “Dilute! Dilute! or Wet Skin Well! OK!”

I have to agree, however that NZC’s take on it is a beautiful thing.

For fun, here’s some more misquotes

This fantastic poem was written by my good friend Molly Carocci.
She has licensed this under the Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Creative Commons License.

The Cheese-loving Shepherd to His Love

Eat cheese with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That dills and Wensleydales and Tetillas, Or Edams or Havarti yields.

And we will sit upon a sweater,
And see the shepherds eat some Cheddar
By shallow rivers, at whose falls
Melodious birds eat Emmentals.

And I will make thee clothes of cheeses
Amid a thousand fragrant breezes;
A cap of Cantal, and some Fontal,
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.

A robe made of the finest Brie
Which you shall wear so Caerphilly;
And shoes of finest Port Salut
With buckles made of Lou Palou.

A belt of Gouda ringed with Feta,
With Stilton clasps and Mozzarella:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Eat cheese with me and be my Love.

The cheesy swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then eat cheese with me and be my Love.

Cheese Weasel Day is my second favorite holiday, second only to Groundhog Day.

It is a time for joyous celebration and reverie!

Here’s wishing you a tasty bit of cheese under your keyboard!

(images gleefully stolen from ecards made by MostImportantThing.com.)

(Don’t know what CWD is? Google it!)

For the last couple months I’ve been using a teeth whitener to shine up my pearly whites. I’m quite happy with the results.

My teeth aren’t black or horribly discolored. I don’t smoke and rarely drink red wine, those are two things that can really darken a smile. But my teeth are just a bit yellow. And darn it, I want a nice smile.

I bought a “boil-n-bite” tray set and 15 ml of 22% carbamide peroxide from Dentist.net for a total of about $40.

The boil-n-bite set came with 4 trays… good thing because my first attempt at making a form fitting tray failed. But the next two attempts (top and bottom arch) went just fine. It was a matter of warming up the tray quickly (5 seconds instead of the suggested 15 seconds) and using all my fingers to squish the trays into place. I looked a bit odd with all 10 fingers in my mouth while hovering over the stove.. but hey.

I got 22% because… well, because I’m cheap. 10% is only a few pennies cheaper but is supposedly recommended for “beginners”. Bah. I’ll admit that the first couple times I did it, I had to take the trays out after about 30 minutes because of a burning sensation in my gums, but I’m good now.

I brush my teeth, squeeze about 0.5 ml into the tray along the tooth-line in the tray, and plunk it in my mouth. I usually do both the uppers and lowers at the same time. Though I’ve done my uppers more often because that’s what people see the most. I leave them in for 45 min to 1 1/2 hrs depending on how I’m feeling and how fed up I get with having bulky trays in my mouth.

After about 5 sessions, my teeth were noticeably whiter. Importantly, they still look natural. They’re not monochromatically WHITE but an imperfect and naturally looking white-er.

The last couple sessions haven’t gotten them much whiter, but that was expected. I’ve read that the first couple sessions give the most benefit.

I could have gone to a dentist or Brite Smile but I seriously wasn’t interested in paying $600 for WHITE teeth… $40 was more my style, even if I have to stick trays in my mouth for months instead of a single 2 hr dentist visit.

Last but not least, it very much appears to be “safe and effective”. I couldn’t find anyone online that had problems with the stuff.

update 12-30-05:It’s been 8 months since I used the teeth whitening stuff and I’m still happy with the results. I went to a dentist a few weeks ago and I asked about teeth whitening products. They compared my tooth color to some tooth color swatches they had; my teeth compared to the second whitest in their swatches and they said I definitely didn’t need whitening… though they’d oblige me if I still wanted to give them money. I thought that was a bit strange because before I went in, I was thinking I might need some more whitening. I guess I’ve got a little tooth-color-anorexia. Suffice to say, I’m still happy with the results.

The report took the US intelligence community severely to task for a series of shortcomings it said led to the false conclusion that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, justifying the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

(Source)

Still looking for scapegoats? I remember seeing a parade of individuals in positions of authority saying that there were no WMD. People like Charles Duelfer, head of the UN Iraq Survey Group, and “official CIA reports” (so said the news).

And I recall about 2 1/2 years ago there was a stink about the president ignoring reports by the CIA and UN that said that there were no WMDs.

Yes, Mr. Hussein is a very un-nice person. But there are lots of un-nice national rulers in the world. Why not pin a target on those guys chests?

Ok, so, we went to war to put a presence in the mid-east for national security’s sake. Just freaking say that!

——–
I will go to my grave being angry at Colin Powell for lying in front of the UN Security Council and the tens of millions of people watching on TV. His appearance before the council on February 2nd, 2003 is what convinced me that the war was justified. He used his tremendous stage presence to deceive me.

How do I know he’s lying? He talked about a tremendous amount of “verified” incriminating evidence. Yet not a single scrap of evidence was ever found, not by the UN inspectors and not by the US military. Not a single molecule. [update 4-2-05. This statement is incorrect. See Comments below] I find it odd that we can recover data off a hard drive that has been overwritten 5 times and then smashed with a hammer but not find any traces of sought after chemicals in one out of at least “65 such facilities in Iraq” (Powell).

I haven’t been happy in Hackettstown these past two years. On or about May 15th, I’m moving to the Bay Area.

I’m starting to look for employment and housing out there now. If you have any ideas or leads or just want to talk to me before I make this plunge, then gimme a buzz!

I’m not moving for a job or family or any necessity. I’m moving in a bid for happiness. Wish me luck.

I’m focusing my housing and employment around Oakland and Berkeley. While I have 15 years computer and Software Quality Assurance experience, I’m not tied to that field. Maybe I’ll flip burgers, maybe work in a hospital, maybe design space elevators. I don’t know. It’s pretty exciting though, don’t you think?

update: I’ve pushed the date back to June 7th.

I just finished Half Life 2. What a huge huge sprawling insanely detailed game. It was more of a world than a game.

The 2004 Vault of Heaven Burning Man Screen Saver so lovingly created by Scorch at the Burning Man Screen Saver Project has been released! Scorch graciously mailed beautiful CDs jam packed with thousands of pictures to all 50 or so of the contributors like myself.

It’s available on the official Screen Saver Project page. It was available as a .torrent file here for several months.

Here’s the Readme from the Screen Saver Project CD.

You’ll find the PG rated version of the screen saver (no boobies etc… though you’ll have to be the judge if it’s “work-safe”) on the official site. You’ll find the R rated version (the good version) both on my site and the official site.

On the playa, I go by ‘Nector (as in ‘Connector’) and working on the Colossus project, they called me “Grinder”. See you in the dust!

Don’t know what Bittorrent is? It’s a great, free, popular, easy to use program for downloading large files. Just go to the website, download and install the program. Then come back here and click on one of those “.torrent” links. You’ll find gazillions of other big files to download at websites like isohunt.com (entire television episodes and such) and etree (music). There are a zillion other sites out there. Try Googling for the word “torrent” and your favorite subject!

How does Bittorrent work? Everyone who is downloading the file is also uploading the bits of the file that they already have to other folks. So the more people that are downloading, the more capacity there is. It is considered a generous thing if you leave your Bittorrent client running after you’ve downloaded your file; that will help others download the file quicker.

I might also mention that there are many Bittorrent clients that work very well but my favorite right now is Azureus.