Posts by Stephen Judd
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DeepRead: Robert Sapolsky on primate sexuality.
I watched this last week. Sapolsky is a brilliant guy; I loved his books, and it was nice to see that he's a good speaker too.
Anyway: from his POV, sex and aggression are intimately related in the brain (to extract, summarize and brutally simplify 1.5 hours of fascinating stuff).
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That should read:
Median = the middle item from a sorted list of numbers.
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Mean = what you get when you add all a list numbers together, and divide by the length of the list. Sometimes called "average", but the problem is that "average" has this statistical meaning but also a vague colloquial meaning.
Median = the middle item from a list of numbers.
So, if we have five people with annual wages as follows:
A: 30,000
B: 32,000
C: 32,500
D: 33,000
E: 100,000the mean is 45,500 and the median is 32,500.
You can see how a minority of very high earners might skew the mean so that it is a considerable amount higher than the median. Often, the median is a better measure of what's "normal" than the mean.
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Nah, it's a Pinnacle "Nano Stick". Got it for about a hundred bucks a few months ago.
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I have finally got Freeview working nicely with VLC on Linux with a cheap little USB stick.
It is quite noticeable that some channels (TV1, TV2., TV3) require enough grunt to decode that my poor old laptop can't quite keep up, and there are artifacts and tearing in the picture. TV7 and TV6 play absolutely fine though.
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I heard it first via The Specials. Actually, that would be quite a good funeral song too.
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I think we should acknowledge Peter Sledmere's willingness to help out.
I can't help but think that officiating at funerals might be an ideal line of work for the retiring news broadcaster. As long as it's going be a person who didn't know me, I think I'd rather have my eulogy read by someone with good diction and bona-fide gravitas. In fact I think I will amend my will now, to provide an appropriate gratuity for any NZBC-schooled broadcaster who volunteers. (Although given that I was born in 1970, I hope to outlive you all).
As per my wishes upthread, he can say "And now John Clarke with We Don't Know How Lucky We Are. The time is... later than you think .
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*blush*
I'll admit to being the Voice of Compulsive Argument. Except today, because I have a cold, so I'm the Hoarse Whisper of Contention.
But doing one's apprenticeship on Usenet in the old days certainly helps.
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Polar bears are dangerous and unpredictable carnivores. I applaud the common sense of our Prime Minister in this matter.
Also, those polar bears should be sent to boot camp and bunked two to a room. Perhaps then they'll learn to stop lounging around ice floes and make themselves useful for a change. We shouldn't be wasting tax payer funds on ice floes for polar bears until we've dealt with more important priorities like a motorway through Transmission Gully.
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Ben, you would stir a lot less shit if you didn't choose really poor examples and analogies and just said what you meant from the get-go. From my perspective your choice of anecdote, vocabulary and example couldn't be more calculated to create misunderstanding of the points you want to make.
All I've learned from you is this:
- you have a fat mate who ate in secret
- you think calorie restriction is all that's necessary for successful weight loss
- you think calorie restriction always works
- you personally have succeeded in losing weight through calorie restriction alone
- you have a very, er, unnuanced view of what's involved in losing weight1. doesn't prove anything (and muddied the water a lot too).
2. might be true, but lots of other things help too, and allow people to eat more satisfyingly and healthily.
3. is definitely not true, especially over time, for the vast majority of dieters, and it's certainly not easy (I think we might actually agree on the "not easy" part, but disagree on whether "willpower" is an important factor or has a moral dimension).
4. is an admirable achievement, but it's not proof that your approach works for everyone.
5. keeping intake <= output is a necessary factor, but it's not the only one, and in fact it's a small one compared to all the others that confront people who might want to weigh less than they do.I've said everything I want to say; thank you and good night.