Off Topic The Goodhand Arms

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What's the harm in having a thread from now until May called "Erwin's election erudition"

I've taken Vin's idea and ran with it (hope you don't mind).

I understand that political discussion is banned from our forum but surely creating a specified thread prevents political debate from spilling over into other threads and means that forum members can avoid it if they so wish.

http://www.not606.com/threads/erwins-election-erudition.295621/
 
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I wasn't really suggesting that's have a debate on politics. My post was basically showing a big news story that is not being blown up. You only have to see TV and the papers have nothing on it...
 
Don't know how a graph can be flawed. How would you change it to take into account advances in technology?

The trend is downwards from the mid-70's because of the things you mention. Even looking at the years from, say 92 - 14, you can see at a glance that last year wasn't terribly unusual even taking into account the overall decline from 92 - 14. "It's not out of the range of the trendline of typical years since since 92" might have been a better phrase for me to use but it's less snappy. To some extent I felt it was fairly self-explanatory. "Downward trend, 2014 not unusual" perhaps.

Here's a more telling graph, IMO. It's the number of commercial crashes year by year, rather than deaths. I must say that I'm probably more interested in how likely I am to crash rather than how many people die with me. 2014 certainly doesn't stand out.

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Vin

Presumably there are many more flights these days too. But such a loss of life at once is always shocking, even in the overall context.
 
Flying is the safest way to travel...just that deaths come in groups instead of 1 or 2 at a time. Looks even safer when you consider at least a couple of those plane crashes had nothing to do with the failure of the plane, but more to do with malicious activity.
 
Flying is the safest way to travel...just that deaths come in groups instead of 1 or 2 at a time. Looks even safer when you consider at least a couple of those plane crashes had nothing to do with the failure of the plane, but more to do with malicious activity.

Indeed; flying in planes is pretty safe. Crashing in them, on the other hand....

A study was carried out after the September 11th plane hijackings. Many people transferred to driving instead of flying. Over the three years after Sept 11th, this killed more people than were killed in the twin towers attacks themselves.

A similar study in Britain worked out similar statistics after the Paddington train crash. The new safety system increased space between trains. So, people converted from the now overcrowded trains to driving down the M4. Over ten years, more people would have died on the road than would have died in trains running as before.

The world is full of unintended consequences...

Vin
 
Posting a lot today because I have a job I'm procrastinating to oblivion.

I'll be on YouTube looking for funny kittens soon.

Vin
 
TSS, I don't suspect it's going to get nasty (though I wouldn't bet heavily on it) but what's the harm in having a thread from now until May called "Erwin's election erudition" just so it has its own place? It's a bit different from most subjects on here. Most threads contain coherent, rational, reasoned argument and a number of them change my mind. Nothing at all about the election is going to be discussed rationally and no-one's going to change their minds as a result of anything they see on here.

It's also very, very dull listening to people telling you they know a single answer ("vote XXX") to every problem the country has and that politicians are all in it for themselves anyway. Keep the tedium in its own little room and we can choose whether to see it.

Vin

You have a PM.
 
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The awkward moment when you cosplay as the opposite gender and you realise you look a lot like your ex. [HASHTAG]#freakytuesday[/HASHTAG]

Not as weird as you might think.

Studies have shown that people tend to look for partners that share similar facial structures.

One example is a study in which "heterosexual participants rated the attractiveness of a set of faces. Embedded in this series of images was an image of their own face that had been digitally morphed into the other sex. Despite not recognizing the morphed face as their own, participants rated it the most attractive of all."
 
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Not as weird as you might think.

Studies have shown that people tend to look for partners that share similar facial structures.

One example is a study in which "heterosexual participants rated the attractiveness of a set of faces. Embedded in this series of images was an image of their own face that had been digitally morphed into the other sex. Despite not recognizing the morphed face as their own, participants rated it the most attractive of all."

Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. As I'm procrastinating hard today, I looked this up. And I found:

"However, what is even more fascinating than this is that romantic partners’ similarity to each other only grows over time. For instance, in a classic study by Bob Zajonc and colleagues, college undergraduates were asked to evaluate photographs of either newlywed couples or photos of the same couples after 25 years of marriage. Specifically, participants saw images of two faces at a time and were asked to evaluate how similar each pair was and how likely they were to be married. Sometimes the pair that was presented was an actual married couple, and sometimes it was just two random people of similar age put together.

Results indicated that perceived facial similarity did indeed increase over time. Participants rated the faces of older married couples as being more similar than those of newlyweds and random pairs."

My poor, poor wife. Hopefully I'm moving towards her looks rather than her moving towards mine, or we're doomed.

Vin
 
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This is why there is the tragedy of people falling in love with parents and siblings when they have been separated and meet late in life. More and more common now because of broken marriages. It's known as the call of DNA and is why marriage between close relatives is forbidden in most societies (because of obvious future medical problems). Genetic problems are very common in Indian/Pakistani communities because they intermarry more than usual.
 
Sky Box Office to show Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight.



It will cost £19.95 if you order it before midnight on May 1st and £24.95 if you order on May 2nd.

Still both far cheaper then the USA price $99 or £66.
 
Sky Box Office to show Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight.



It will cost £19.95 if you order it before midnight on May 1st and £24.95 if you order on May 2nd.

Still both far cheaper then the USA price $99 or £66.
That's a good price considering the magnitude of the fight.
 
One of the funniest things I ever heard was that people already paying for Sky were stumping up extra cash for boxing events. My father-in-law paid for the first PPV fight years ago (I forget who it was), all the while agreeing with me that if people didn't pay then Sky would stop doing it. Murdoch at his best.

Vin