[ f e c k l e s s ]

Sunday, October 28

Statistics is hard. Creating a good survey is hard. Analysing data is hard--especially when you haven't got the statistics or the good survey parts down yet.

On the other hand, findings that, given all the obligatory disclaimers about sample size and limitations of the survey questions, might actually be original and interesting--that's pretty cool.

(Quick non-doublechecked preview: Women seem to feel, by a small but significant margin, more overloaded by information in the workplace than men. This of course could be explained by all sorts of other factors, but that's what data analysis is for, right? RIght. Back to work.)

 (8:20 PM | #)

Wednesday, October 17

Another concert, another set of lyrics stuck in my head. Peter "I want to look as scary as him when I grow up" Garrett warned us not to read anything into the titles of the songs they played for us, but he didn't warn us away from the lyrics themselves:

from Forgotten Years
The hardest years, the darkest years
The roarin' years, the fallen years
These should not be forgotten years
The hardest years, the wildest years
The desperate and divided years
We will remember

from Put down that Weapon
The eyes of the world now turn
And if we think about it
And if we talk about it
And if the skies go dark with rain
Can you tell me does our freedom remain

Put down that weapon or we'll all be gone
You can't hide nowhere with the torchlight on
And it happens to be an emergency
Some things aren't meant to be
Some things don't come for free

Actually, he was very gentle with us on the subject of recent events. I think most of the world--whatever their political leanings, or feelings about the correct response--has great sympathy for the American people right now.

 (12:06 PM | #)

Wednesday, October 10

I've had this picture set as my desktop image at school for almost a year now. When I first saw it, I thought it was perfect somehow, but I had no idea that it would become this appropriate.

The image: "I just don't know . . ."

 (1:47 PM | #)

Tuesday, October 9

So, it's been a pretty dark month. Along with the wide variety of stunningly awful world events, a number of smaller and (in some ways) harder things have been affecting those I know and love. The worst so far: Taketora Ueda, known to most of us as Take, died this weekend in a motorcycle accident. I did not know Take well, but from our brief and lighthearted conversations in nightclubs and bars over the past few years, I knew him as a smart, good-looking, funny, and very warm man. He was far too young, vivid, and there as a person, even in passing, to be able to imagine him gone now.

 (10:15 PM | #)