Monday, 23 November 2009
BBC Children In Need Medley
time: 2:52 AM
A song for the BBC Children In Need fundraising campaign. You'd probably never seen so many cartoon/kids characters in one single music video.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Music to watch out for...
time: 8:27 AM
Been looking through the iTunes Music Store, and boy, do we have lots of new albums on the UK iTunes Album Chart this week.
Ok, first thing I want to talk about is, well, probably not available outside the UK (aww...). It's a Parody Album by BBC Radio 1 Morning Show DJ, Chris Moyles. The name of the album? I just said it. It's The Parody Album. It's a compilation of parodies that this morning show DJ recorded. Not much I can say, except you know this is going to be weird, like those Don & Drew show podcasts. Out Monday 23rd Nov on iTunes UK.
Next, still speaking about the UK, remember the Britain's Got Talent runner-up Susan Boyle? Well, she's back with a vengeance this Christmas with an album of her own, entitled "I Dreamed A Dream". Before you laugh her off as an eccentric like William Hung, look back at those YouTube clips. Now, imagine a studio-quality recording of her singing Amazing Grace or Silent Night. I admit, most people will notice flaws in her vibrato parts, but otherwise, she's a Scottish angel. This album is one to look out for this Christmas. Out Monday 23rd Nov
Moving on, while we're on the topic of stocking-stuffers for Christmas, we have 2 'Best-of's that were just released. For those who like Queen (who doesn't?), they just released their "Absolute Greatest" album! If you're more into Snow Patrol, they also have a 2-disc 'best-of', called "Up To Now".
There's also been some Jazzy artistes releasing albums recently. There's Norah Jones with "The Fall", and Jamie Cullum with "The Pursuit". Realise both album names start with 'The', followed by a noun? Can't be a coincidence, can it? Norah's album was released on 17 Nov, Jamie's on 9 Nov.
Oh, John Mayer. He's got a new album out, too. "Battle Studies".
And how about that Lady Gaga EP, "The Fame Monster"? Features the single 'Bad Romance', along with other new Gaga tracks, and her last album, "The Fame".
That's just a sample of what new stuff I saw on iTunes that might be popular this pre-Christmas season. Look out for them, possibly in a future music chart from me!
Friday, 20 November 2009
University help...
time: 8:51 PM
Ok, I don't know who reads my blog anymore. But since I just joined TSR (The Student Room), I thought I might get some 'fallout' from that forum site.
I need help with my University options.
At first, I wanted to go to LSE. But that was plan A, and with their rejection letter, I must switch to Plan B.
Unfortunately/Fortunately, I have 4 Plan Bs, and 3 of them are deployable (I'm still waiting for an offer from City University, for what I suspect might be the wrong course, because I chose Economics/Accountancy, and my Personal Statement was all about Finance & Accounting). As such, I need help in deciding which Plan B to make as a Firm Choice, and which as my Insurance Choice for my UCAS application.
The 4 Plan Bs are as follows:
Exeter:
I don't know what kind of place Exeter is, but from what I see, it's a vibrant scene with a great campus and relaxing surrounding. Highest Student Satisfaction Rating (citation: TimesOnline Good University Guide), so it has to be good, right? But highest entry requirement of the 3, too, at AAA. Then again, seems like Exeter might be the 'cheapest' place to live in amongst all my options (citation: Virgin Alternative Guide), yet it's the furthest from a major airport (I'm a foreign student.)
Manchester:
The lowest-ranked for Finance & Accounting (amongst my choices), but low = 10th (which is high, actually), according to The TimesOnline Good University Guide, and it's in a major city, with a big student population (is that a boon or a bane?). Near a major airport. Also, it's in the QOS international ranking of top 100 Universities worldwide. Great Music scene, from what my church friends told me.
Warwick:
Great teaching, I heard, and popular amongst UCAS applicants, but not much nightlife/shopping/POI around - Is that accurate?
City:
Haven't gotten an offer (not even an acknowledgement) yet. But this Univeristy's in London, which probably means vibrant nightlife, but high living cost and parking. Then again, there's good transport link (Tube, Bus, etc.)
So, that's my shortlist.
Which 2 should I choose?
[btw, my blog's back on Facebook!]
are you reading?
time: 8:32 PM
Just thought I should remind people - if you're still reading my blog, please drop a tag or something. I'm starting to feel like this is the end of a Birthday party when everyone's left, and I'm the only one left in the room, talking to the wall that is my own blog posting space.
So, yeah, please tag if you're still reading.
This got me thinking, though - with the advent of stuff like Facebook, Twitter, etc., what's the point of spending 30 minutes drafting a blog post that's just to satisfy your own ego/mind/(fill in this bracket with an appropriate word/phrase you had in mind)?
Look at the status update.
That's a quick, short and simple 'drug' to the same condition that people had before - the desire to be heard by "annonymous".
Not only can you send text across, but you can also share photos of, oh, I don't know, your bear wearing a poppy, or a bowl of clothes size tags that you arranged to form a rainbow!
So, why am I still blogging?
Well, to be honest, there is one secret reason.
It's related to essay-writing.
To be honest, I was never really good at writing essays/stories. But ever since I got into blogging, with the influence of friends like Mervyn Wee and Isaac Wong (who have been blogging since P6, before I know what a blog was), I realised that I was generating more essays than I would ever have written. And that's not the best part. The best part is that I actually enjoyed writing these essays, mainly because it serves an egocentric purpose of seeking attention + expressing emotions/thoughts/feelings.
Blogging, to me, feels a bit like your own YouTube channel. You get to post a heap of rubbish, and even if nobody read it, you feel like somebody heard you. (Unless you have a stat counter or a tagboard. A stat counter shows you that a thousand people have read your blog, which might be more people than you'd probably have in your iPhone contacts list. On the other hand, your tagboard will probably be so dead, you'd think nobody reads your blog.)
So, there's a hint. If you want to improve your essay-writing/argumentative/debating/critical skills (critical as in 'critique', not 'vital'), blog.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Of flight tickets and train tickets
time: 7:14 AM
Just to let you know, I just booked my flight ticket for the last part of my A Level school year. Long story short, here's the plan:
6 Jan 2010: CGK-SIN, arrive 7:35pm.
8 Jan 2010: SIN-CGK, depart 12:55pm.
And I'm going to be transiting in SG on my return trip in July, but the transit is just one hour, it's not even worth mentioning.
There are many reasons why this stayover is short.
•Firstly, I have to be in the UK before the 11th, because I have exams on. I need to be in the UK earlier to adjust to the climate, time, duration of daytime, etc.
•Secondly (extending reason number 1), I tried to book an SQ flight for the 9th of Jan, but the site just won't cooperate, and tell me SQ only flies SIN-LHR on 4th, 8th and 11th of January, even though it has a code-share flight with Virgin Atlantic on the 9th (though it transits in Dubai, making my trip a 2-stop route, but who cares!). Been trying, believe me, for 2 weeks now.
•Thirdly, I want to spend more time with my family (and my bro's Honda Jazz).
•Fourthly, I need more time with the books.
•Fifthly, Singapore's broadband speed will spoil me. Must not get too used to it.
•Sixthly, what I want to do in SG, most of them, I can do in Jakarta, so what's the point of staying too long?
•Seven, I have a longer, more relaxed break between the end of my A Level exams in June and my A Level results collection in August. And by that time, I think the choir peeps were suggesting we have a get-together to celebrate Ms Gan's return to SG or something, so I thought - why not pop by?
And there you go - 7 reasons for the short stay in SG.
Now that I've clarified my reasons, let's start arranging stuff, yeah?
I'll probably need to go to a Guardian store and a Popular/Art Friend shop, btw.
And I must eat Roti Prata / Yoshinoya / 咸鱼炒饭 with green pickled chilli. Gosh, I miss these things.
And btw, I have a fisheye treat (hint hint).
So yeah, do drop me a Facebook message about this, alright?
While we're still on the topic of my flight ticket, I just realised that my flight ticket, even though it'll bring me half way across the globe and back, it still costs less than rail ticket.
And I'm not talking about some bullet train or rail journey to the ends of the earth.
I'm referring to this recent news article about the most expensive UK railway journey ticket. £1002 (that's £11.40 more than my flight ticket, based on current USD-GBP exchange rates) gets you a First-class "Walk-on" Return journey from some place in Scotland to some place in Cornwall. (See Map)
View Larger Map
That's 1,700 miles in total. (Map above can only show car journey. See source article for actual rail journey route)
To put things in perspective, I'm paying less than the tickets for an economy class seat on a 14,000 mile journey.
That should really makes you wonder about 2 things:
a) How does the airline industry do it?
b) How much dough does the railway companies in the UK make anyway? It's not as if they involve as many employees, or use more expensive vehicles for transporting people.
This is just laughable. For the same amount of money to go on a holiday in, say, Bali, I can go from one end of the UK to the other and back. That's just not the same, is it? And yet, in terms of £££, it is.
And mind you, even though it says First Class, you don't get the same treatment as a First Class passenger on a plane. The size of those seats are (most of the time) the same as standard class seats; they're only slightly cleaner, because fewer buttocks have been on them, since you need to pay more to get on them.
Well, that's all the bickering I can do now. Need to sleep. Got church tomorrow morning, and I'm watching 2012 with my housemates tomorrow afternoon/evening (tbc). Am I the only one to see the irony in that, or what?
Friday, 13 November 2009
Some things I've learnt.
time: 3:40 PM
Been thinking recently of posting a list of things that I've learnt
about studying abroad over the past few years, and putting them in a
blog post. But seeing as how these things just keep on coming into my
rear view mirror, I thought I shouldn't put everythin in one post, but
rather, scatter it.
So here is my first one of such posts.
Firstly, you need friends to help you along the way. They can be your
moral supporter, and they are your rock - they keep you sane and in
touch with the world.
Secondly, if you believe in God, you need to keep close to him in your
daily life. Go to church, read the bible, pray for guidance and
wisdom, and also, give thanks to God for the blessings in your life.
Thirdly, jeans are your best friends, whatever the season, weather,
and gender. They're comfortable, they work in all weather and climate,
they work with any top, and they can be worn for a week before you
need to change them. They're the only type of pants you should wear if
you want to survive in a temperate country.
Fourth, music. Unless you're Teh Chee Yang, who hates music, music can
take your mind of things, change your mood, or give you inspiration.
You need music.
5: find student discount opportunities, or discount cards, and abuse
them, but not too much. Look out for lobang, too. To quote a certain
European supermarket chain's ad campaign: Every little helps.
Some of these can apply to any student, really. But yeah, that's how I
stay sane in an insane world.
More to come in future.
Sent from my iPhone
Of SSD and TGL.
time: 6:11 AM
I was going to start this post with "Haven't blogged in a while", till I realised - my last post was only 9 days ago. Now, yes, that's a 'long' time, considering my average blogging frequenscy. However, compared with most other blogs, one post every 9 days is quite frequent. So, no, it hasn't been a while. It's just 9 days. So let's begin this post proper!
----------
Just got an offer from Exeter! AAA, including Mathematics. A bit high, but not impossible. So, that's Manchester and Exeter down, waiting for City, LSE and Warwick to reply.
----------
I spent last Saturday at Earl's Court Exhibition Centre for Top Gear Live / MPH Show. Can I just say, if you're any sort of a Top Gear fan, or if you love cars, you should check out this show. Basically, there's two parts to it - an exhibition area showcasing cars and car-related products (EA was showcasing their latest games, BBC Magazine was selling Top Gear Magazines for £1, and TomTom was selling GPS devices, etc.), and a live show, featuring the stars of the BBC programme by the same name - Clarkson, Hammond, and May, as well as The Stig. You'll see car stunts, car showcases, and ambitious-yet-rubbish creations of the 3 blokes, including vehicles made out of gardening items, and racing with mopeds (they flip a lot when turning, because they only have one front wheel). And the noise from the V8 engines of 8 supercars - that will give serious petrolheads goosebumps.
----------
That wasn't the only show I saw last week. On Wednesday, before I got sick (more on that later), I watched Michael McIntyre Live at the Brighton Centre. For those who don't know, Michael McIntyre is a stand-up comedian who likes to crack jokes about the things he observe around him - from the way people react to you if you sneeze, to the blatant errors in his opening sequence video, which showed him on the road dashing to Brighton in the daytime, even though it's pitch dark 8pm when the show started. He can make mundane stuff hilarious, and he often does it impromptu - unscripted. And even though he has a cold, he was a great sport, going through the whole 2-hour performance like a professional entertainer. Great comedian!
----------
And about me getting sick - I suspect there's a bug going around, because for some reason, the morning after I went to the Michael McIntyre show, I woke up feeling as if I had a hangover. I almost lost my balance in the shower, and I was feeling weak while eating breakfast. I puked five times after breakfast, and had to take leave for the rest of the day after one hour of classes. The school nurse prescribed something called Pepto-Bismol, which came in the form of (to my disgust) a pink liquid suspension. But taking that really helped to curb my nausea, though the side-effects were a bit disturbing, to say the least (it said "black tongue and excrements", and though the former wasn't observed, the latter certainly happened, and it was the most alarming sight ever.)
But yes, if you are nauseous and puking, and especially if you just recovered from a cold, go see the doctor.
----------
Well, that's it for this post. more to come soon. But for now, it's bed time. (well, for me, anyway)
Oh, did you get the MacHeist bundle? only a few hours left! (as of typing: 5 hours left.)
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Try again?
time: 6:42 AM
Haven't blogged about myself recently.
So let's try that again.
Erm, ok, where should I start?
I just got the first response from the 5 universities I applied to!
For those who don't know about the UK uni application process, let me
explain:
You can start submitting applications from September, and depending on
where you're applying to, it closes at different times - late October
for Cambridge/Oxford/Medicine, January 2010 for other students, March
2010 for some special Arts courses. You have to submit a personal
statement (a 4000-character essay of yourself, why you choose the
subject, and why you deserve to get into the uni), 5 course choices,
and your past academic results + what subjects you plan to do for your
A Levels/IB/equivalent. Then after you submit all these, your tutor
writes a reference and predicted grades in a separate part of the
application (it's all online), and all these go to the 5 universities
as a package (the unis won't know who else you applied to). Based on
all that they've got, the universities decide whether they want to
offer you a place or not, or if they want to interview you (not so
common, since the personal statement should be enough in most cases).
I got my first offer from the University of Manchester! w00t!
So, yeah, Thank God for the offer, especially with the increased
competition this year.
And speaking of "Thank God", Thank God for the re-opening of St.
Peter's Cathedral, Brighton! It's a beautiful Gothic-style church
building, and though 2/3 of the interior needs some work (only the
front 1/3 section is being used for services), it's still a nice
church, where I got to meet lots of nice people over coffee and cakes
before and after service. Maybe I should take some pics and post here
next time.
And speaking of time, look at the time.
No, I mean look at the calendar.
It's two more months before we enter a new year! But not just any new
year, it's a new decade!
If you think about it, so much has changed in the past decade. I shall
blabber on to illustrate my point...
In terms of technology, we now have 3G touchscreen phones, iPods,
Wifi, HDTV, Twitter, Social networks (Facebook, Friendster), Broadband
in virtually almost every household, YouTube, the rise of the Mac,
Windows XP, Vista, and 7 in one decade (and Mac OS X 10 to 10.6). The
CD is dying as a medium, while DVDs and iTunes rise in popularity.
In terms of music, we went from boy/girl bands (think Westlife and
Spice Girls) to, erm, oh sh*t they're back (Westlife, Backstreet Boys.).
But we also have lots of electronica/dance artistes (Lady Gaga, Gwen
Stefani), Alternative (Muse, Radiohead), and strangely, a bit of
country (Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus).
R&B is omnipresent (Timbaland, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Rihanna, Beyoncé),
and so are the JMs - Jason Mraz, John Mayor, James Morrison.
We bid farewell to Michael Jackson.
And thanks to the interwebs (Youtube, Myspace => Lily Allen, Marié
Digby) and Idol/X Factor (Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, William Hung
(remember that bloke?), David Cook & Archuleta), some people became
famous.
And many bands that existed in the 90's (Black Eyed Peas, Coldplay,
Take That) became even more successful.
And we also saw a band release their remasters at last - The Beatles.
Oh, and are you emo? (Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco,
Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne)
In world affairs, we face tighter airport security and 'Big
Brother' ("One Nation Under CCTV") thanks to 9/11 in 2001 and 7/7 in
London. The world watches the events in the Middle East (Iraq, Iran,
Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine). We see great natural disasters (Indian
Ocean Tsunami, Katrina, etc.). China is booming, even in the recent
recession (and did you see the Olympics opening ceremony?). We saw
nuclear weapons in the headlines, and we saw global warming poke
politicians and citizens. The world is dying less and food is
generally abundant, yet we still have people dying of starvation in
parts of the world. People became more concerned of healthy eating,
animal rights, ethics, human rights, obesity/anorexia (or are they?)
The income gap continues to widen.
And Copenhagen is approaching.
And The US bid Bush farewell and elected an African-American Democrat
as the 44th President of the USA.
(Oh, remember Sarah Palin? What happened to her?)
K. think this post is long enough to show just a small fraction of how
much this decade has brought.
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Blimey! Lower viewership!
time: 6:38 AM
Just looked at my Google Analytics stats.
It's shocking how much lower my weekly viewership is so far, ever
since I dropped the Facebook Notes syndicate.
Now, there could be many other confounding variables that are causing
this lower viewership rate (O Levels, no new post, etc.), so I'll wait
a bit longer. Need a couple of weeks to control for these variables
before I can make a fair comparison. But thus far, the results have
been eye-openingly surprising - a 30-50% drop.
Average = 112 visitors a week.
Visits a week for the first 3 weeks of Oct 2009: about 80.
Visits for the week of 25 - 30 Oct 2009: 56
*scratches chin*
Music Chart of the moment
time: 5:20 AM
Yes, it's another music chart!
Before I start, I must first disclose that I rarely buy music from
iTunes/Amazon nowadays. I've been trying to use Spotify, a legal music
streaming service, instead. Why? Well, I can listen to all the music I
want for £9.99/mth, and the music doesn't have to stay on my Hard Disk
(it can, if I choose to), and I can sync playlists over-the-air
between my Spotify app on my Mac, as well as my iPhone and anywhere
else I so choose to log in to Spotify. So, there, I don't own most of
the tracks listed below, unless I somehow feel that the track's going
to be a classic/one-hit wonder.
Music Chart for the moment...
1.
"Little Lion Man"
Mumford & Sons
2.
"Bad Romance"
Lady Gaga
3.
"You've Got The Love"
Florence + The Machine
4.
"Undisclosed Desires"
Muse
5.
"Empire State of Mind"
Jay-z feat. Alicia Keys
6.
"Forever Is Over"
The Saturdays
7.
"Heartbreaker"
MSTRKRFT feat. John Legend
8.
"You're Not Alone"
Tinchy Stryder
9.
"Ghosts 'n' Stuff"
Deadmau5 feat. Rob Swire
10.
"Flashback"
Calvin Harris
11.
"White Lies"
Mr Hudson
12.
"Closer"
Kings of Leon
13.
"Sweet Disposition"
The Temper Trap
14.
"Fight For This Love"
Cheryl Cole
15.
"Manos Al Aire"
Nelly Furtado
-----------------------------
Yes, I'm sticking to the rules this time around - Each artist/band is
entitled to only one position.
And yes, it seems like my music taste is subconsciously shifting
towards the electronic genre.
And yes, I kept one rule, but broke another - rappers on my chart
(Tinchy Stryder and Jay-Z). Somehow, I like both tracks.
By the way, what do you think of the album art collage? Nice touch? or just unnecessary? Comment, please!
Monday, 26 October 2009
The last syndicated post (to FB)
time: 4:12 AM
As of typing, it's 25 October 2009, slightly after 8pm GMT. (oh yeah, DST's over, which means I can speak in GMT time now.)
Starting 26 October 2009, there shall be no more syndication of my blog posts on Facebook.
Why?
Well, the main reason is that I want to try out something.
I want to check if people will visit my blog if I don't syndicate onto Facebook.
From my judgement, I think people are not visiting my blogspot blog because they can get the same "experience" on Facebook as they would want on my blog - they can read what I post, and they have a feedback system in the form of comments and likes (which replaces the tagboard).
There are pros and cons to having my blog posts syndicated to my Facebook profile page.
The Pros:
•I'm making my blog posts more accessible to my 300+ friends, since they log on to Facebook more often than my blog - In a sense, I'm benefitting from the 'cluster effect' of Facebook, as a social tool/destination on the web.
•People get to comment on specific posts and I get to see which post they are referring to - much better than a single tagboard for an entire blog.
•Because many people log on to Facebook regularly (perhaps on their smartphones, even), my notes are more accessible than my blog. Not only that, but people can catch up on my latest posts more regularly and not feel as if I've written a novel while they weren't visiting my blog. Well, what do you expect when I update my blog 200+ times a year? (Though thanks to Twitter, that rate has probably gone down by 20% or so. As of this post, I've published 186 posts for my blog in 2009)
The Cons:
•My blog posts don't look good after passing through layers of layout adjustments - firstly my Mail.app, then Blogger, and finally, Facebook. Each step of the process, the blog post changes form - font, type (bold, italic, etc.), colour, size, alignment, it loses the element that I intended the post to have, and that's very irritating if you actually spend time & effort doing up all the fonts.
•Your blog might suffer as a result of people only reading your posts on Facebook.
I want people to realise that I actually have a blog, and my "Facebook Notes" are just a 'carbon copy' of my blog. Initially, I set Facebook to syndicate my blog because I want people to see a new 'note' on my Facebook profile page, and after seeing that, I was hoping that people would NOT click through to my Facebook notes, but rather, go over to my blogger blog. Obviously, that was wishful thinking on my part - people don't memorise URLs to others' blogs.
But now, I want to try out a little experiment. I want to find out if syndicating onto Facebook has any significant effect on the number of visitors/pageviews per day on my blog. As such, I am cutting off the syndication (possibly temporarily), and I want to see whether or not Google Analytics will log more visitors. If it does, then I can say that Facebook Notes does take away viewership from the original blog, if you're a small-time blogger like me. If it doesn't then maybe only a 8 people read my blog regularly, each visiting my blog twice daily (on average, I get 8 unique visitors per day and 16.59 pageviews a day.).
So do check out my blog if you've never been there before - http://ronfiles.blogspot.com
Note: if you're reading my blog via RSS (which I doubt, but then again, I won't know since I don't track RSS feed viewers), it still works. I'm just removing the RSS feed link from my Facebook Profile page settings.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
Urgh. Mucus. SuperF.
time: 1:59 AM
Been ill.
Slightly.
Well, maybe 'slightly' is an underplaying adverb. Been getting
blockages in my left nose, thanks to a mixture of blood and mucus. And
the Lemsip seems to help with the mucus in the short-term, but worsens
the nose-bleeds, because one of its side-effects is thrombocytopenia,
which basically means platelets deficiency, or in my case, slow blood
clot formation and hence, increased nose bleed duration and volume.
Bio students, I hope you learnt something, and if you're having your
'O's I hope that served as a reminder to go and revise. (Hope that
warning didn't come too late.)
By the way, no, I didn't learn that word (Thrombocytopenia). It was on
the patient information leaflet that came in the box with the Lemsip
sachets.
Anyway, let's put that gross mucus talk aside.
Went to the cinema yesterday to watch the Pixar movie "Up" in 3D. I
must say, the new "Real 3D" glasses - the ones that use Circular
Polarizing glasses rather than tinted glasses - really adds drama to
the animated movie. The added dimension of depth isn't just used to
give the short bursts of 'surprise the audience' scenes like those in
Jaws 3D anymore. Rather, you see this Z-axis being used throughout the
movie. And even though you might get a headache at the beginning and
discomfort on your nose (especially if you wear spectacles), the added
dimension makes the story more engrossing. Sometimes, you feel as if
you're watching a puppet show, only that the scenes change instantly
and there's no strings.
The only downside is that I can still see a bit of ghosting effect and
a bit of interpolation in certain scenes, which is quite hard to
accept considering how much more the tickets cost (well, for the Odeon
that I was at, anyway). Still, it could've been worse, right?
Overall, this technology has that 'wow' factor that impressed me.
In other news, I just bought a new book (gasp! a book?!) recently -
it's the sequel to Freakonomics, Superfreakonomics. I was so engrossed
with the first, I decided to actually buy the sequel. Yes, there's
some controversy about the content in the book - if you read online,
there's a debate about the way the book talks about Global warming.
And if you read the first book, you might be dropping your lips (at
first in surprise, then) in dismay when they theorised that the Roe vs
Wade ruling which led to the legalisation of abortion in the USA
caused the decline in the rate of crime in the US in the '90s, in
spite of analysts' more pessimistic predictions of escalating crime
rates. Not going into too much detail (don't want to spoil the book)
but if you want to read the theories in depth, head down to the
nearest library that has this book, or buy it, or buy the audiobook
online. It tries to mix Psychology (a social science that tries to
explain human behaviour) with Economics (another social science of how
markets, economic agents and economies interact). It's analytical, but
it doesn't have the terminology and complex maths. (Though some people
argue that the book often "cherry-picks" statistics to distort the
truth and support their theories/disprove certain common beliefs
amongst people.)
K. just a short post. Need to use the bathroom, and then sleep.
Friday, 23 October 2009
See Statistics? Scrutinise the source.
time: 4:45 AM
If you see a set of statistics coming from a researcher, be it in an
advertisement, newspaper, or even in a Social Studies/History Source-
Based Question, always question its source.
In SS classes, we are 'trained' to look at the provenance of a source
to see where it came from, and from there, interpret certain things -
what the sample size was, who was included in the sample, what this
data is supposed to represent, and how was the data collected. The
same should apply in real life - when you see that shampoo ad claiming
"7 out of 10 people experienced stronger hair", investigate how the
research was done. If the footnote says "in a trial of 117 people", I
would still be suspect. Why?
1. Because 117 people could include 100 employees, who, having
received financial incentive from the company in the form of a job and
a salary, have an obligatory pressure to say "it's brilliant". Or
superficially, if they love the company and their products, however
bad/good they may actually be, and that is why they choose to work for
the company and take free samples, then the sample is biased.
2. Because out of 117 people, the company picked and interviewed 90
people who had strong hair to begin with, and the shampoo didn't do
much to help. Or, the opposite could be true - they started from a low
base (i.e.: very weak hair), and increased the strength, even though
the hair was still breaking, albeit at a "60% lower rate of breakage".
3. Because the shampoo works best with certain types of hair (e.g.:
for blondes, or for oily hair), and out of 117 people, 80 people could
have the advantageous trait.
4. Because out of 200 people who initially tested the product, 83
people didn't like the product / didn't report back, so the company
just worked with what they had.
5. Because the company included, with the free sample of shampoo, some
extra hair tonic and vouchers to a special hair treatment place to
"examine the progress of the improvement in your hair".
See how a single footnote might seem to disclose the validity of a
statistic, but actually has so many flaws?
By the way, the above scenario was completely made-up. But I hope it
keeps your eyes open and wary of the claptrap that many researchers,
scientists, and advertisers put out.
