Follower Analysis…and Some Hotdogs

I wish to talk today about a milestone. My first ENTRY in this blog was July 1st, twenty ought oh nine. On the 30th day of May, twenty ought eighteen, I got my 100th follower. I thought it might be time for some “analytics” as the captains of e-commerce like to say (to me, they’ll always be “statistics”).

The numbers below that you will contemplate shortly after I finish this statement, are a data hotdog – it’s comprised of this and that to form a deliciously fulfilling tube of meaning. The “parts” I’ve so revivified include – time, number of posts and number of followers. Each factor represents an obscure part of an animal that can’t survive cuisinically (why not?) by itself. Like a butcher of information, I will grind these ingredients together, and produce…

Listen, I like this analogy, but I’m ready to get on with the data processing. To that end –

VARIABLE #1 – TIME:
It’s been 8.8 years, or 465 weeks, or 3,255 days, or 78,120 hours since July 1st, 2009. One or all may be used to represent time in my calculations. Therefore, I’ve decided to call any variable dealing with time, “TIME”.

VARIABLE #2 – LABOR:

You are reading my 200th published entry. That is, it wasn’t published at the time of the 100th follower. Therefore, I put in 199 posts worth of toil. Moreover, I estimate my total word count to be in the neighborhood of 85,291, by adding the word counts of every 19th -20th post and averaging it. That average came out to 428.6 words per post.

VARIABLE #3 – FOLLOWERS:
I have 100 loyal readers. That can be construed in many ways – such as 200 pinky toes connected to 100 brains that enjoy stimulating content. Or 93 or so appendices occupying space inside 93 or so of my readers. This assumes that my followers are consistent with the statistic mentioned HERE reporting that 7 percent of the population experiences an appendicitis at some point.

I feel like I’m flagrantly digressing. Getting back to the point – as a function of TIME (t), FOLLOWERS (f) increases at a rate of about 3.1% of a new follower everyday or a new follower every 32 or 33 days. I think of it like earning followers piece by piece, by this time tomorrow I will have earned a foot or perhaps a hand and forearm of some lucky reader.

As a function of LABOR (l), I gain one follower for every 1.99 posts. At a fitting rate of 199/3255 (I move so very slowly) – one post every 16 days.

Using my word count estimate of 85,291 – that’s 100/85,291 or .12% (.1172%) of a follower for every word, or one follower for every 852.91 words.

Application: up to and including HERE, there are 466 words or about 466 x 0.1172% = 0.546152 (55%) of one new follower. In more practical terms, I only need to write ~387 more words or work 83% as hard to gain a complete follower. At my current rate, such a task would take 85,291 words/3,255 days = 26.2 words/day. Three-hundred-eighty-seven (I can’t start a sentence with a number, so unsightly) more words divided by 26.2 words/day = 14.77 days. Thing is, I’ve written 77 more words already and I’m not done, so this post might earn me 1.4 or even (dare I say it?) 1.75 more followers!

In short, (f)=0.001172l, where l=t/0.038163. Thus, assuming everything remains constant, a period of say, 214 days (π x 100) would result in 214 days/0. 038163 = 5,607.526 words, netting me 0.001172 x 5,607.526 = 6 full bodied followers, the torso and part of the hips from another (6.57).

Inferences: like any blogger, one of my goals is to reach as many whole people as possible. Based on the numbers, reaching my next milestone – 1,000 followers, gaining 900 more – would take 29,306.058 days. If there is no change in the time I commit to blogging, that will take about 80 years (29,306.058 days)/ 0. 038163 or 767,918.45 words. In 80 years, I’ll be 117 years old. I’m not going to bet on living that long – I don’t think blogging would be high on my priority list anyway.

Listen, I transposed the 5s and 2 in the number of days figure (3,255 became 3,522). I’ve just spent an afternoon not only correcting those figures but editing the portion above “Application: up to and including HERE, there are 466 words…” so it stayed at 466 words, lest I recalculate the figures. That said, I don’t want to fade this post out gracefully; I’m hungry, I’m just abruptly halting now to go eat…a hotdog sounds good.

—–

One more thing. there are 779 words above the line, this post should snag me 779 x .001172 = .913 or 91% of a new follower. Assuming this individual is a female of average weight (168.5lbs), that’s 153.335lbs of follower. For the average dude, weighing in at 195.7lbs on average, that’s 178.07lbs of flesh that will soon receive an email every time a spin a yarn.

In closing, I’d just like to point out that the numbers listed above, notably the near 800,000 words and ~30,000 days, as big and unwieldy as they seem, are perfectly rational to me. If you’re like me, you feel belittled when some fatcat starts spouting off about Apple being worth 40 kajillion dollars or that Trump paid $17 million for this or that trivial thing. When used in this way, numbers are meaningless – merely a device for the bourgeoisie to show the proletariat how high they can count. I don’t see the numbers in this post as numbers, but as little pebbles I can collect to someday make a mountain of meaning. Won’t you be one of my pebbles?

FIN

@JarrettLWilson

June 8, 2018 1

Social Dysfunction and Mass Shooting

For the content below, I reference THIS post.

I’m not sure why I thought that data collection for this project would be a walk in the park, but the more information I gather, the more I realize that I have even more to gather. Let’s say I start researching how a shooter got his guns (of the 10 or so shootings I’ve researched on that parameter, 100% of the firearms were obtained legally, with a majority doing so despite a record that should have prevented the sale).

Big digression, sorry. I’ll start looking for how they got guns and see something about exposure to domestic violence. Then I’ll remember a blurb about so and so watching his mom get beat up, so I’ll add that variable.

All told, this dataset contains 20 (as I count them) variables, including –

three demographic measures (it’s been a while since grad school – some of these might not belong to “demographics”). These are the “invariable variables” – the shooter was stuck with these upon being born –

Location (state)

Date of birth

Race

Six components that the shooter had some control of –

Specific location of shooting

Date of shooting/age

Graduation date

Death toll

Injured toll

Status of shooter (suicide, KIA, or captured)

Three variables of what I will call “life experience”

Military status

Relationship with the father

Exposure to domestic violence

Seven dealing with guns

Shooter use of AR-15

Shooter use of an automatic weapon

Shooter use of handguns

Shooter use of other semi-automatic

Any other weapons

Total number of weapons

Legality of gun acquisition.

Diagnosed and/or suspected mental and social disorders.

I’m jumping the gun here when I report that, of seven of the more recent shootings, at least four had either been diagnosed or been suspected of having some disorder on the autism spectrum (including Asperger’s). Compare that to one out of every 68 kids in the US are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. My methods and results are far from conclusive, but warrant a closer look, in my opinion. Let me be clear – I’m not suggesting that individuals with autism are inherently violent; merely that, as a social disorder, higher functioning individuals on the spectrum may lack the social coping mechanisms of the typical person, yet they are exposed to the same reality of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other perversions of social norms that the rest of us must face. More than the disorder itself is the treatment, or rather lack thereof. A study released in 2016 by the CDC “shows that, overall, less than half the children identified with autism (43 percent) had received comprehensive developmental evaluations by age 3.” In effect, it’s the lack of intervention that is to blame, not the disorder itself.

Ok, that was a big digression, please forgive me.

Another common factor that became apparent was military status – of the nine of the more recent shootings, four of the shooters were either active, discharged or interested in joining a branch of the military. Again, this figure is far above the national average of 0.4% or roughly 1 out of 250 people…

I have to stop myself now. I’m drawing conclusions from an incomplete dataset of a handful of cases. In the statistical world, that’s a sin.

In any case, I think there is evidence that this issue is far more complex than simply restricting access to guns.

This should not suggest that we should abandon the effort to better control guns. Access to guns gives the crazy inside these individuals form and direction.

I hope to have a more complete dataset soon and will report back with more conclusive observations. Stay tuned…

One more thing – You may not have heard about it, but on Tuesday 3/20 a Maryland student tried to shoot up his high school. He was thwarted by the School’s resource officer – I feel he should be mentioned by name and marked as a hero – Blaine Gaskill was reportedly facing the shooter within seconds of the first shot. Thanks to his prompt response, the shooter only fired on two individuals – Desmond Barnes was shot in the thigh and has been released from the hospital. Jaelyn Willey was shot in the head, rendering her brain dead. She was pulled off life support and died Thursday 3/22. My condolences to her family and friends…

I was initially incensed by the lack of media coverage, thinking there just weren’t enough dead school children to make headlines. Then I decided that it was a good thing. No doubt the shooter in Maryland was inspired by the Florida shooter, who was inspired by another school shooting and so on. By not sensationalizing it, perhaps we’ll get a reprieve from the bloodshed. There’s an idea media, don’t have a “breaking news” orgasm and ejaculate sensational information every time there’s a shooting. Just a thought…

FIN

@JarrettLWilson

March 23, 2018 7

Birth Flaming Golf Balls from my Nostrils and Other Curiousities

There are a lot of facts in this world. That statement is itself a fact. I’ve conceived a list of six facts that may or may not be profoundly…uh, profound for you, you and even you there with the glasses.

These facts will be presented to you in the same order in which I recorded them. That is to say that the order that the facts are presented in means nothing!

In fact (settle down, this is only a fact relating to what I’m saying now – the list is coming), do your best to imagine that all the facts are first; like this: “fact #1 – yada yada yada yada. That was a good one, now I’ll read fact #1 – blah blah blah blah blah. That one was stupid, maybe fact #1 will be better. And so on.

Why six facts?

Have you ever stopped to wonder why lists always go to 10? It’s ok, I haven’t either. Fact is, I could only come up with six. Furthermore, this article asserts that there were six days in a week until Augustus Caesar’s nephew, Devon “Seven Digits” Caesar – he was born with seven fingers on his left hand, nagged his uncle into adding a day to make the week seven days long so his pinky wouldn’t feel left out when he counted the days of the week on his fingers (err, he counted in English, and spoke in Latin).

Moving on, here is the list, starting with #1 and ending with #1 with four #1s in between –

#1(1) I recently noticed that my dog sneezes a lot. I thought maybe she was sick, but then it occurred to me she sniffs EVERYTHING. It is, therefore, a logical outcome that she sneeze a lot.

#1(2) I was at the gym the other day and I decided that I’m normal, everyone else is superhuman. I guess I was thinking that I’ve been like this for so long that I’m normal now. Then I saw a dude doing lunges across the gym floor with a 50lb barbell across his shoulders and thought holy cow! That guy is superhuman!

#1(3) Listen – I’m right handed. The fact that my left side was more affected than my right is, in my mind, divine intervention. I think about this often, but can’t think of anything else to add. I suppose that I’m saying it could certainly be worse.

#1(4) I went to Egypt at some point apparently and found the pyramids and the Sphinx to be eh. I found the Ginormous boxes of cereal to be far more awe inspiring. Here’s a pic that captures my consternation regarding the large cereal box –

We're gonna need a bigger bowl — We’re gonna need a bigger bowl

#1(5) Let’s say you order something from an online vendor (any vendor will do, but for purposes of this fact we’ll say Amazon (coincidentally, this entry it’s brought to you buy 🙂 Amazon.com -“Buy more sh*t, dammit!)) Further, let’s say the item you ordered came in a box. To keep the contents of the box in the box, the vendor used a sticky plastic strip (for purposes of this discussion, let’s call it “tape”). I’ve provided an example picture below. Here’s the problem, you have this shiny new box expertly sealed with tape and you’re too lazy to fetch a knife. What to do?

You look all around the place, hoping that a pocket knife will shoot out of the ground. After a few minutes you decide to take action and can only locate a…

Notice how it looks like a comb — Notice how it looks like
a comb

Then you do the rational calculus, would it be easier to find a knife or try this comb? You’re rational side screams out GET A F*CKING KNIFE! Uncharacteristically, you’re lazy side makes a stupendous effort to stifle this command – you don’t hear anything, so you proceed with the comb as pictured.

All that box cutting and rational calculus cramped your style. The box is open, so use that box cutter/comb to get your style back.

Now the box is open and you’re lookin pretty good.

#1(6) You can’t see it in the picture, but this bag is steaming hot. I love sushi with wasabi, I tolerate spicy stuff pretty well. I thought it probably only TASTES like wasabi, but doesn’t have the fiery essence.

I! Was! Wrong!

I upended the bag into my mouth, filling my mouth with a generous portion. What I felt next is best described by flaming golf balls being forced out of my nose. Here’s a visual –

FIN

@JarrettLWilson

July 30, 2013 0

Tag: facts

Birth Flaming Golf Balls from my Nostrils and Other Curiousities

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