From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V2 #295 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Thursday, August 22 2002 Volume 02 : Number 295 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Sight & Sound redux, or, Loudfan makes good [OptionsR@aol] Re: [loud-fans] Sight & Sound redux, or, Loudfan makes good [] Re: [loud-fans] Sight & Sound redux, or, Loudfan makes good [Roger Winsto] [loud-fans] Julee Cruise [Dave Walker ] RE: [loud-fans] Special announcement [Aaron Mandel ] Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement ["Joseph M. Mallon" ] Re: [loud-fans] truth is stranger than fiction ["me" ] [loud-fans] Spam and probability ["John Swartzentruber" ] Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement [Tim_Walters@digidesign.com] Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement [Miles Goosens ] Re: [loud-fans] Spam and probability ["John Swartzentruber" ] Re: [loud-fans] postmodern transit ["Joseph M. Mallon" ] Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement [Tim_Walters@digidesign.com] Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement ["John Swartzentruber" And since when are the first two > GODFATHER movies one movie? > Indeed, if they're using that logic, then I find it peculiar the second and third parts of George Romero's "Living Dead" trilogy made the full directors/critics list but the original "Night" didn't. I would have figured at least Stuart Gordon would have rated it. Gordon does refer to BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR as "the 'Gone With The Wind' of porno", which lends the poll that classy little touch it needed (cough). Speaking of movies, I saw in the local paper that a potentially interesting new theatre will be opening up in Chandler. Apparently it's part of a chain called Madstone Theatres. Anyone on the list been to any of the ones in other towns? Albuquerque and Cleveland were a couple I can recall listed. I was just wondering if they were worth checking out. Local movie mogul Dan Harkins has pretty much had the entire indie/foreign film selection (such as it is) sewn up in Phoenix for as long as I can remember. Will Madstone give him a run for his money? Plate of shrimp, Mike Bollman ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 9:31:28 +0000 From: Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Sight & Sound redux, or, Loudfan makes good Andy wrote: > Since no one else seems to have noticed, may I direct your attention to > a Sight & Sound poll overview, written by an actual Loudfan for (ta-da!) > Arguably The Widest Read And Most Prestigious Webzine Extant: > > http://slate.msn.com/?id=2069759 Thanks for this, Andy, and Dan - well, wow. Needless to say this is getting a *lot* of forwarding from me at the moment... > Congrats, Dan! A few ponderings, for Dan or anyone else: the article > says reputations of THE BICYCLE THIEF (aka BICYCLE THIEVES), THE GOLD > RUSH, and CITY LIGHTS have "gradually declined"; any ideas why this is > so? No specific ideas re: 'Bicycle Thieves', but I think Chaplin's work has steadily declined in critical standing over the past 50 years or so since he's been reassessed as an auteur rather than as an iconic figure... I mean, the guy's worldwide stardom meant that for a brief period he *was* cinema as far as the public was concerned, and his self-promotion as an important and independent film-maker tended to obscure the fact that he saw film primarily as a way to preserve a record of his performances. (What was it the guy said - something like 'I don't need interesting camera angles. I *am* interesting.') I guess that because Chaplin was so much a part of the public consciousness and such a major figure in the history of cinema, it would have been inconceivable to leave him out of the earlier 'Sight and Sound' polls, just as it would have been inconceivable that the people voting in those polls wouldn't have been caught up in Chaplin mania to some extent. It's also the case that he was one of the few stars of the silent comedy era who didn't wind up looking like a has-been come the advent of sound. (OK, Laurel and Hardy flourished also, but they didn't have any interest in promoting themselves as 'artists' or building a mythology in the way that Chaplin did.) The simplistic answer to the question of what happened next would be to say that Buster Keaton's silent work was rediscovered and people realised that Chaplin wasn't quite the comedy artist that he made himself out to be, but that's a little unfair on both of them. I've got no doubt that Buster was by far the greater film-maker, but it's got to be remembered that Chaplin's mix of comedy and sentiment, developed from his time with Fred Karno, was actually something quite new at the time. (Watch some of the cheaper silent comedies, even some of the Chaplin imitators of the era, and see how unsentimental, even inhuman, the comedy is by comparison.) Me, I think the 20 minute pieces Chaplin did for Mutual are ten times the films that 'The Gold Rush' or 'City Lights' are, but I still wonder whether Chaplin's rep is declining a little more than it should - >Any thoughts on why CITIZEN KANE, nowhere to be found in the > original '52 poll, "suddenly" leaped out ten years later to stay > top'o'the heap ever since? Simple: it was a Hearst conspiracy :-) > > Nary a vote for REPO MAN in the cartload neither... And just to be perverse, I think I prefer the TV edit to the cinema release... > > Andy > > "The Big Country. The Leopard. Any/all of James Dean's features. The > Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. 'Un Chien Andalou' & 'L'Age d'Or'. > (They're shorts, so they can count as one.) Maya Deren's 'Meshes of > the Afternoon' and 'At Land'. (Ditto.) The Iron Giant. Sixteen > Candles. 'Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow'. 'Elvis '56'." > > --the Top Ten (sort of) from my friend Sam, video store employee for > over a decade Oh wow. 'A Hard Act to Follow' is the greatest documentary about a film-maker I think I've ever seen (it doesn't hurt that Keaton is such a hero of mine), but the other two films in Brownlow and Gill's silent comedy 'trilogy', 'Unknown Chaplin' and 'Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius', are equally worth seeking out. peace & love phil ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 08:02:29 -0400 From: Janet Ingraham Dwyer Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Special announcement At 11:13 PM 08/21/2002 -0400, glenn mcdonald wrote: >> That I managed to clatter out a birthday message to Steve on his >actual >> birthday is either a coincidence or a paranormal phenomenon. > >And with the more customary belatedness, we may expand these birthday >wishes to include Julianne Overall (Monday) and Aaron Mandel (Tuesday). Oh dear, and John Butland, who by coincidence shares a birthday, though not a birth year, with Steve. Happy, happy birthdays (now appropriately belatedly) to all of you! I apologize for the omissions, but ya gotta start somewhere. Noted Slate commentator Dan Sallitt sent me the old loud-fans birthday list recently and I'm poring over it now. It seems not to have been updated in several years and is full of names that are putatively gone by now. Lawrence Berk Smith (Berk? Larry? sorry - my memory...), you still here? Happy birthday to you, whether or not. I know David Seldin is around. His birthday's tomorrow; many happy returns! Anyone object to my simply posting the birthday list? It's a handy guide to the proper spreading of felicitations, and an interesting loud-fans historical document. It really oughta be thoroughly updated, though. janet ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 08:49:14 -0400 (EDT) From: dmw Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Special announcement well, then, happy natal celebratory felicitations to aaron, David, Lawrence, John, Julianne ... and anyone else unveiled in the next few days! we could add a "birthday" field to the loudfans pages, if people would like that. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 07:12:15 -0600 From: Roger Winston Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Sight & Sound redux, or, Loudfan makes good At Thursday 8/22/2002 03:46 AM -0400, OptionsR@aol.com wrote: >Speaking of movies, I saw in the local paper that a potentially interesting >new theatre will be opening up in Chandler. Apparently it's part of a chain >called Madstone Theatres. Anyone on the list been to any of the ones in other >towns? Albuquerque and Cleveland were a couple I can recall listed. I was >just wondering if they were worth checking out. Local movie mogul Dan Harkins >has pretty much had the entire indie/foreign film selection (such as it is) >sewn up in Phoenix for as long as I can remember. Will Madstone give him a >run for his money? A Madstone theater opened up in Denver a few months ago, though I haven't been to it yet. It's a little far to go. Landmark Theaters have had a chokehold on art house fair in the Denver area for a very long time, so it's good to see there are getting to be alternatives - the Starz Filmcenter also recently opened up, and also shows art house fair. Both Madstone and Starz actually show a combination of mainstream and indie stuff. There are still some flicks you have to go to Landmark for. Latre. --Rog ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 10:29:05 -0400 From: Dave Walker Subject: [loud-fans] Julee Cruise Has anyone heard the new Julee Cruise? _Floating In The Night_ has held up quite well over the years, and I'm wondering if the new one is worth grabbing. Note that she is not working with Badalamenti and Lynch this time around. -d.w. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 10:41:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Special announcement On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > The Mandibular One shares a birthday (but not a birth year) with my wife > Rose > (Curiously, I share a birthday - but not a birth year - with former > Loudfan and current Loudfan spouse Andy Ingraham Dwyer. What are the odds, > I ask you?) Unfortunately, I don't think I know any eligible folks who share Janet I-D's birthday, or else I'd just have to go and explain the situation to them. I seem to have paused in my consumption of Tuesday's new-release cornucopia for repeated listens to Frank Black's _The Devil's Workshop_. Anyone else into it? a ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 11:54:00 -0400 From: Dan Sallitt Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Sight & Sound redux, or, Loudfan makes good > Since no one else seems to have noticed, may I direct your attention to a > Sight & Sound poll overview, written by an actual Loudfan for (ta-da!) > Arguably The Widest Read And Most Prestigious Webzine Extant: Thanks. I didn't even know Slate was all that - I just lucked into the gig. > A few ponderings, for Dan or anyone else: the article says > reputations of THE BICYCLE THIEF (aka BICYCLE THIEVES), THE GOLD RUSH, and > CITY LIGHTS have "gradually declined"; any ideas why this is so? The films have a little something in common: they don't mind overt sentiment and pathos, are even built around it to varying extents; and they had a vague political stamp of approval, back in the days when Russian cinema, 30s socialism, etc. still had the high ground in film thought. Gradually social consciousness became a bit less central to film thought - in fact, you could make an argument that the influential Cahiers du Cinema ideology was right-wing flavored. And there was a gradual shift away from editing and toward spatial-temporal continuity as the fashionable hallmark of film style. This shift of taste favored Keaton over Chaplin, Rossellini over de Sica. (As Phil pointed out, Chaplin's rep would probably be a little higher today if Keaton hadn't become such a deity.) Chaplin is still highly regarded, just less than before, when he was very highly regarded indeed. de Sica has many naysayers, though BICYCLE THIEVES and UMBERTO D still have ardent fans. > Any > thoughts on why CITIZEN KANE, nowhere to be found in the original '52 poll, > "suddenly" leaped out ten years later to stay top'o'the heap ever since? I really don't know, but KANE was in the second ten in 1952. Sometimes it just takes a little time for a film to become critically invulnerable. Some people panned KANE when it came out, but no one much was knocking it after twenty years. The same was true, for instance, of THE GODFATHER. > Camille Paglia counts as a film critic And her list is really conventional, too - nothing iconoclastic about it. Catherine Breillat has the list that you'd expect Paglia to have. > And since when are the first two > GODFATHER movies one movie? Since this poll - they were two separate movies in the 1992 poll. S&S was in a spot, because some people voted for the films separately and some together, and there was no good way to work it out. If you want to recompute the rankings your own way: 8 critics voted for THE GODFATHER, 6 for THE GODFATHER II, 8 for THE GODFATHER I AND II, and one for THE GODFATHER TRILOGY. If you divide the collective votes among the three GODFATHER films, then both GODFATHER and GODFATHER II make the top twenty, but neither makes the top ten. - - Dan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 16:14:40 +0000 From: Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Sight & Sound redux, or, Loudfan makes good Dan wrote: >Gradually social consciousness became a bit less central >to film thought - in fact, you could make an argument that >the influential Cahiers du Cinema ideology was right-wing >flavored. I've seen this mentioned before - in fact, Orson Welles, discussing 'Touch of Evil', said that the movie was popular with the 'Cahiers' crowd because, in his words, 'a lot of them were fascists' and that they'd misinterpreted the film as a quasi-fascist statment - but I've not read enough of the original 'Cahiers' themselves to understand completely why this political interpretation exists. Maybe I'm just confused because of Godard's history as a contributor to 'Cahiers', although I don't think Godard's Marxism really solidified until the mid-'60s - with the exception of 'Le Petit Soldat', I guess one could even interpret the political bent of his earlier work as being reactionary, even if his use of the medium was anything but. In any case, I'd love to hear from Dan or anybody else in the know why this should be the case. I know Pauline Kael made some vague suggestions that Andrew Sarris' approach auteur theory had a rather macho element to it, but I presume there's something more to this interpretation of the 'Cahiers' folks - peace & love phil ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 12:50:53 -0400 From: Dan Sallitt Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Sight & Sound redux, or, Loudfan makes good > I've seen this mentioned before - in fact, Orson Welles, discussing 'Touch of Evil', said that the movie was popular with the 'Cahiers' crowd because, in his words, 'a lot of them were fascists' and that they'd misinterpreted the film as a quasi-fascist statment - but I've not read enough of the original 'Cahiers' themselves to understand completely why this political interpretation exists. > > Maybe I'm just confused because of Godard's history as a contributor to 'Cahiers', although I don't think Godard's Marxism really solidified until the mid-'60s - with the exception of 'Le Petit Soldat', I guess one could even interpret the political bent of his earlier work as being reactionary, even if his use of the medium was anything but. > > In any case, I'd love to hear from Dan or anybody else in the know why this should be the case. I know Pauline Kael made some vague suggestions that Andrew Sarris' approach auteur theory had a rather macho element to it, but I presume there's something more to this interpretation of the 'Cahiers' folks - - ---------- The mentors of the Cahiers critics were Catholic thinkers like Andre Bazin and Amedee Ayfre. They weren't overly political to the best of my knowledge, but their tastes were shaped by their Christian values; their disciples adopted their orientation to varying degrees. Even after the Cahiers politique moved to America, you could detect the movement's preference for films that dealt with the eternal, ineffable aspects of the human condition over films that suggested solutions to social problems. Rohmer is alleged to be a political conservative to this day. Truffaut, Godard and others became people of the left in the sixties, but in "A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema" you can read Truffaut criticizing left-wing filmmakers for vulgar language and for anticlericism. The critics at Positif, the magazine that opposed Cahiers back in the day, openly called the Cahiers writers right-wingers, and amassed many quotations to support their point. If you can find a used copy of an out-of-print book called THE NEW WAVE, edited by Peter Graham, you can read quite a lot about the political context of the politique des auteurs. Welles' accusations of fascism seem a bit much, but there was a renegade branch of auteurists called the MacMahonists who sometimes veered in that direction. Their leader, Michel Mourlet (the guy who penned the famous "Charlton Heston is an axiom" line) liked to write like a fascist sometimes. Cahiers never felt too comfortable with these people, and would usually include little disclaimers on the occasions when they published Mourlet's pieces. I think Pauline Kael tended to use whatever insults lay to hand when she didn't like someone. I don't think her beef with Sarris was politically motivated. Sarris did have a tendency to make casual anti-homosexuality comments, which he has curbed in recent years. I don't see this as a motif of auteurist thought, though. - - Dan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 18:14:13 +0100 From: "richblath" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Mandel" To: "Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey" Cc: "such a stem" Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 3:41 PM Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Special announcement > On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > > > The Mandibular One shares a birthday (but not a birth year) with my wife > > Rose > > > (Curiously, I share a birthday - but not a birth year - with former > > Loudfan and current Loudfan spouse Andy Ingraham Dwyer. What are the odds, > > I ask you?) > > Unfortunately, I don't think I know any eligible folks who share Janet > I-D's birthday, or else I'd just have to go and explain the situation to > them. I can't remember the ins and outs of the maths involved, but I seem to recall that once you have a group of about 22 or so people it is more likely than not that 2 of them will share a date of birth. So with the number of loud-fans there are, lurking and delurked, it's fairly likely that there are lots of shared dobs. Richard ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 14:26:41 -0400 From: "moxie" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement Richard posts: > I can't remember the ins and outs of the maths involved, but I seem to > recall that once you have a group of about 22 or so people it is more > likely than not that 2 of them will share a date of birth. So with > the number of loud-fans there are, lurking and delurked, it's fairly > likely that there are lots of shared dobs. Here are two simple (i.e. understandable by me) explanations of the shared-birthday phenomenon: Ask Dr. Math http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.birthdayprob.html Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works http://www.howstuffworks.com/question261.htm janet ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 11:35:14 -0700 (PDT) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement On Thu, 22 Aug 2002, moxie wrote: > Here are two simple (i.e. understandable by me) explanations of the > shared-birthday phenomenon: > > Ask Dr. Math > http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.birthdayprob.html > > Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works > http://www.howstuffworks.com/question261.htm There was an explanation in the NY Times article on coincidence posted to LF yesterday, and here we are talking about it. Coincidence????? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 14:39:48 -0400 From: "John Swartzentruber" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 11:35:14 -0700 (PDT), Joseph M. Mallon wrote: >There was an explanation in the NY Times article on coincidence posted to >LF yesterday, and here we are talking about it. Coincidence????? Hey! And I read that article and I read this list too! This is getting really freaky. On the more freaky side -- soon after I started working for my current company, there were a total of 12 employees. Three of them shared the same birthday and three others had birthdays in the same month. Anyone wanna calculate the odds? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 12:59:22 -0600 From: "Roger Winston" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement John Swartzentruber on 8/22/2002 12:39:48 PM wrote: > On the more freaky side -- soon after I started working for my current > company, there were a total of 12 employees. Three of them shared the > same birthday and three others had birthdays in the same month. Anyone > wanna calculate the odds? I'm sure Brianna does. Latre. --Rog ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 12:02:37 -0700 From: "me" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] truth is stranger than fiction *sigh* boy, oh boy. i believe this would fall into the category of precognition, except that it's post, not pre the event. literally, precognition would be 'knowing before happening', but in this case, amybe we could retranslate it to 'knowing before knowing'. i think the term would still apply. for what it's worth, i believe in coincidence, but not entirely. i've had enough "weird shit" happen in my life to suspect that things hapen for a reason. some of them have been cases of me surviving incidents i really had no right to, like a car wreck which should have killed both the driver and me, and being in istanbul during the turkish earthquake. i walked away from both incidents with little more than bruises in the first case and no physical injuries at all in the second. other "weird shit" includes a handful of precognition which i attribute not to any sort of psychic thing, but to noticing very very subtle things subconciously, and subsequently putting htem together and coming up with a likely answer. i used to predict tornados when i was little (in IL). i'd tell someone that "there are whirlwinds outside". it took a while for people to figure out what i meant, but after a few cases of me saying that and the sirens going off 10 minutes later, they got it. in short, i think the explanation someone suggested about her having heard mention of Buckley's death but not really consiously logged it, is probably the most likely. and look at it another way - that's still 'gifted' in that many people would not have the RAM to recall something like that. - -- "Drag me, drop me, treat me like an object." - -- - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 10:08 AM Subject: [loud-fans] truth is stranger than fiction > I was out with my friend Stephanie yesterday and she was telling me about > something that happened to her the other day. Stephanie is somewhat > sensitive to "the invisible world" if you will (she's told me about other > events that have happened to her over the years I've known her), and > sometimes it scares her. She told me that she had downloaded a Jeff Buckley > song, "The Last Goodbye," and while she was listening to it, she got the > feeling of being submerged in water, of vastness, and being cold. She said > that the music should have been a peaceful experience, (I don't know the song > myself) but it disturbed her. She had no idea of his death, and found out a > couple of days later after hearing the song that Jeff Buckley had drowned in > December, 1997. She said that when she found this out, she was so freaked > she was shaking. Is there a paranormal term for this, this kind of > knowledge? I've seen people on television shows on the paranormal who can > look at photos of people and know whether they are dead or not, or know > things about the person in the photo. I would think a song would be just as > much of a soul connection with a person as a photo. Where would be a good > place on the web to look for info about such things? > > -Mark Staples, who noticed the Hummer ad on the back of the latest National > Geographic looks awfully similar to the artwork for "Days for Days" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 12:03:30 -0700 From: "me" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement as a friend of mine (from GA) used to say: aw, fuck all y'all. - -- "Drag me, drop me, treat me like an object." - -- - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Winston" To: "the sound of the collective grumbling " Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 11:59 AM Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement > John Swartzentruber on 8/22/2002 12:39:48 PM wrote: > > > On the more freaky side -- soon after I started working for my current > > company, there were a total of 12 employees. Three of them shared the > > same birthday and three others had birthdays in the same month. Anyone > > wanna calculate the odds? > > I'm sure Brianna does. > > Latre. --Rog ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 15:30:33 -0400 From: "John Swartzentruber" Subject: [loud-fans] Spam and probability Coincidentally, while we're on a probability kick, I read this article about a new type of spam filter: http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 15:30:21 -0400 From: Dave Walker Subject: [loud-fans] odd thought I was just listening to _Distortion_ for the first time in a while and... does anyone else think that "It Gives Me Chills" is Scott's take on early Prince? -d.w. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 12:34:50 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement >On the more freaky side -- soon after I started working for my current >company, there were a total of 12 employees. Three of them shared the >same birthday and three others had birthdays in the same month. Anyone >wanna calculate the odds? Here's what I get, with the caveat that I suck at this sort of thing: Chance of three people out of twelve having the same birthday: 2.27% Chance of three people out of nine having the same birth month: 93.8% Chance of both happening: 2.13% Not particularly long odds, I'd say. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 14:42:15 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement At 02:39 PM 8/22/2002 -0400, John Swartzentruber wrote: >On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 11:35:14 -0700 (PDT), Joseph M. Mallon wrote: > >>There was an explanation in the NY Times article on coincidence posted to >>LF yesterday, and here we are talking about it. Coincidence????? > >Hey! And I read that article and I read this list too! This is getting >really freaky. Plus everybody's talking about their birthdays on idealcopy. Dismissed as... concidence?!? later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 15:56:14 -0400 From: "John Swartzentruber" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 12:34:50 -0700, Tim_Walters@digidesign.com wrote: >Chance of three people out of twelve having the same birthday: 2.27% >Chance of three people out of nine having the same birth month: 93.8% >Chance of both happening: 2.13% Can you clue me in on how you calculated these (not necessarily numbers, just general approach). Intuitively, it doesn't seem right. Especially the second number. Or for that matter, the third. Is the second line assuming that it is the same month as that in #1? If not, then #3 isn't right. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 15:02:12 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement At 06:14 PM 8/22/2002 +0100, richblath wrote: >I can't remember the ins and outs of the maths involved, but I seem to >recall that once you have a group of about 22 or so people it is more likely >than not that 2 of them will share a date of birth. So with the number of >loud-fans there are, lurking and delurked, it's fairly likely that there are >lots of shared dobs. But no one for mine (May 4), at least last time that we did this. In fact, only the lovely Amy Lewis (May 2) comes close. Taurus is a good sign, and I'm honored to be one wiff her! moo! moo! Miles wait - wasn't Simone closer? May 3rd? What happened to her anyways? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 15:00:15 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Special announcement At 08:49 AM 8/22/2002 -0400, dmw wrote: >well, then, happy natal celebratory felicitations to aaron, David, >Lawrence, John, Julianne ... and anyone else unveiled in the next few >days! Here here! >we could add a "birthday" field to the loudfans pages, if people would >like that. I thought we had one. Shows how much attention I pay sometimes. I did like the e-mail that was nothing but birthdays, the one Janet suggests updating -- but whatever we come up with will probably allow 'em to be distilled and circulated in like fashion. float float on, my name is Miles and I'm a Taurus ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 13:04:38 -0700 (PDT) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Spam and probability On Thu, 22 Aug 2002, John Swartzentruber wrote: > Coincidentally, while we're on a probability kick, I read this article > about a new type of spam filter: > > http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html This is a fascinating article. I'd love to be able to do this using Perl. Does anyone have any evidence of it having been done that way? Exciting new offer... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 13:08:28 -0700 From: "me" Subject: [loud-fans] NYTimes article links to... http://www.glennbeck.com/news/05172002.shtml it's a page about folding up a $20 bill and getting pictures of the WTC burning, etc. there are all sorts of different things you can convince yourself of, and at the very end, there's this comment: Even worse than the $20, fold a new dollar coin in half, and it turns into a black helicopter. - -- It's well known that if you take a lot of random noise, you can find chance patterns in it, and the Net makes it easier to collect random noise. Dr. James M. Robins, Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Harvard - -- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 16:10:03 -0400 From: "John Swartzentruber" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Spam and probability On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 13:04:38 -0700 (PDT), Joseph M. Mallon wrote: >This is a fascinating article. I'd love to be able to do this using Perl. >Does anyone have any evidence of it having been done that way? One of the links at the bottom of the article is to a perl implementation. http://www.garyarnold.com/projects.php#bayespam ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 16:12:06 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement Miles Goosens wrote: > > Plus everybody's talking about their birthdays on idealcopy. And this has all come about just after one of my good email friends and I began discussing birthdays. hmmm.... Beyond all that, I just acquired a disc sure to make my top 10 this year, the new Mike Johnson album, "What Would You Do." Very beautiful, haunting, and richly textured. Jen np: a succession of CD's of questionable quality that I'm trying to decide if I really want to keep or not ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 13:23:13 -0700 From: "me" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] postmodern transit - ----- Original Message ----- From: > > I used to think the PT Cruiser was hideous, but I'm coming around a bit, and I > like its combination of large cargo space and small footprint. I'm not too crazy > about its 19 MPG rating, though--what's up with that? they listed it as a truck, if you can believe that. no, i don't have a resource, sorry. but that's my understanding. oh, wait... "The flat floor pan was deliberately chosen to make the Cruiser into a light truck, which are given lighter fuel economy restrictions. " - http://www.ptcruizer.com/about.html now, that makes it a lowered truck, which i loathe. so not only do i think it's a weak example of a retro-ish new car (or truck), the manufacturers did whatever they had to in order to get around the fuel efficiency restrictions. in other words, they cheated. and, if it's a truck, what good is it as a truck? if it's a car, would i want a car that 'rides' like a truck (if it does)? nope. do i want a dinky-mobile that gets under 20MPG? hell no. my SUV does better than that, and it's useful. i do, however, think the minis are absolutely adorable. i especially like the black and yellow checked cab lookin' ones. i kinda like the duke-mobile style, too, just for goofiness value. > "And oh, 'ow they danced... the little people of Mammoth Gardens..." thanks. now i have "and we danced, blah blah blah blaaaah blah romanced," by the Hooters stuck in my head, and i have no idea what the words are. but i love the Hooters. and i just found the lyrics. - -- It's well known that if you take a lot of random noise, you can find chance patterns in it, and the Net makes it easier to collect random noise. Dr. James M. Robins, Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Harvard - -- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 13:35:10 -0700 (PDT) From: "Joseph M. Mallon" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] postmodern transit On Thu, 22 Aug 2002, me wrote: > thanks. now i have "and we danced, blah blah blah blaaaah blah romanced," > by the Hooters stuck in my head, and i have no idea what the words are. but > i love the Hooters. and i just found the lyrics. To get all scenestery, The Hooters were much better before they got signed to a major label. Anybody remember Robert Hazard & The Heroes? Did their stuff ever make it onto CD? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 16:45:09 -0400 From: "John Swartzentruber" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] postmodern transit On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 13:35:10 -0700 (PDT), Joseph M. Mallon wrote: >Anybody remember Robert Hazard & The Heroes? I remember the name. And I used to have a JFK Jam tee shirt with their name on it. I think. I think I got there after they played, so I don't remember hearing them. Was anyone else on this list there? This would have been 1982 in Philly. I don't even remember who all played. Flock of Seagulls, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Genesis. Am I forgetting anyone (other than RH&TH)? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 16:51:14 -0400 From: "glenn mcdonald" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement > Chance of three people out of twelve having the same birthday: 2.27% > Chance of three people out of nine having the same birth month: 93.8% > Chance of both happening: 2.13% The only thing right about these numbers is that 2.27*93.8%~=2.13. Somebody attempted to solve first problem at http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56650.html, and came up with 0.162%. The second answer is off by orders of magnitude, since the chance of *none* of the other nine employees sharing that birth month is easily calculated at about 46% (11/12 ^ 9). I don't remember how to do the math, and wish I did, but a quick experimental approach suggests that the chance of three of nine people having birthdays in the month preselected by the first condition is somewhere between 3 and 4%. The chance of four of nine having birthdays in that month seems to be closer to .04%, while the chances of at least 2 or 1 are something like 1/6 and 1/2. So the combined odds of the given scenario are more like 1 in 20,000, not 1 in 50. Maybe. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 13:58:03 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement >>Chance of three people out of twelve having the same birthday: 2.27% >>Chance of three people out of nine having the same birth month: 93.8% >>Chance of both happening: 2.13% >Can you clue me in on how you calculated these (not necessarily >numbers, just general approach). Intuitively, it doesn't seem right. >Especially the second number. Or for that matter, the third. Is the >second line assuming that it is the same month as that in #1? If not, >then #3 isn't right. Sure. Let's take the first one. The first step is to calculate the probability that at least two people among twelve share a birthday. We do this the easy way, by figuring the odds that no one shares a birthday, and subtracting that from 1. To do this, number the people 1 through 12. No matter what person 1's birthday is, person 2 has a 364/365 chance of having a different birthday (I'm ignoring leap year, and the possibility that birthdates are not equally probable). Person 3 then has a 363/365 chance of sharing neither birthday. Etc. The final equation is (364x363x...354)/(365^11) which comes out to .833. The chance is therefore .167 that there are at least two people who share a birthday. (If this seems high, remember that it only takes 23 people to make the odds fifty-fifty). We then find out the odds that *if* two people share a birthday, that a third person does as well. Using similar logic to the above, we get (364x363x...355)/(365^10), which is .859. The chance of our if statement is therefore .141. To get the final probability of having three with the same birthday, we multiply the two numbers: .167 x .141 = .0227 = 2.27%. The month calculation works exactly the same way, except that since there are only twelve months to choose from, the numbers comes out much higher: (11x10...x4)/(12^8) = .015 (making .985), etc. Finally, we multiply the two numbers together to get the chance of both things happening. .0227 x .938 = .0213. This does not assume the month is the same. This is actually the part I'm most sure about; if the first two numbers are right, this one is right. What I'm worried about is that I may have double-counted some combinations by doing it this way, although I think the effect would be slight if I did. Anyone with a clue want to have a stab at it? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 17:00:38 -0400 From: "John Swartzentruber" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 16:51:14 -0400, glenn mcdonald wrote: >So the combined odds of the given scenario are more like 1 in 20,000, not 1 >in 50. Thanks. These are numbers I can believe (even if they aren't right). From now on, I only trust Tim in things musical, not statistical. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 14:01:48 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Special announcement >The second answer is off by orders of magnitude, since the chance of >*none* of the other nine employees sharing that birth month is easily >calculated at about 46% (11/12 ^ 9). I assumed that "same" in "the same month" was local to the three, not global to the six. The original statement is ambiguous. John will have to tell us which one he meant. ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V2 #295 *******************************