Having Phun this Week

Had a busy weekend - sorry for not posting a lesson. I'll have it up before the next one is due.

Here's a phun thing that also should have been posted earlier: For those of you in the Quad Cities, you can listen to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio show on Saturday Morning Live on WVIK (Augustana Public Radio, 93.1 FM). The Saturday Morning Live program starts at 10 am, but I think the HHGG doesn't start until 10:30. The first two episodes aired this past Satuday - sorry! Better late than never?

Also phun: This week is the Rock Island County Fair. You might think I only brought that up to brag that my pies won blue ribbons. But, no, I wouldn't do that.

More phun this week: VH1’s Rock Honors the Who on Thursday July 17 at 9PM ET (8 Central).

You think that last paragraph had nothing to do with science? I can connect almost anything to science. Like so: Make a list of your top five Who songs.* It's not easy to cut it down to five, is it? Is it easier to pick your one favorite Who song? Is it easier to pick your top 10? Your least favorite? What does your distribution of preferences look like? Does it look like a normal/Gaussian distribution? Are there a lot clumped together in the middle, and long tails that are sparsely populated? If so, it should be easy to pick a favorite and a least favorite, but harder to distinguish between #10 and #11. Save your list and come back in a few days and do it again. Do you make the same list? Wow - rational choice theory makes quantum mechanics look like a piece of cake!

*_{If you're not into the Who (or even if you are), try this with other preferences: foods, friends, movies, books, ...}