flynn012

As some of the more advanced members of our growing Braintenance crowd might have guessed based upon enhanced telepathic powers (or by having read the title), this is indeed a post on probability and uncertainty , and on chaos and complexity . All of these are nouns representing ideas or theories based upon observed behaviors, and upon the inherent limitations of observations . Probability is the likelihood of a given outcome based upon observed experience over an expanse of time. We know that the likelihood or probability of a coin landing with the 'heads' side up is .50 or 50%. And we also know that each toss of a coin is an independent event . Despite this statistical logic, if we toss ten coins and they all turn up 'heads' -- we start to develop an " experiential probability bias ," and we start to think (despite ourselves, and despite what we know to be the truth) that the next coin toss is more than 50% likely to result in a 'tails' outcome...

There are many words which we tend to misspell in our writing. Some are so common that our eyes barely notice them. These are not grammatical or usage mistakes (for example, "Notary Republic," or Mondegreens) -- these just result as a function of how we tend to use the QWERTY -formatted keyboard, how infrequently we read things which have been properly spelled, and our spellcheck-type autocorrect functions: Here's a watchlist of  the top 100 misspelled (or mistyped) words, courtesy of yourdictionary .com [ Warning : This is a LONG post. Please put your scrolling gloves on, Braintenancers - you might even want to pack a lunch ] -- A acceptable - Several words made the list because of the suffix pronounced -êbl but sometimes spelled - ible , sometimes -able. Just remember to accept any table offered to you and you will spell this word OK. accidentally - It is no accident that the test for adverbs on -ly is whether they come from an adjective on -al ("accide...

I am fascinated, as are most people, at rates of expansion, growth and change. Albert Einstein once said (in a Swiss accent whilst tripping over an untied shoelace) that "the most powerful force in the universe is the compounding of interest ." The idea of arithmetic, geometric, exponential and logarithmic expansion, looked at singly or comparatively, give us accessible, understandable metrics about how much things change as a result of the rate or power of growth. Everyone has an interest in these things...from the little tike saving up his meager allowance for his first WonkaBar lottery ticket purchase, to the epidemiologists (mostly the ones in the shows on late night television anyway) who must estimate the potential for a virus or other threatening bio hazard to spread, the the idiot from some fourth-world nation who sends out a chain letter to a whole group of people saying to each of them that if he or she sends the letter to an additional seven people enclosing o...