Thread: Useless facts/knowledge

Originally Posted by Jimbo

It's known as the waiting time paradox in certain circles.

It's got to do with the idea of the mean time between buses - it's just the average, so actual bus arrivals will vary: some will take less time, some will take more time. There's a higher chance of you arriving in one of these longer time periods than arriving in a shorter one, so your average waiting time is longer than what you'd expect it to be if the buses arrived at exactly 30 minute intervals. Of course, if you arrive at the bus stop at random and the buses come exactly every 30 minutes, your expected waiting time would be 15 minutes.

The poisson process bit is what makes the average waiting time equal to the average time between buses - in a Poisson process the variance equals the mean, which makes the math work out the way it does (mean wait = mean time between buses). More generally the average waiting time is longer than half the mean time between buses, how much longer depending on the variance of bus arrival times.

It doesn't have to be buses either, of course. Any old waiting time will do.

James.

Thanks Jimbo,
I sort of understand it a bit now

Originally Posted by nzFuzzy

couldn't resist
finally somewhere the humour will make sense

Attachment 167744

Do you just have a book of these things or what?

Originally Posted by mrsell63

According to experts, sex is about 10 times more effective as a tranquilizer than Valium.

I can't keep posting this nonsense. I simply must take a break......

That might be true, but it sure doesn't last as long..

Originally Posted by Birnando

That might be true, but it sure doesn't last as long..

Speak for yourself, mate.

Originally Posted by mrsell63

-321°F is the temperature at which sperm banks store donor semen. At this temperature, semen can be stored indefinitely.

Embryos can also be stored indefinitely at this temperature.

Also, Stanley Leibo, one of the innovators in cryobiology who was part of the team to first freeze and thaw mammalian embryos in 1972, died a couple of months ago. He was brilliant, an excellent teacher, and a heck of a nice guy.

Originally Posted by nzFuzzy

couldn't resist
finally somewhere the humour will make sense

Attachment 167744

It takes at least three to make a Murder

Originally Posted by mrsell63

Chocolate contains phenylethylamine, the same feel-good chemical responsible for the ecstatic high people experience through sexual attraction and love.

The same chemical that will kill a dog dead.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Embryos can also be stored indefinitely at this temperature.

Also, Stanley Leibo, one of the innovators in cryobiology who was part of the team to first freeze and thaw mammalian embryos in 1972, died a couple of months ago. He was brilliant, an excellent teacher, and a heck of a nice guy.

I take it he's on ice too then?!


Mick

Probably not. He was far past the embryonic stage.

An implausibility....of GNUS / Wildebeasts

Originally Posted by Cangooner

The wonderful 12th-century Aberdeen Bestiary describes beavers thus:

Of the beaver There is an animal called the beaver, which is extremely gentle; its testicles are are highly suitable for medicine. Physiologus says of it that, when it knows that a hunter is pursuing it, it bites off its testicles and throws them in the hunter's face and, taking flight, escapes. But if, once again, another hunter is in pursuit, the beaver rears up and displays its sexual organs. When the hunter sees that it lacks testicles, he leaves it alone. Thus every man who heeds God's commandment and wishes to live chastely should cut off all his vices and shameless acts, and cast them from him into the face of the devil. Then the devil, seeing that the man has nothing belonging to him, retires in disorder. That man, however, lives in God and is not taken by the devil, who says: 'I will pursue, I will overtake them...'(Exodus, 15:9) The name castor comes from castrando, 'castrate'.

"The beaver was probably the last thing God ever invented, because after He made it, He just said 'It don't get no better 'n that.' (Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, God is a hillbilly.)" From Deep Thought by Jack Handy

Natural raspberry flavoring is made from the excretions from the castor gland of the beaver. I want to know why anyone want to try that to begin with.