Or why fat smoking republicans are responsible for 9/11.
Do you want to know why you aren't getting comments on your blog? Do you wonder why you manage to piss off everyone you come across?
Your answer is here! in this fabulous new equation that will determine how many comments you get to your obnoxious posts!
Thanks to Lowk and Andrew (who both sent in versions) of our fancy new equation!
a = How many non-overlapping groups you piss off
b = How offensive comment is
c = How stupid/gullible group is
d = How likely group is to do vanity searches on themselves and not be able to restrain themselves from commenting.
e = size of group (note the inverse correlation!)
k = some as of yet unknown constant.
Brian and I are clearly not math studs or anything - so there are probably some horribly wrong problems with this equation. We would appreciate any fixes!
Politics
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
I think one problem with this equation is that it's not an equation.
Posted by: kjupi | September 11, 2007 12:15 PM
If you're going to sum over index i, you need to have something with index i in the summation. I suspect you'd like c, d and e to be indexed.
Hope I haven't offended the math illiterate! Well, who cares if I have!
Posted by: Gerard Harbison | September 11, 2007 12:16 PM
Here's a thought: why don't we make the math-illiterate (innumerate?) pay more for everything? They'd never notice!
Posted by: kjupi | September 11, 2007 12:23 PM
Physicist talking: I suggest you model it after the Drake equation for probability of extraterrestrial life. In this form it would look like:
N = f_a x f_b x f_c x f_d x f_e x K
Where K is the number of posts and N is the total number of comments, the f are functions of the variables you describe.
Posted by: GM=tc^3 | September 11, 2007 1:27 PM
>Here's a thought: why don't we make the math-illiterate (innumerate?) pay more for everything? They'd never notice!
The innumerate already have a tax for being bad at math. It's called the lottery.
Posted by: Andrew Matteson | September 11, 2007 1:30 PM
I've done you a quick but slightly prettier version on OpenOffice's equation editor;
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~lj237/equation.jpg
Where N is the number of comments, and b to e are indexed.
Posted by: lowk | September 11, 2007 1:35 PM
Oh yeah, that version also assumes that offensiveness is subjective (how offensive comment is to group i).
Posted by: lowk | September 11, 2007 1:37 PM
Why is it inversely proportional to the group size?
larger group -> fewer comments?
does not compute.
Posted by: Will | September 11, 2007 2:30 PM
Huh huh huh. That spells naked. Huh huh huh.
Posted by: Warren | September 11, 2007 2:35 PM
Actually buying lottery tickets is an entirely rational act, even though the chance of winning times the size of the prize is less than the price of the ticket. This is because the lottery ticket represents a chance greater than zero that the buyer will become rich and this has value greater than the difference between (chance of winning x size of prize) and the price of the ticket for the buyer. The buyer values his real (albeit infintesimal) chance at wealth.
Posted by: anonymous | September 11, 2007 3:48 PM
I am assuming that k stands for human stubbornness which is truly a constant in our universe since it's always present no matter how many or how few people you are dealing with. It also occurs to me that due to the inverse relationship between size of group and number of comments then as the size of group approaches zero then the number of comments approaches infinity.
I think you're on to something here!
Posted by: Romeo Vitelli | September 11, 2007 4:48 PM
Steve, you are a total and complete nimcompoop and I think your blog is complete and utter tripe. I blow my nose in your general direction.
Good day sir.
Posted by: Garabaldi's Underwear | September 11, 2007 5:52 PM
By parking lot, I hope you are referring to outside the Oxford Gentleman's Smoking Club which I hear has rightly denied you entrance, on grounds of your exceedingly malodorous scent and unbecoming tophats.
Posted by: Garabaldi's Underwear | September 11, 2007 6:06 PM
Making fun of social psychology statistics is just plain ignorant:)
Posted by: Mark Dow | September 11, 2007 9:11 PM