(thing) by unperson Wed Sep 07 2005 at 4:31:57

Today has been an odd day. Tonight I ate haggis for the first time while listening to a live performance of sea chanteys. Earlier in the day, I got an offer to Teaching Assistant position under a Nobel laureate.

The haggis was good, if you like organ meat. In So I Married and Axe Murder, Mike Myers' character describes haggis (and other Scottish cuisine) as being "based on a dare". If he things haggis is hard to swallow, he clearly hasn't spent enough time in Chinatown checking out some of the more exotic stuff. What I got wasn't very big, and it wasn't served in a stomach as I expected. It was served as an appetizer, so I guess perhaps they make one and then scoop out portions to serve. I'd been curious about haggis for a while.

I'm not sure what to do about this TA offer. In fact, the Nobel laureate thing is not that much of a factor. The fellow in question is clearly a very good scientist and seemingly also a generally nice guy, but I already work with people who fall into those categories. Actually the bigger factor is money. I have full support as it is just to do research right now, but "full support" just about covers my basic expenses and little else. This position would mean about a 50% pay raise, supposedly for only an extra 10 hours a week. On the other hand, I would only be a grader, and grading is really pretty unpleasant work, in my opinion. Teaching is very rewarding, as far as I'm concerned, but I could never see grading as anything but a necessary evil. I suppose a fair portion of that is that grading always entails trying to assign grades to far too many papers to actually give meaningful feedback to each one, so it is largely boring and thankless work. The bottom line is that my life would be more hectic and less fun, but I could sure use the money. And, I suppose, fostering a relationship with someone who has such prestige might be handy at some point. I still have to think about it some more.

I like it!
(idea) by redbaker Wed Sep 07 2005 at 7:57:30

Independent Study Proposal: Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics

I don't know much about "alternative" (non-Copenhagen) interpretations of quantum mechanics. I would like to spend some time learning more about a few of the more prominent ones, and through studying them, attempt to figure out what exactly has been troubling me about the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. This is a fairly broad area of study, and I expect that my focus will narrow as I learn more about the subject. I intend to start by studying the de Broglie-Bohm, many-worlds, and consistent-histories interpretations, as well as reading up on some "proofs" and conditions that interpretations of quantum mechanics must satisfy, such as the Bell inequality and von Neumann's "proof" of the impossibility of a deterministic hidden-variables interpretation. I expect to eventually come back to the Copenhagen interpretation and study it more closely as well. After that, it will probably be well after the point where I should have an idea of what my final paper will be about, and that should take up the rest of the semester.

Proposed reading list:

Bohm-deBroglie interpretation:
J. S. Bell, "On the impossible pilot wave." In Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, 1987. pp. 159-168.

J. S. Bell, "de Broglie, Bohm, delayed-choice double-slit experiment, and density matrix." In Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, 1987. pp. 111-116.

J. S. Bell, "Quantum mechanics for cosmologists." In Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, 1987. pp. 117-138.

Many-worlds:
Hugh Everett, "Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics", Reviews of Modern Physics vol 29 (1957) 454-462.

J. S. Bell, "The measurement theory of Everett and de Broglie's pilot wave." In Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, 1987. pp. 93-99

Consistent-histories:
Selections from Robert B. Griffiths, Consistent Quantum Theory, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

No-hidden-variables theorems:
J. S. Bell, "On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox", Physics vol. 1 (1964) 195-200.

N. David Mermin, "Hidden variables and the two theorems of John Bell", Reviews of Modern Physics vol 65 (1993) 803-816

Copenhagen, for and against:
A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen, "Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?" Phys. Rev. vol. 47, 777-780 (1935).

Niels Bohr, "Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?" Phys. Rev. vol. 48, 696-702 (1935).

Supplementary readings:
Lecture notes and recordings from "Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: Current Status and Future Directions", a course offered jointly by the Perimeter Institute and the University of Waterloo in the winter of 2005. Notes and lecture recordings available at http://www.iqc.ca/~qipcourse/interpret/



Current Status: APPROVED

I like it! 1 C!
(idea) by in10se Wed Sep 07 2005 at 19:47:25

The First 30000 Nodes

The First: 20000 - 30000 - 40000 - 50000 - more recent stats can be found on the E2 Annex

About a month and a half ago, I posted a writeup providing detailed calculations on the first 20000 nodes. In addition to gathering all the information I could on the node_ids between 1 and 20000, I voted on every writeup I found (i.e., What to do if you've got too many votes on your hands). Since July 27, 2005, I have found the time to continue on through node_id #30000. For those of you who think that is an insane amount of nodes to go through - you are only partially right. Nearly half (14851) of these nodes have been nuked for one reason or another, and there were only another 850 writeups to vote on in the most recent ten thousand nodes I looked at. Below are the statistics that I calculated based on all of these nodes. While it took several weeks to vote on all the writeups, I have refreshed and downloaded all the updated data between yesterday morning and today to be sure all the votes, experience, levels, etc. were up to date.

For those of you who may not have read my first writeup, the statistics below only consider the first 30000 nodes contained on E2. So, for example, there are writeups with more than 7 C!s, but that is the most for any writeup in the first 30000 nodes. If you are interested in a more thorough explanation of what all this means, or in how I gathered and calculated all of this information, please read about it in the first 2000 nodes. Since this is my second posting, I have taken the time to compare my results of the first 20000 and the first 30000 and add a few additional comments. The report below uses the following markup to display changes:

{+n} or {-n} Numbers within curly braces indicate a change from the last calculations

* An asterisk signifies that the entry is new to the list (when compared to the first 20000 nodes). Because they are new, no changes will be listed for these items.

If you are interested in generating these types of statistics and lists for your homenode based on your writeups, you may be interested in the E2 Link and Logger Client.

General Node Statistics

Noding Speedometer1,2:     50.04 nodes per day.
(At this rate, the 60000th node should be created at 7/4/2001 9:31:49 PM)

Node Type Count           Percent  Comments
none      14851  {+6535}  49.503%  Nothing Found
user       7995     {+0}  26.650%
e2node     5242  {+2592}  17.473%
writeup    1677   {+850}   5.590%
htmlcode     61     {+0}   0.203%
htmlpage     36     {+0}   0.120%
nodetype     27     {+0}   0.090%
unknown      20     {+0}   0.067%  Permission Denied
dbtable      16     {+0}   0.053%
nodelet      15     {+0}   0.050%
container    11     {+0}   0.037%
superdoc     10     {+0}   0.033%
maintenance   5     {+0}   0.017%
nodeletgroup  4     {+0}   0.013%
usergroup     3     {+0}   0.010%
nodegroup     2     {+0}   0.007%
mail          1     {+0}   0.003%
image         1     {+0}   0.003%  noisy sunset
Total     30000 {+10000} 100.000%

Nodes with the Longest Titles9

  1. Keyboards in a computer lab with very sticky keys that make you (63) *
  2. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (55) *
  3. The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (54) *
  4. This sentence is in Spanish while you're not looking (52) *
  5. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (51)

Nodes with the Shortest Titles

There are 22 nodes of length 1

User Statistics

There were no new users found between 20000 and 30000. Since there are the same number of users as there were last calculation, this means that there are two E1 users who have logged into E2 for the first time sometime between July 27, 2005 and today. We welcome our new E1 overlords!

Users Seen in 2005:         273 {+14}
Users not seen since 2004:  178  {-9}
Users not seen since 2003:  267  {-2}
Users not seen since 2002:  317  {-0}
Users not seen since 2001:  440  {-1}
Users not seen since 2000:  453  {-0}
Users not seen since 1999:   37  {-0}
Never logged into E2:      6030 (imported from E1) {-2}
Total Users:               7995

The following statistics were calculated considering 'all users' and all 'active users'. In this case, an active user is anyone who has logged over the past 6 months.

Users by Level


Level     All Users       Active Users
Level 1:       7680 {+2}            94 {-7}
Level 2:         98 {-1}            24 {-1}
Level 3:         92 {-1}            40 {-3}
Level 4:         44 {+2}            25 {+0}
Level 5:         18 {-2}            14 {-1}
Level 6:         21 {+0}            12 {+1}
Level 7:         17 {+0}            12 {+1}
Level 8:          5 {+0}             5 {+0}
Level 9:         10 {+0}             7 {+0}
Level 10:         4 {+0}             3 {+0}
Level 11:         4 {+0}             4 {+0}
Level 13:         2 {+0}             2 {+0}
Totals:        7995 {+0}           242 {-10}

Oldest Users1,2

All Users
  1. CmdrTaco (1998-03-23 20:20:43)
  2. Robman (1998-03-29 13:45:37)
  3. hartp (1998-03-30 14:20:28)
  4. guevara (1998-03-30 17:21:29)
  5. DenMother (1998-03-30 17:26:22)
Active Users
  1. thefez (1998-04-02 21:17:57)
  2. RudeDude (1998-07-15 15:37:24)
  3. emad (1998-07-15 15:46:59)
  4. arcterex (1998-07-15 17:04:39)
  5. pms (1998-07-15 17:48:42) *

Users with the Most Writeups7

Interestingly, all but one of the users with the most writeups have had more writeups nuked than they added since I last calculated the stats.

All Users
  1. ModernAngel (1833) {-1}
  2. pingouin (1800) {-7}
  3. Segnbora-t (1700) {-0}
  4. Pseudo_Intellectual (1561) {-14}
  5. WWWWolf (1540) {-2}
Active Users
  1. ModernAngel (1833) {-1}
  2. Segnbora-t (1700) {-0}
  3. Pseudo_Intellectual (1561) {-14}
  4. WWWWolf (1540) {-2}
  5. pukesick (1424) {-1}

Users with the Least Writeups7

There are now 13 more inactive users with 0 writeups, but the good news is that 5 users that previously had no writeups now do.

All Users

5458 users with 0 writeups {+13}

Active Users

19 users with 0 writeups {-5}

Users with the Highest XP (see also Everything's Best Users)

All Users (same for Active Users)
  1. dbrown (1000718) {+8}
  2. nate (202049) {+24}
  3. Segnbora-t (112982) {+448}
  4. Lometa (74988) {+552}
  5. Tem42 (69228) {+66}

Users with the Lowest XP

Only one of the users with the lowest XP lost more. Some day they may even be positive.

All Users
  1. thefez (-1092612) {+12}
  2. Eco (-917) {+5}
  3. mhwang (-207) {+0}
  4. Goatish (-201) {-1}
  5. sonuvbob (-188) {+0}
Active Users
  1. thefez (-1092612) {+12}
  2. Eco (-917) {+5}
  3. Zane Corwin (-53) {+0}
  4. int19h (-40) {+0}
  5. Wrabhit (-16) *

Users with the Most Upvotes6

It should be noted that these users probably did not actually get as many new upvotes as it looks like they did. This change reflects the fact that I generated this information on 10000 new nodes, and this is the total increase in upvotes for all of those newly found nodes (plus the actual new upvotes). This note should be kept in mind for several of the other calculations below.

All Users
  1. nate (1618) {+102}
  2. pi (1002) {+533}
  3. Jet-Poop (974) {+286}
  4. pingouin (864) {+197}
  5. erbo (748) *
Active Users
  1. nate (1618) {+102}
  2. pi (1002) {+533}
  3. Jet-Poop (974) {+286}
  4. dem bones (421) {+68}
  5. Saige (297) {+104}

Users with the Least Upvotes6

All Users
  1. trask (0) *
  2. abentley (0) *
  3. geekier-than-you (0) {+0}
  4. Mawle (0) {+0}
  5. rmeyer (0) {+0}
Active Users
  1. freezeup (7) *
  2. pokey (7) *
  3. vectormane (7) *
  4. kslawson (8) *
  5. entrippy (9) *

Users with the Most Downvotes6

All Users
  1. nate (828) {+56}
  2. pi (374) {+203}
  3. pingouin (230) {+67}
  4. erbo (194) *
  5. Svaha (191) *
Active Users
  1. nate (828) {+56}
  2. pi (374) {+203}
  3. Jet-Poop (155) {+42}
  4. Saige (100) *
  5. General Wesc (80) {+12}

Users with the Least Downvotes6

All Users
  1. Xamot (0) *
  2. Gabor (0) *
  3. Rockwalrus (0) {+0}
  4. prwood (0)
  5. dmw (0) *
Active Users
  1. neil (1) *
  2. flyingroc (2) *
  3. bjorng (2) *
  4. cjeris (2)
  5. conform (2) *

Users with the Most Total Votes6

All Users
  1. nate (2446) {+158}
  2. pi (1376) {+736}
  3. Jet-Poop (1129) {+328}
  4. pingouin (1094) {+246}
  5. erbo (942) *
Active Users
  1. nate (2446) {+158}
  2. pi (1376) {+736}
  3. Jet-Poop (1129) {+328}
  4. dem bones (491) {+80}
  5. Saige (397) {+146}

Users with the Least Total Votes6

All Users
  1. abentley (2) *
  2. discord5 (2) *
  3. mhall (2) {+0}
  4. Gabor (2) *
  5. thaddeus (2) *
Active Users
  1. pokey (9) *
  2. vectormane (9) *
  3. freezeup (11) *
  4. cgori (12) *
  5. cjeris (13) *

Users with the Highest Reputation6

All Users
  1. Jet-Poop (918) {+308}
  2. nate (801) {+46}
  3. pingouin (634) {+112}
  4. pi (628) {+330}
  5. erbo (554) *
Active Users
  1. Jet-Poop (918) {+308}
  2. nate (801) {+46}
  3. pi (628) {+330}
  4. dem bones (351) {+56}
  5. Saige (197) {+62}

Users with the Lowest Reputation6

All Users
  1. Shna! (-8) *
  2. halcyon (-8) *
  3. popiel (-8) {+0}
  4. Mawle (-7) {-1}
  5. jeffpaulsen (-7) {-1}
Active Users
  1. kslawson (-1) *
  2. RudeDude (1) {+1}
  3. entrippy (1) *
  4. Lunarloki (2) *
  5. freezeup (3) *

Most Controversial Users11

All Users
  1. FordPrefect (+38 / -38) *
  2. goldilox (+28 / -28) *
  3. modge (+17 / -17) *
  4. grossdog (+13 / -13)
  5. Tilyrna (+12 / -12) *
Active Users
  1. RudeDude (+34 / -33)
  2. kslawson (+8 / -9) *
  3. entrippy (+9 / -8) *
  4. Lunarloki (+16 / -14)
  5. pohl (+19 / -16) *

Users with the Highest Level

All Users (same for Active Users)
  1. nate (13)
  2. dbrown (13)
  3. Segnbora-t (11)
  4. Pseudo_Intellectual (11)
  5. WWWWolf (11)

Users with the Highest Merit

All Users (same for Active Users)
  1. dem bones (74.7) {-8.8}
  2. Cow Of Doom (61) {+1}
  3. ryano (50) {-52}
  4. wonko (46) *
  5. flyingroc (38) *

Users with the Lowest Merit

All Users
  1. Broccolist (-1) *
  2. LagMan (-1) *
  3. kslawson (-1) *
  4. Zorin (-0.786) {+0.214}
  5. Platypus (-0.667)
Active Users
  1. kslawson (-1) *
  2. Zorin (-0.786) {+0.214}
  3. Pseudo_Intellectual (1.429) {+0.429}
  4. Lunarloki (2) {+0}
  5. Accipiter (2) {+2}

Users with the Most Cools

All Users
  1. nate (24) {+1}
  2. Jet-Poop (17) {+9}
  3. pingouin (17) {+2}
  4. pi (9) {+4}
  5. Svaha (9) *
Active Users
  1. nate (24) {+1}
  2. Jet-Poop (17) {+9}
  3. pi (9) {+4}
  4. dem bones (5) {+1}
  5. Yoz (5) *

Users with the Least Cools

All Users

549 users have 0 C!s {+220}

Active Users

41 users have 0 C!s {+12}

Averages

Notice that the average writeup count went down for both active and inactive users. Because there were no new users found between 20000 and 30000, what is especially surprising is that out of all the users with node_ids below 30000, on average, they each had approximately 9 of their writeups nuked since my last calculations.

                All Users          Active Users
Average Writeups:   8.870 {-0.036}      179.694 {-8.952}
Average XP:       257.429 {+0.798}     6211.438 {+351.367}
Average Level:      1.114 {+0}            3.269 {+0.09}

Totals

This is a very interesting statistic. The total increase in XP for all users was only 6385, but the total increase for active users was over 26000. This means that a lot of downvotes and nukes were made on the writeups of inactive users.

           All Users        Active Users
Total XP:  2058147 {+6385}  1503168 {+26430}

E2Node and Nodeshell Statistics

Nodes with the most writeups8

  1. Ramen (16)
  2. Beowulf (15)
  3. e (15)
  4. node (15)
  5. Python (14) *

Number of Nodeshells: 435 (8.302% of all e2nodes) {+232}

Writeup Statistics

Writeup Types

As can be seen with the lack of definition type writeups, Webster 1913 still has not shown up on the scene.

Person:  282 (16.816%) {+144}
Place:   121  (7.215%)  {+60}
Thing:   860 (51.282%) {+444}
Idea:    414 (24.687%) {+202}

Writeups with the Most Upvotes

  1. Brian Eno by nate (292) {+2}
  2. marijuana by Frater 219 (178) {+2}
  3. Haiku by Yoz (156) {+1}
  4. Perl by chimaera (152) {+0}
  5. Noam Chomsky by ryano (144) {+0}

Writeups with the Least Upvotes

The following writeups have 0 upvotes:
munition by burnsbr, 19 by Segnbora-t, Hwoarang by Mawle, arm by Greyfish, Sparty by Pathwalker, Chips and Dips by geekier-than-you, Honda CMX 450 Rebel by cdamian, VW Passat by joev, computer industry by trask, Ray tracer by tcharron, Verity by rmeyer *, Certified by cpwright *, ByxNet by xach *, 32-bit by duncman *, ASCII link by raph *, TopView by Jedermann *, masqdialer by cpwright *, Apple II by IRSMan *, Millennium tension by dmiller *, 10Base2 by cpwright *, Season of Bureaucracy by rusnovn *, airy ideals by hemos *, Jeff Coffin by Malachi *, ampersand by chaosdiscord *, M + M by cpwright *, linear conferencing by erbo *, Adam and Eve by BigCujo *, Adelaide by TardisX *, smurfy by chaosdiscord *, bat-signal by abentley *, angst by Threed *

Writeups with the Most Downvotes

  1. Brian Eno by nate (73) {+1}
  2. Sounds cool and means nothing by nate (56) {+0}
  3. ass chip by nate (49) {+1}
  4. Does this dress make me look fat? by Zach (48) *
  5. Keyboards in a computer lab with very sticky keys that make you by hoopy_frood (47) *
  6. Does this dress make me look fat? by JennyPie (47) *

Writeups with the Least Downvotes

The following writeups have 0 downvotes:
sourcebook by djensen, Necros by k8to, promotional merchandise by ChesterCramme, MBTA by prwood, class framework by djw, J22 by mhall, user interface by toebee, Intelligent Scissors by Rockwalrus, impotence by bonnet, cartoon planet by holliman, modernism by PaulM *, downtime by Teehmar *, MSCDEX by erbo *, typo by ggould *, Xamot's 4 Layer Dip by Xamot *, Fleming by wabbit *, talker by Sinner *, Blo-Pop by joev *, Southie by Woundweavr *, bazaar-based development by slipsuss *, Game Master by chaosdiscord *, can of corn by erbo *, Elephant Memory Systems by Usefulman *, T-bakku by Blackavar *, Albert Einstein by Jet-Poop *, conventional memory by erbo *, linear by Hartsock *, dalahst? by CRConrad *, upper memory block by erbo *, potted meat by wampus *, mantra by sahai *, Bodoni by Gabor *, club by Threed *, Quality Assurance by dmw *, Cyrillic alphabet by zaks *, extended memory by erbo *, Valen by erbo *

Writeups with the Most Total Votes

  1. Brian Eno by nate (365) {+6}
  2. Haiku by Yoz (192) {+1}
  3. marijuana by Frater 219 (189) {+2}
  4. Noam Chomsky by ryano (188) {+2}
  5. Keyboards in a computer lab with very sticky keys that make you by hoopy_frood (180) *

Writeups with the Least Total Votes

Yes, I am the only one to vote on these writeups. I am happy to announce that not one of these is carried over from the first 20000 nodes writeup. That means people actually used my previous writeup to pick writeups to vote on (or editors used it to find things to nuke). Spend those votes!

  1. Adelaide by TardisX (1) *
  2. arm by Greyfish (1) *
  3. 32-bit by duncman (1) *
  4. Blo-Pop by joev (1) *
  5. ampersand by chaosdiscord (1) *
  6. TopView by Jedermann (1) *
  7. 10Base2 by cpwright (1) *
  8. Adam and Eve by BigCujo (1) *
  9. linear conferencing by erbo (1) *
  10. Certified by cpwright (1) *

Writeups with the Highest Reputation

  1. Brian Eno by nate (219) {+1}
  2. marijuana by Frater 219 (167) {+2}
  3. Perl by chimaera (132) {+1}
  4. Miles Davis by pingouin (124) {+0}
  5. Haiku by Yoz (120) {+1}

Writeups with the Lowest Reputation

  1. Obi-Wan Kenobi by nate (-14) {-4}
  2. Howard Roark by jeffpaulsen (-8) {-1}
  3. LagNet IRC Network by halcyon (-8) *
  4. City of Angels by rafial (-7) *
  5. Hwoarang by Mawle (-7) *
  6. amazon.com by bjen (-7) *

Most Controversial Writeups4

  1. Zen by zenseqr (Votes: 86 / Reputation: 0)
  2. honey by goldilox (Votes: 56 / Reputation: 0) *
  3. Fox by nate (Votes: 54 / Reputation: 0)
  4. genius by ryano (Votes: 42 / Reputation: 0) *
  5. Beer For Dolphins by modge (Votes: 34 / Reputation: 0) *

The Most Liked Writeups10

  1. Miles Davis by pingouin (Votes: 128 / Downvotes: 2)
  2. John Coltrane by pingouin (Votes: 108 / Downvotes: 2)
  3. Jack Kerouac by Pedro (Votes: 105 / Downvotes: 5)
  4. Jimi Hendrix by Jet-Poop (Votes: 80 / Downvotes: 2)
  5. New Mexico by Jet-Poop (Votes: 64 / Downvotes: 1)

The Most Disliked Writeups10

  1. Hwoarang by Mawle (Votes: 7 / Upvotes: 0)
  2. Honda CMX 450 Rebel by cdamian (Votes: 5 / Upvotes: 0)
  3. airy ideals by hemos (Votes: 5 / Upvotes: 0) *
  4. Season of Bureaucracy by rusnovn (Votes: 4 / Upvotes: 0) *
  5. M + M by cpwright (Votes: 4 / Upvotes: 0) *
  6. Millennium tension by dmiller (Votes: 4 / Upvotes: 0) *
  7. computer industry by trask (Votes: 4 / Upvotes: 0) *
  8. Chips and Dips by geekier-than-you (Votes: 4 / Upvotes: 0)
  9. Sparty by Pathwalker (Votes: 4 / Upvotes: 0)

Writeups with the Most C!s

  1. Brian Eno by nate (7) {+0}
  2. John Coltrane by pingouin (6) {+0}
  3. Miles Davis by pingouin (6) {+0}
  4. vaporware by vladd (3) {+0}
  5. pine by Jet-Poop (3) *
  6. Emma Freud with a two-dimensional head by Yoz (3) *
  7. pinball by Saige (3)
  8. decimal by ChrisHall (3) *

Cooled Writeups with the Lowest Reputation

  1. Howard Roark by jeffpaulsen (-8) {-1}
  2. ass chip by nate (-2) {+1}
  3. Battle Girl by kslawson (-1) *
  4. Nate Oostendorp by CmdrTaco (-1) *
  5. stderr by ivan256 (-1) *
  6. renormalisation by pschulz (-1) {+0}
  7. Eye Candy by nate (-1) {+0}

Non-Cooled Writeups with the Highest Reputation

  1. Noam Chomsky by ryano (100) {-2}
  2. Meme by Scam (99) {+4}
  3. God by Jet-Poop (90) {+3}
  4. God is Dead by ggould (86) *
  5. Fermat's Last Theorem by cananian (81) {+0}

Averages

It makes sense that the older a writeup is, the more votes (up or down) that it will accumulate. This can be seen by the fact that all of the average votes went down. Another variable that would affect these averages is writeup deletions.


Average Upvotes per Writeup:      18.428 {-3.324}
Average Downvotes per Writeup:     7.330 {-1.272}
Average Total Votes per Writeup:  25.758 {-4.596}
Average Reputation per Writeup3:  11.393  {-2.135} (True Rep5: 11.097 {-2.053})

Totals

Total Upvotes:      30903 {+12936}
Total Downvotes:    12293 {+5188}
Total Votes:        43196 {+18124}
Total Reputation3:  19106 {+7932} (True Rep5: 18610 {+7748})
Total Cools:          251 {+95}

What If...

If all of the writeups in the first 30000 node_ids were submitted by a single user, and they spent as many votes as they received, that user would have the following stats:

Level:          9         {+2}
Writeups:    1677       {+850}
XP:         15533      {+6467}
Merit:          6.98  {-1.277}
Node-Fu:        9.263 {-1.701}

1 Several thousand nodes (users, writeups, etc.) were imported into E2 (from E1) over the course of several days. This significantly affects certain values and calculations because the timestamps are not the 'real' create times. The information above is correct based on the data reported by E2.
2 A small number of nodes in E2 (141 in this batch) do not return a timestamp. In addition, it seems that some of the nodes have had their dates manually changed. Because of this, calculations above which require a timestamp ignore nodes that are missing this information, and may give unexpected results. (See also #1)
3 There are numerous reasons why the value of upvotes minus downvotes does not always equal the value of reputation. There were some bugs on the site with voting at one time, and nodes that are restored from node heaven often have this problem.
4 In this case 'Most Controversial' means the writeup where the absolute value of the true reputation5 divided by the total number of votes is close to zero. In other words, the writeup has a lot of votes with about half of the people upvoting it, and half of the people downvoting it.
5 'True reputation' refers to the value calculated by subtracting the downvotes from the upvotes. See #3 for why this might not be the same as the displayed reputation.
6 Calculations regarding votes or reputation only consider users with writeups in the specified node_id range.
7 Since a user's homenode contains the number of writeups that the user has on E2, these writeup counts may include nodes which are not in the specified node_id range.
8 Since an e2node can contain numerous writeups, these writeup counts may include nodes which are not in the specified node_id range.
9 Writeup titles have had '(person)', '(place)', '(thing)', '(idea)', and '(definition)' removed from their length.
10 'Most Liked' and 'Most Disliked' refer to nodes that are very high in upvotes and very low in downvotes (liked) or very high in downvotes and very low in upvotes (disliked). It uses approximately a 5 to 100 ratio for the cutoff.
11 In this case 'Most Controversial' means that the absolute value of the user's total true reputation5 divided by the total number of votes is close to zero
/msg me with with any other statistics you might find interesting, and I'll work on adding them.

Category:

I like it! This writeup has been cooled by:  
XWiz, izubachi, Jet-Poop, Andrew Aguecheek, ToasterLeavings,
darl, Tato, mauler, JunkillX 9 C!s
(thing) by CaptiveSoul Sun Oct 16 2005 at 8:44:00

I sit here having just checked the latest update on Ophelia.

I am having a terrible time resolving my feelings about things right now.

Most of my friends know of my love for hurricanes and other severe weather events. I've always stated right up front that while I love mother nature and, more specifically, hurricanes, I do not like seeing anyone lose life or property. Unfortunately, Katrina, while a beautiful storm, did so much damage to life as I know it that I'm starting to take this shit a little personally.

What usually spares New Orleans and Jacksonville are the pressure fronts. Everytime a storm pops up it either rides straight up the coast or crosses the peninsula of Florida and smacks into the panhandle. On a rare occasion it steamrolls into Texas. But usually the Louisiana Coast and the Jacksonville area are spared the severe portion of the storms. Obviously, that's not the case this year.

Katrina has, for the foreseeable future, really changed life here in the Baton Rouge area. Today it took me 3 hours to go about 8 miles. So many people. While we definitely welcome the refugees from New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Baton Rouge is ill equipped for it. We are now the most populous city in Louisiana. But with all the people, we didn't get all the roads or housing or businesses. Houses that have yet to have the foundation poured are being sold. There's nothing to rent for miles around.

I took some cleaning supplies to Charlotte today. That was what took me 3 hours. The good news was that their house wasn't horrendously damaged. However, the area is unlivable for several months at the very best. So they will keep their rented place here. Totally uprooted.

The selfish side of me, is glad she's here in town. It's good to see old friends.

Gaylen has yet to make contact. I hear rumor that he is alive and well and in town. But text messages have gone unanswered and I don't have an email address for him.

Now Ophelia is heading for my boys. Nathan and Madison. She's a baby. A not-so-well organized Tropical Storm. But my boys, you see, they live on an island. I'm worried about them. Not because this is an intense storm, but because these storms are really hitting home.

This hurricane season has found me far less than pleased at the storms I'm seeing. It's breaking records left and right and if it keeps up, we may well run out of names.

Please, Ophelia, don't be too hard on my boys. Just be beautiful offshore and bring them waves upon which to surf and a cool breeze to ease their day.

I like it!

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