Your favorite statistics and bits of trivia

[UsuallyPresent]

And million-to-one chances work nine times out of ten. As long as it's exactly a million to one.

Of course, Sir Pterry. It’s all that Narrativium.

 

[SissyBrandi19]

One of my favorites is that among the approximately 1.6 million identified different species of animals in the world (all phyla), there are approximately 400,000 different beetles. So about one quarter of all known species of animals on Earth are beetles. This is why the scientist JB Haldane, when asked what one might infer about the mind of the Creator from a study of His works, replied, "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

That is not at all my favorite statistic. My favorite statistic, well, it's a tie between expected value, variance and distribution because if I know all three I can tell you the exact probability of any single score, which...gotta admit...is fucking bad-ass.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

That is not at all my favorite statistic. My favorite statistic, well, it's a tie between expected value, variance and distribution because if I know all three I can tell you the exact probability of any single score, which...gotta admit...is fucking bad-ass.

Statistical methods aren’t statistics, they’re "orderly, structured methods of going wrong" to paraphrase the Wise Man.

 

[SimonDoom]

The only English words to contain “meow” are meow, meows, meowed, meowing, and homeowner.

How about somebody who borrows a book -- a tomeower.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The only word in English that has three consecutive sets of double letters is bookkeeper.

Also "bookkeeping".

If one allows proper nouns, Woolloomooloo (suburb in Sydney) has four consecutive double letters, if one counts the double-u at the beginning.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

And million-to-one chances work nine times out of ten. As long as it's exactly a million to one.

According to Sir Terry anyway.... with a nice helping of Narrative Causality.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

According to Sir Terry anyway.... with a nice helping of Narrative Causality.

Great minds that echo the same bits of pop culture!

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Great minds that echo the same bits of pop culture!

Yeah, you beat me to that one!

 

[Abeona1]

You can get Helen out of elephant

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Taser is an acronym for Tom A Swift Electric Rifle.
The inventor was a fan of the Tom Swift books as a kid.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Taser is an acronym for Tom A Swift Electric Rifle.
The inventor was a fan of the Tom Swift books as a kid.

Whereas laser was originally an acronym for "Light Amplified by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation". Glad they didn’t get pedantic and call it a labtseor!

And the theoretic ‘graser’ is the same except it’s gravity, not light.

 

[SkyBubble]

It would be hard to show that a gun was brandished in self-defense to get the job done.

Not as difficult as you seem to think.

Chances are that if the homeowner had not confronted the someone with his gun, then no-one would have been shot.

I don't think that's true at all. Places where guns are not allowed see plenty of shootings.

Try to think like them for a minute. If you wanted to shoot someone or use a gun in the commission of a crime, are you going to go someplace where you're more or less likely to encounter another person with a gun?

 

[SkyBubble]

You have produced no evidence or even rational argument to show that I'm wrong. Therefore, I win.

She did.

 

[SkyBubble]

Yeah, suicide is a huge part of the gun violence statistics. Perhaps gun advocates would like to say that people ought to have a right to take their own lives in that manner though. Regardless, there are common sense gun regulations that are pretty popular and we could pass them but we don't because things like school shootings don't bother us that much.

We already have over 20,000 gun control laws in this country. We had more guns per capita 60 years ago than today. You could get them from the Sears catalogue. Virtually no mass shootings.

Almost all mass shootings (well over 90%) occur in gun-free zones.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Chimpanzees are not 99% similar to Homo Sapiens Sapiens as popularly thought but are only 85% similar after the entire genomes of both have been finally analyzed. May 2025 scientific paper published in Nature by Yoo et al.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Somewhat eye-opening figures I came across recently:

Undocumented migrants to the USA have contributed $2.15 trillion to social security since it began - money that they are unable to benefit from themselves for obvious reasons.

It would take roughly $177billion a year to lift every single person in America out of poverty. The richest 1% of Americans only pay 75% of the taxes they owe each year, on average. If they paid what they actually owed then the USA would raise an additional $175 billion each year.

The number of migrants across the entire world has remained constant since the 1960s - globally, only 3% of people live outside the country where they were born.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Somewhat eye-opening figures I came across recently:

Undocumented migrants to the USA have contributed $2.15 trillion to social security since it began - money that they are unable to benefit from themselves for obvious reasons.

It would take roughly $177billion a year to lift every single person in America out of poverty. The richest 1% of Americans only pay 75% of the taxes they owe each year, on average. If they paid what they actually owed then the USA would raise an additional $175 billion each year.

The number of migrants across the entire world has remained constant since the 1960s - globally, only 3% of people live outside the country they were born.

The US spent $1.19 trillion on anti-poverty programs in 2022.
I'm pretty sure we aren't a mere $177 billion away from eradicating poverty.

And how can anyone know what other people "actually owe"?

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

The US spent $1.19 trillion on anti-poverty programs in 2022.
I'm pretty sure we aren't a mere $177 billion away from eradicating poverty.

And how can anyone know what other people "actually owe"?

Bring it up with Matthew Desmond! He’s the acknowledged expert on poverty in America. This comes from his book ‘Poverty, by America’.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Bring it up with Matthew Desmond! He’s the acknowledged expert on poverty in America. This comes from his book ‘Poverty, by America’.

Acknowledged by who?

 

[iwatchus]

Complete BS on the 1.19T for anti-poverty programs unless you are counting social security checks. The entire discretionary budget that year was right around 150T, more than half of which went to the DoD. More detail into this than I want to go into here and I refuse to go to the PB

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Complete BS on the 1.19T for anti-poverty programs unless you are counting social security checks. The entire discretionary budget that year was right around 150T, more than half of which went to the DoD. More detail into this than I want to go into here and I refuse to go to the PB

I think you missed the decimal in that 1.19 trillion.

University of Michigan says 1 trillion back in 2012.

https://poverty.umich.edu/files/2019/10/PovertySolutions-AntiPovertySpending-PolicyBrief-r6-1.pdf

 

[big_cane_sugar]

I guess we all know the US has enough money to end what we call poverty but the people who control that money don't want to do it. Same as almost every issue: oh well, people die, but Birkin bags and yachts and homes in the Hamptons aren't cheap.

 

[SkyBubble]

Undocumented migrants to the USA have contributed $2.15 trillion to social security since it began - money that they are unable to benefit from themselves for obvious reasons.

Whatever identity they're using to work illegally can be used to collect illegally.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The skeleton of Napoleon's warhorse, Marengo, is in the National Army Museum in London.

The London Underground and Overground have obvious explanations of their names. Except at Whitechapel where the Underground is actually overground and the Overground is underground (and Wombling free...)

The only street licenced for brothels in the mediaeval City of London was Cock Lane. Though like many towns, there was a Gropecunt Lane just across the river in Southwark.

Not wanting to stray into politics nor get too depressing, but related to previous comments on this thread - the average active suicidal impulse lasts about 20 minutes. So if there are barriers preventing impulsive suicide methods, these can be pretty effective. E.g. deaths from paracetamol overdose declined by 43% after the UK restricted how many could be bought on open sale at once, ditto liver transplants. Similarly, gunshot suicides declined by 50% in the 20 years after the UK handgun ban. (Rifles and shotguns are still legal)

 

[iwatchus]

I think you missed the decimal in that 1.19 trillion.

University of Michigan says 1 trillion back in 2012.

https://poverty.umich.edu/files/2019/10/PovertySolutions-AntiPovertySpending-PolicyBrief-r6-1.pdf

Did you even read the piece you linked?

It says a study from the Cato Institute (hardly an unbiased or reliable source) said that. Everyone else who has looked at it has a number in the 200-300 billion range.

I did not want to continue this here, but don't misquote things like that so blatantly.