(no subject)

Statistics was ... well, it was. Neither good nor bad yet, though I can see how working at EMH all those years prepared me -- a lot of the terms are either similar or easily translated into EMH-speak and vice versa. For instance, what the class calls "distributions" are the same thing that EMH called "frequencies" or just "the numbers", as in "Michael, can you run a Frequency on Q18 for the Fairbanks' San Diego poll?" or "Hey Michael, I need you to run the numbers for F187 for me."

On the plus side, my first homework assignment is due next Tuesday and I can probably do it all tonight based only on what I know from my EMH experience. Simple stuff, really. I know it will get harder, however, I'm still encouraged.

The only sticking point I can see may be a non-issue; I think I deleted Excel from my PC a year or so back (and I have no easy way of getting it again) -- and I need it for this class as we have ten assignments that require using Excel (the first one due next Thursday) and I won't have the time to use the on-campus PCs. I'll have to check tonight.

Edit: I was unclear; I CAN get Excel again, it just isn't simple. If I did delete it from my PC, I'll just call Mom or Elaine (who originally bought the license for me to use MSOffice anyway). Thanks for the alternate suggestions, but I am a creature of habit and would prefer to use actual MS Excel -- other programs may indeed be functionally identical, but I'll feel better if I'm using the same program my teacher is.

Sci-fi News: Angel and Riddick

First, ( Some spoiler-ish stuff about Buffy characters appearing on Angel )

Second, the Chronicles of Riddick story happens AFTER Pitch Black, taking the character in a new direction. All three of the characters who survived the first film are in the sequel; the young girl is grown up.

Hitchhiker's Guide Entry: Airports, location of

This was born as a comment to mslulu, but it's now something different:

If you go to a country but do not leave the airport -- say, for example, that while travelling to Berlin you stop over at Heathrow for an hour -- then you have not actually visited this country. This is not because you didn't go out and see the sights, talk with the locals, and breathe the air, no. It is because you were never even in that country.

Airports, you see, do not, in fact, exist in the country they purport to inhabit. Airports actually exist in an entirely different dimension not truly understood by modern science, in which proportions, cost, and time do not act as they do in the real world. Because of this other dimension's native properties, things cost more and are smaller than they would be anywhere else on Earth. This is also why airports are uniformly as ugly as this woman, who has more money than sense.

This theory was expounded on in great detail by Oolon Colluphid's best seller, "So, You're About to Visit an Airport, You Daft Bastard." It was further developed by the Time Lord Rowanandiarnasimpra, or "Rowan" for short, in his book, "The Effects of Dimensional Transcendalism on Irritable Life Forms."