A coincidence within a coincidence....

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understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

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I was pretty amazed by a strange set of coincidences that happened to me a few months ago... With children in tow I set off to see my Ma for some lunch out on a Saturday. On the way there (M1 Leicestershire) we passed a new windfarm. I muttered about "not mentioning to Grandma" (as she is an argumentative so and so and does not approve), and a discussion ensued with my daughter (14) about the merits or otherwise of wind farms, and the fact as she saw it that they "have to go somewhere". "Have you heard of the expression Not In My Back Yard, or NIMBY"? I asked her, and explained what it meant. More later.... On arrival at Ma she had kept for me to read an article from the Telegraph about Marc Almond's latest venture. She thought I would be interested as I lived in same accomodation c. 1981 when Soft Cell went global - and played bass on a couple of tracks. Nothing particularly unusual there. When I got back home however I was catching up on some email etc., and playing music on random play on Windows Media Player. I have c. 39,000 .mp3 files in my library. The playlist was "All Music" and set to random (or what passes for random as I think you dicsussed on the raido this morning - eitehr way there were no preferences or libraries or other configurations). After about 10 minutes a song called "Fun City" came on - this was one of the 2 songs I played on with Marc - and was the first time I can remember it had come on "random" in several years. It wasn't till it got towards the end that I thought "now that's a coincidence, given the article from my mother". I also have a habit of running a "picture wiz" backround in WMP, that rotates a set of images from a folder while music plays. It's unconnected to the music itself, not like album art. From another old "artistic" venture (Rocket Men Of Memphis) I have a lot of pretty random images stored for this purpose, c 50,000, in c. 50 directories, only 1 of which is active in WMP at any one time. I was about to hit pause when an image (I think the only one I have) of Marc c. 1981 popped up (they stay for 8 seconds). This I did think was long odds? c. 50000 x 30000 = 1.5BN to 1? Or is my maths suspect? So, I went downstairs to share with my daughter, as I was more than slightly surprised at this turn of events and needed to share. Having done this I then went to flop in front of TV. The Simpsons was on about half way through an episode (new one I think - certainly one I had not seen before and I watch a lot). Within about 2 minutes, there was a scene with Homer naked in the back garden. Marge appeared. "Homer" she said, "have you never heard of the expression Not In My Back Yard". This really was a bit weird! Or is this perfectly normal? My missus later insisted on me giving her some numbers for a lottery ticket - based loosely on the premise from this wonderful Bilko episode http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwiirT5355A
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Date submitted:Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:48:39 +0000Coincidence ID:3347