#Statistics and Probability

[prokopetz]

Sometimes reading a new indie RPG gives you an insight into the principles of game design you'd have never arrived at on your own.

Sometimes reading a new indie RPG gives you a sum-of-2dX lookup table with its entries in alphabetical order.

[barragerofenvy]

Good luck in your Gambling! ;]

Like Ms. Ungurmeyer said...true...You gotta make your own luck in this world...AND I GOT A LOT OF IT IN GW 2!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lapdogchase]

if you ever think "why bother posting my spotify wrapped/apple music replay nobody really cares anyway" think of ME. I CARE. i love that shit i love seeing what music people like and how many minutes they listened to music etc. PLEASE post them i love it i love ittttt it's like a holiday for me

[eriyu]

i noticed a while back that Lyse, Alisaie, and Tataru seemed to be the only characters who say "maybe" regularly (as opposed to "perhaps" or "mayhap"). and a Reddit discussion about dialogue this morning made me go overboard again.

uhhhhh do with this information what you will?

if anyone has requests for other characters or other words; i can easily come up with their numbers too! (or you can grab the regex firefox extension i use here)

specifically, the Reddit post i saw was about how XIV's dialogue (or at least the English localization) has gotten simpler and blander over time — not just in Dawntrail, not just as part of the overall Dawntrail hate, but as early as Shadowbringers.

it's not something i've thought about a whole lot to have a strong opinion on tbh. but it did make me remember this thought about "maybe" i'd had in the past, and i wanted to crunch the numbers to see if i could learn anything. and my footnotes at the end are my notes to that effect.

Alphinaud, G'raha, and Estinien starting to use maybe could be a case study in XIV's dialogue becoming blander. or it could be a way of showing that they've become more relaxed as people, and more comfortable within the party. either way, i just thought tumblr might like this info!

[chaos-whatever]

I am going to explode 👍

[maxxifer]

alright free story idea that I personally find really funny.

Derek 'Chronic English Major' Hale having a secret love of period drama romance novels or some shit, and one day picks up a new and popular series where the story is essentially 'Pride and Prejudice but oops all werewolves'. He gets real invested and is really impressed by both the incredibly well researched historical accuracy, AS WELL as the ACCURATELY portrayed werewolf lore/representation.

I also like to imagine Derek and Lydia bond over their shared interest of books/films because 1. it's funny and 2. they're honestly both so dramatic and extra that after all the shit they and their friends went through, Derek and Lyds deserve to be buds. Anyway, said book series comes up in conversation, and Derek says he just started it and it's really good. Lydia inexplicitly starts cackling, but doesn't elaborate, just making vague comments almost like an inside joke.

Derek finishes the book series, and starts to put the pieces together. Some parts of these books seem almost... too familiar. But who would be the type of person to have encyclopedic knowledge on hyper specific parts of history, a flair for dramatics, AND a vast amount of experience with not only the supernatural, but especially werewolves?

...Yeah turns out Derek Hale's favourite book series was written by Stiles using a pen name, and no he does not want to talk about it.

[glassshine]

European Furry map based on my 915 responses on twitter

more info here

[tumbler-polls]

[jackwhiteprophetic]

Hey guys have been doing some data analysis on hit TV show 9-1-1 today as one does, and basically:

- based on data from 7x01 to present (8x04, excluding 7x08 as none of the related characters are in this episode).

- Buck says "Eddie" an average of 0 (ZERO) times per episode if Tommy is not present.

- if Tommy is in a scene, Buck says "Eddie" an average of 2.75 times per episode.

- this is over double Buck's over all "Eddie" average per episode since season 2, which is currently 1.08 EPEs (eddie-per-episodes).

(here is my graph with data from S2 to S7, I will make a new one maybe at end of 8A but definitely by the end of season 8)

More data/analyses under the cut

If anyone is curious on similar data for Eddie:

- 0.4 BPEs if no T.

- 1.125 BPEs if T present.

(currently overall, Eddie is at 0.73 BPEs)

Sorry if I counted anything wrong lmao ANYWAY we bear in mind that when Tommy is present it is due to a Buck/Eddie plot in that episode (because they are often deliberately paired together by the writers) and just have more lines anyway so may be more likely to speak each others' names.

To me this highlights that Buck and Eddie are being heavily linked together whenever Tommy is there, which indicates that the writers want the audience to associate Buck's romantic relationships with Eddie. Also when interpreting Tommy as a storytelling device used to represent part of Buck's queer awakening, having Eddie be tied to this is another potentially interesting writing choice.

Basically gay Eddie is haunting bi Buck's narrative and Buck is narratively condemned to be unable to separate his queerness from his attachment to Eddie

[elodieunderglass]

And what if they grew old and were happy!! And what then!!

[prokopetz]

The tabletop game designer's true sorrow: when the results distribution that's most conducive to engaging play is unaesthetic.

[reasonsforhope]

"When politicians unveil a new national park or wilderness area, it’s often accompanied by debates about what effect it will have on the livelihoods of people living nearby. In some places, it can be welcomed as a boon, attracting tourists and their dollars. In others, it’s booed as a job killer, squelching the chance for new mining, grazing, logging or other industries.

As nations promise to nearly double the amount of protected land on the planet, from 17% to 30% of the Earth’s surface, these debates are likely to happen more often. Now there is new evidence that it’s possible to have both land protections and a growing economy. But it’s not guaranteed. “Achieving both aims is more common than we previously expected,” said Binbin Li, an environmental scientist at Duke Kunshan University, a Chinese institution affiliated with Duke University. “But that balance depends on socioeconomic conditions near a protected area.”

It can be hard to tease out causal links between two things as complex as the changing condition of a landscape and the economy of a nearby city. Did a town flourish because of a nearby national park, or because an increase in remote work enabled people to move there? Did another town collapse because a forest reserve contributed to the demise of a sawmill, or was it part of a bigger downturn in the timber industry?

To try to clarify the effects, Li and colleagues at Duke University and Shandong University in China compared the fates of “twin” towns and cities, as well as comparable patches of land. They identified more than 10,000 protected areas in countries around the globe, then examined how economic activity changed in nearby settlements between 2013 and 2020, compared to similar settlements more than 20 kilometers from any protected land. They also matched the protected area to similar nearby unprotected areas, to see if they fared differently.

The scientists used satellite images to track changes on the landscape, such as forest turning to farmland. They also tracked changes in the amount of nighttime artificial light as a surrogate for economic activity.

The satellite images revealed that in many cases, more trees and grasslands stayed standing and the lights shown more brightly at the same time. In about half the protected areas, there was simultaneous progress in both conservation and economic development, the scientists reported on June 20 in Current Biology.

Land protection was broadly successful at reducing the loss of forest and grasslands – more than 90% of the protected areas either lost no natural land cover, or less than their unprotected twins, the researchers found. At the same time, 60% of neighboring communities had as much or more of an increase in nightlights than places further from protected land...

Land protection and economic growth went hand in hand most easily in wealthier countries, around smaller protected areas, and in places with some of the infrastructure critical for economic development, such as roads. In places without these features the ecological fate of the land and the economic fortune of nearby towns was more likely to diverge or decline together the researchers found.

“Conservation does not happen in a silo,” said co-author Stuart Pimm, a Duke University ecologist. “We must consider local development alongside biodiversity conservation to know where and how to protect areas to benefit both the environment and humans.” ...

The results underscore the ways in which poverty and environmental degradation can be bound together. If poverty isn’t dealt with, creating protected areas could set the stage for both loss of biodiversity and economic development, the researchers warned. The flip side is that with careful planning, conservation could help set nearby towns on a path out of poverty. As an example, the scientists pointed to Costa Rica’s Corcovado National Park, which has become a hub for ecotourism on the country’s Pacific coast.

“We need to get to a win-win outcome more often, especially in the most biodiverse regions that can ill-afford losing out on economic development or biodiversity,” said Li. “We cannot address biodiversity loss without addressing local development issues.”

-via Anthropocene Magazine, June 26, 2024

[zellaspinna]

bullrider!Landoscar is still rotting my brain so here’s some headcannons I came up with while being crossfaded

The PBR Teams:

* Mclaren Outlaws : Lando,Oscar,Pato,Christian,Nolan

* RedBull Oxes : Max,Liam,Yuki,Marc,Binder

* Williams wranglers : Alex,Logan,Franco,Carlos,zak

* Ferrari Sheriffs : Charles,Lewis,Arthur,Ollie,Rafael

* Mercedes Mavericks: George,Kimi,Paul,Fred,Doriane

Mclaren Headcannons:

* Lando actually enjoyed barrel racing younger until he met Jenson who introduced him to the Mclaren crew and ever since he aspired to be a pro bull rider

* Lando is basically John Crimber in this au

* when Oscar had his debut ride for the Mclaren Outlaws Lando cheered for him the loudest by the bucking chutes

* all of the Mclaren boys get along real well and turn their hotel rooms into warzones whenever they meet up to play mario kart or fifa after a rodeo

* Pato and Lando lead the team while mourning the loss of their side pieces (Daniel and Alex)

* Christian,Nolan and Oscar bonded easily being the youngest ones on the team and cause Zak really encouraged them to (for pr purposes)

* Pato teaches the boys how to line dance in the locker rooms

* due to Pato’s insistence their ‘hype song’ is Fake ID by Big&Rich

* also meaning they line dance at bars together (they as in Pato,Lando and Nolan cause Christian and Oscar would probably just rather chat and watch them goof around)

* Pato forced them to all watch Coyote Ugly as well as Footloose with him and they secretly loved both movies

* Oscar was really good at breakaway roping but found he enjoyed bull riding more and wanted to be like Mark and Fernando who where both bull riding champions

* Oscar got his boots,belts and hat custom made from Fernando

* Lando and oscar first bonded over getting their shit rocked by a bull called Papaya Rules

*I made a playlist of songs for this au! there’s not really a general vibe I just put some songs I’d see them dancing to or vibing to in the lockerrooms

[walkingstackofbooks]

I find it interesting in Statistical Probabilites that Jack, Lauren and Patrick all seem to have had their ability to read body language enhanced - as opposed to Julian, who's always seemed to really struggle with body language and social cues.

[bedlamsbard]

it always blows my mind that the Black Death is still around and you yes YOU can get it in the United States of America if you are very unlucky

(it's endemic amongst ground rodents in rural areas in the American West. well, the fleas on the rodents etc., which can jump to other animals.)

it's very treatable though but also like. it's 2024. you always think the Black Death is one of the diseases that got stomped out with prejudice but nope, it's still around!