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silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

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app103:
:-* Precisely why I maintain that statistics are BS because you can easily twist them to prove anything with anything.
-Stoic Joker (January 20, 2013, 01:37 PM)
--- End quote ---

87% of all statistics are made up anyway...
-Target (January 20, 2013, 05:07 PM)
--- End quote ---

^^ including that one.  :D

rgdot:
72% of people agree that 87% of all statistics are made up.

IainB:
I always enjoy jokes about the use/misuse of statistics and numbers.
@app103's "Internet Explorer v Murder Rate" is just another amusing example of the classic stochastic fallacy that "Correlation equates to causation" (it does not), used by so many, both wittingly and unwittingly. You can probably do the same sort of thing with (say) the import of bananas and the murder rate, or even (say) HJ Eysenck's contentious analysis of correlation between IQ and race in the US population.

The:

* "87% of all statistics are made up" or "42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot",
* "72% of people agree that 87% of all statistics are made up",
* "97% of scientists agree that 99.9% of the statistics made-up by scientists are credible".
* "I'm 99.9% certain, but that 0.1% can get you every time."- belong to a group of old jokes poking fun at the deliberate/irrational misuse of statistics to "prove" an invalid argument/theory, over the years.

Other jokes/silliness:

* My personal favourite is the report that: "According to the UK Department of Incomplete Research, 9 out of 10."
* In New Zealand, it is legal to label a food product with the declaration that it is "97% fat-free". (Not a joke.)
* "The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends.  If they're okay, then it's you." - Rita Mae Brown.
* Remember:  Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.  Statistically, 100% of all divorces started with marriage.

IainB:
A really smart man.
I was driving to work yesterday when I observed a female driver cut right in front of a pickup truck causing him to have to drive on to the shoulder to avoid hitting her.  This evidently angered the driver enough that he hung his arm out his window and gave the woman 'the bird'.
"Man, that guy is stupid." I thought to myself.

I *always* smile nicely and wave in a sheepish manner whenever a female does anything to me in traffic, and here's why:
I drive 48 miles each way every day to work, that's 96 miles each day.  Of these, 16 miles each way is bumper-to-bumper.  Most of the bumper-to-bumper is on an 8 lane highway, so if you just look at the 7 lanes I am not in, that means I pass something like a new car every 40 feet per lane.  That's 7 cars every 40 feet for 32 miles.  That works out to be 982 cars every mile, or 31,424 cars.  Even though the rest of the 32 miles is not bumper-to-bumper, I figure I pass at least another 4,000 cars.  That brings the number to something like 36,000 cars I pass every day.  Statistically, half of these are driven by females, that's 18,000.

In any given group of females 1 in 28 are having the worst day of their period.  That's 642.

According to Cosmopolitan, 70% describe their love life as dissatisfying or unrewarding.  That's 449.

According to the National Institute of Health, 22% of all females have seriously considered suicide or homicide.  That's 98.

And 34% describe men as their biggest problem.  That's 33.

According to the National Rifle Association, 5% of all females carry weapons, and this number is increasing.

That means that EVERY SINGLE DAY, I drive past at least one female that has a lousy love life, thinks men are her biggest problem, has seriously considered suicide or homicide, is having the worst day of her period, and is armed.

Piss one off?  I think not.

IainB:
Efficiency improvement.
This story gives an example of the difference that consultants can make to an organization.

Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant .  After a while, we noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket.  It seemed a little strange, but I ignored it.  However, when the busboy brought out water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket.  Then I looked around the room and saw that all the male staff had spoons in their pockets.

When the waiter came back to serve our soup I asked him, "Why the spoon?"

"Well," he explained, "the restaurant's owners hired Andersen Consulting as efficiency experts, to revamp all our processes.  After several months of statistical analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil.  This represented a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour.  If our waiters were prepared to deal with that contingency, we could reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift and give a faster response time to customers."

As luck would have it, I accidentally knocked my spoon off the table, and he was able to replace it immediately with his spare spoon.

"I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now." he said.

I was rather impressed.

Later I noticed that there was a very thin string hanging out of the waiter's fly.  Looking around, I noticed that all the male waiters had the same string hanging from their flies.

My curiosity got the better of me, and next time he came to our table I asked the waiter, "Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?"

"Oh, certainly!" he answered, lowering his voice.  "Not everyone is as observant as you.  That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we men can save time in the restroom."

"How so?"

"See," he continued, "by tying this string to the tip of you know what, we can pull it out over the urinal without touching it and that way eliminate the need to wash the hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent."

"But, after you get it out, how do you put it back?", I enquired.

"Well," he whispered, lowering his voice even further, "I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon."

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