Archive for October, 2005

31 October 2005

A failing blogger

October 31st 2005 Posted to Miscellany, Tech

Reading Jakob Nielsen’s top ten mistakes by webloggers, it’s clear I am a failure as a blogger, on most counts.

  • I’m too lazy to write a biographical page (mistake #1). My readers (both of them!) know me already.
  • Nor have I a photo (#2). Ditto.
  • I try to invent slightly curious titles, with a whiff of pun about them (#3).
  • My blog motions are quite irregular (#7).
  • And I spread them thinly (#8).
  • Doh! How could I keep forgetting that I’m writing for my future boss(es) (#9).

I do OK on the other points, so I get 4 out of 10.

What is my blog about? I have some whimsical notion of it as a multi-faceted portrait of myself that reveals itself (and thus me) piece by piece.

Sorry to disappoint you, Jakob.

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Above-average weather

October 31st 2005 Posted to Science

Today a TV weather presenter told us that today’s top temperature at the Gold Coast was 28˚ – five degrees above average. Average what?

I think this means the daily maximum temperature for the month of October (i.e. the arithmetic mean of all daily maxima from that recording station for every October day since records began). Is it a useful piece of information? Only partly: today is the last day of October and I’m sure the average maximum for 31 October is more than 23˚. We may hear tomorrow that a similar maximum temperature to today’s is less than the average!

Why don’t they use daily averages? There must be enough separate recordings for every day of the year (except perhaps 29 February) to calculate a meaningful average maximum temperature. It makes sense to compare apples with apples, and not with … well, you know!

At least we weren’t told it was five degrees above normal!

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