Can you hear me now?

One would think a condo in the city would be noisy. To be honest this is the quietest place I have ever lived. This is most likely due to
1) I am becoming more deaf
2) we live on a one way street so there are very few cars
3) the walls are 14 inches thick of brick. How do I know? Because my 12 inch bit was a few inches shy.

Everyday math

I was checking out at the local grocery store, and the young girl asked for my ID for the beer I had purchased. She looked at it and giggled. "We have the same birthday".

I thought to myself, really you look much younger than me. 

My second thought of course was the birthday paradox. If you have a bunch of people in the room what is the likelihood at least 2 people share the same birthday? Well of course it depends on how many people is a bunch. But lets say you have a classroom of 23 people. Do you think at least 2 have the same birthday. Well, if you are a betting person you would say yes, because most likely there will be 2 people that have the same birthday in a classroom of 23.

Stay with me here. This won't hurt a bit.

If I flip a fair coin what is the likelihood it lands on heads? Half the time it lands on heads, and the other half it lands on tails. Therefore the likelihood of landing on heads is 50%. Often the word Probability is substituted for likelihood, and often instead of using 50% the term .5 is used. So the probability of a coin landing on heads is .5. There you know as much math as most high school students and more than most college grads.

Now what is the probability of throwing a coin twice and getting heads both times? Phew that's hard. Well the first time we have already established its .5. The second time, hmmm, well the first flip in no way influences the outcome of the second toss. The fancy word for that is the two events are independent. So just trust me on this next statement, the probability of sequence of events is the product (thats a fancy word for multiply) of each event. Well thats true if the events are independent. So the first flip is .5 and the second flip is .5 therefore the probability of 2 heads in a row is .5 * .5 = .25.

So if you toss a coin 100 times and it lands on heads each time what is the probability that the coin on the 101st toss will be heads, well its still .5, but you better go find a new coin.

So what does all this have to do with birthdays. Its all the same actually. What is the probability that 2 people have the same birthday? Well each person say has equal probability of having one of 365 birthdays (forget leap year and more people are born on tuesdays..) Another way to figure this out (and actually easier) is to ask what is the probability that two people don't have the same birthday? Well the first person is born on a random day. The other person just can't be born on that same day. So the second person has a total of 364 days out of a potential  365 days they can be born on not to have the same birthday as the first person. Phew thats hard. Imagine the first person was born on July 20th. The second person can be born on any day except July 20th in order not to be born on the same day. Soooo the probability of two people NOT having the same birthday is

364/365 = .9972

Therefore the probability that two people have the same birthday is the opposite of this or

1 - .9972  = .0027

Now lets consider 3 people.
The second person's probability of not having the same birthday again is 364/365 and the third person is 363/365

Grinding through the math ..

1 - (364/365 * 363/365) = .00824

… and for 4 people

1 - (364/365 * 363/365 * 362/365) = .01

I think you can see the pattern, so if you keep doing this at about the 23rd person the probability reaches .5.

So next time you are at a cocktail party and there are more than 23 people there, most likely 2 or more were born on the same day. Isn't that weird, I mean would you guessed it took only 23 people for this to happen? Welcome to the first in a series of Everyday Math where we explore counter intuitive stuff.

Convenience

I never had a real history class, the only sort of history I suffered through is memorizing dates, but never really the motivation or consequences of man's actions.

At some point we as species decided it was best to move far away from where we work, buy supplies and eat. This move forced us to buy a car so we could travel back to work and buy supplies and eat. The more people that moved away, the more congested this route became, so we spent more time not in either place, but on the road getting to somewhere we are not. Most people say they moved out of the city so their kids could have a yard to play in. Most kids I know would rather stay in their room and play video games, and most organized sports require a specialized field. Ok, off my soapbox.

There is really little reason to own a car if you live in the city. Having said that, lugging 100 pounds of groceries is not much fun either. So you end up doing small daily shops buying what you need. Well the forces of capitalism have begun to ease the burden of carrying even small loads. I've already written about pea pod the grocery store delivery service. It's spectacular. Amazon, drugstore.com, petfood.com and other online retailers have filled in the gap of what others cannot supply. There is one small item left out of these services. Alcohol delivery.

Enter Drizly. A virtual liquor store that delivers. With iPhone app in hand, you place the order you want, checkout, and then you track your driver as he makes his way to your home.  From start to finish it was less than 30 minutes. All prices are as cheap as I can get locally. There is a $5 delivery fee, and I tipped an extra $5. All bottles came individually wrapped, and the beer was cold. They also deliver pop, bags of ice, martini olives, limes, red solo cups….

The picture above is the screen showing "Matt's" progress toward nemo. When he finished packing his truck, I received a text.

Cheers, and up your Kilty...
t&c

Mud bugs feb 10/11

Hell yes

BU hockey

$8.00 for a beer, hot dog, bottle of water, best deal in town. Oh yeah great hockey and school spirit.

The road to Sochi goes through Boston

We saw the US Men's Figure Skating championship this weekend. Some big performances including the national anthem sung by a 3rd generation Boston police officer.

Engineer's heaven

When I went to school, I knew I wanted to be an engineer, cause I thought I'd get a cool cap and be able to drive a train someday. Oh well it all turned out ok.

Check out this cool setup, I can still drive a train!

Brunch with Miles Davis

You could sense the ghost of Miles in the place. Just around the corner from Nemo is an upscale, turn of the century jazz club that has some amazing libations and food. Portions are McGuire size and reasonably priced for downtown Boston.

Chandeliers and massive decorative iron railings have transformed this once mechanical boiler room into a cozy spot for brunch or dinner.

We will be back to the Bee Hive.

Hockey at Fenway

Courtesy of the Boston Red Sox

Blue skies

And this is called partly cloudy

Got to put the snow somewhere

Arthur Fiedler

3d printed sort of

Bustin a tan on the Charles

It's a warm 10 degrees

Osso buco

One of our best. Served over a bed of smashed broccoli and beans. Moscato wine added the sweet magic.

A solid 10" in the city

Storm Hercules 2014

Ginger bread decoration

Boston gardens

Frog pond ice sculpture

Octopus Ice sculpture

Evening Skating

Memorial Ice Sculpture

Sriracha chex mix

Please tell me you wrote down the recipe

Hmmm

Let's see how accurate weather prediction is here

Bivalves to bring in the new year...