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| 11/23 |
| 2005/7/31-8/3 [Recreation/Dating] UID:38896 Activity:kinda low |
7/31 Mathematical proof that you will never have a girlfriend
http://www.nothingisreal.com/girlfriend
\_ if you're a pathetic geek, maybe you shouldn't be looking
for someone who is two standard deviations above the norm in
terms of beauty.
\_ Pssst... I think this URL might possibly have been an attempt
at humor?
\_ psst: you're right, but it's not funny
\_ It's not funny, but if it were a parody of the Drake
equation, it would be somewhat funny.
\_ You know, I did something like this once too, but for real,
and I came up with 2500 prospective women in the Bay Area.
And I only took top 50% for looks. -Happily Married
\_ obviously not married over 5 years yet...
\_ Happily married for nine years now.
\_ ugh! besides BDG, all the married people here say
they are happily married. so what's with the
high divorce rate?
\_ People on MOTD have few alternatives and are happy
with what they can get?
\_ Some possibilities:
1. A high national divorce rate does not reflect
the motd.
2. Red-neck serial-monogamists are getting divorced
and remarried 5 times each and screwing the
average.
\_ An anomaly, but the most divorced person I know
is a neurosurgeon. He's working on #5 now afaik.
\_ That's because surgeons are rich assholes. The
rich part helps attracts women. The asshole part
causes the divorce.
\- some people buy cars and drive them
"into the ground" and some people
lease (and others rent). --psb
\_ According to some theories, the asshole part
also helps attract women. But then the women
find him screwing some nurse or whatever and
decide to take half his assets.
\_ I think you'd be surprised by how little
surgeons make, esp. on an hourly basis. You
should vent your anger on radiologists and
anesthesiologists. That said, neurosurgeon !=
surgeon (it's not even the same residency
program).
\_ Dude, surgeons make a lot of money. I have
no idea why a neurosurgeon is not a
surgeon, since he cuts your head open just
as well, but whatever. The name surgeon is
right in the title. Do you mean neurologist?
Anyway, even pediatricians are pulling down
$200+K. Surgeons are making twice that. That's
"little"?
$200+K. Surgeons are making twice that.
That's "little"?
\_ URL please. According to http://salary.com,
the median pediatrician pulls $137k
and the median surgeon $225k. A lot for
the surgeon, but not on a hourly basis,
which is what I originally specified.
A friend is a surgeon at Kaiser Walnut
Creek, and she pulls $170k for a mere 60
hr. week (and she is *so* thankful for
the relative few hours she works). I am
also quite thankful she finally has time
for a life, since she is a serious babe.
\_ Median pediatrician where? In urban
CA? I have a friend who works for
Kaiser also as a pediatrician and he
makes about $250K. Your friend is
getting screwed. As for surgeons, a
family member had neurosurgery and
the doctor got a $30K check for about
3 hours of work. That's pretty good
per hour. Your friend is not in
surgery 60 hours per week. She is
probably making rounds and the like,
which granted is not being at home
but still not terrible for $200K.
\_ It's something you may not expect,
but doctors in CA make *less* than
their peers in less liveable parts
of the country. It's simple supply
and demand. Places that have
trouble recruiting doctors have to
pay more for them, and, once in
place, those doctors have less
competition. Neurosurgeons are
not the same thing as surgeons, so
I don't know how your relative's
neurosurgery bill applies to the
pay of a surgeon. For that matter,
without knowing the neurosurgeon's
other expenses and traffic, it's
hard to translate the cost of a
single bill into an income. In
the case of my friend who pulls
$170k for a 60 hr week, that is
really about the same income as
many engineers I know, and she has
had many more years of suffering
through med school and residency.
OBTW, http://salary.com pegs the median
salary of a neurosurgeon at $314k.
\_ http://Salary.com shows the median
cardiothoracic salary at
$355K, but the 75%ile make
$470K. So there are a lot
of surgeons comfortably over
$400K. As with anything else,
you make less when you start.
The median engineer salary is
pretty darn low in comparison.
As for regions, you'd better
believe that doctors in urban
CA make more than their
counterparts in the rural
Midwest, for example. By
the way, what makes you
think a neurosurgeon is not
a surgeon? They perform
surgery. Therefore they are
surgeons.
Midwest, for example. A
quick look at http://salary.com
confirms this. A surgeon in
Iowa makes 15-20% less than
a surgeon in LA. By the way,
what makes you think a
neurosurgeon is not a surgeon?
They perform surgery. Therefore
they are surgeons.
3. I've known men who thought they were happily
married right up until their wives divorced
them. |
| 11/23 |
|
| www.nothingisreal.com/girlfriend -> www.nothingisreal.com/girlfriend/ I, for one, refuse to spend my life brooding over my lack of luck with women. While I'll be the first to admit that my chances of ever entering into a meaningful relationship with someone special are practically non-existent, I staunchly refuse to admit that it has anything to do with some inherent problem with me. Instead, I am convinced that the situation can be readily explained in purely scientific terms, using nothing more than demographics and some elementary statistical calculus. Lest anyone suspect that my standards for women are too high, let me allay those fears by enumerating in advance my three criteria for the match. First, the potential girlfriend must be approximately my age -- let's say 21 plus or minus three or four years. Second, the girl must be beautiful (and I use that term all-encompassingly to refer to both inner and outer beauty). Third, she must also be reasonably intelligent -- she doesn't have to be Mensa material, but the ability to carry on a witty, insightful argument would be nice. So there they are -- three simple demands, which I'm sure everyone will agree are anything but unreasonable. That said, I now present my demonstration of why the probability of finding a suitable candidate fulfilling the three above-noted requirements is so small as to be practically impossible -- in other words, why I will never have a girlfriend. I shall endeavour to make this proof as rigorous as the available data permits. And I should note, too, that there will be no statistical trickery involved here; WP98, Table A-7 We now further restrict the geographical area of interest to so-called "first-world countries". My reasons for doing so are not motivated out of contempt for those who are economically disadvantaged, but rather by simple probability. My chances of meeting a babe from Bhutan or a goddess from Ghana, either in person or on the Internet, are understandably low. In fact, I will most likely spend nearly my entire life living and working in North America, Europe, and Australia, so it is to these types of regions that the numbers have been narrowed. This is where things get a bit tricky, for two reasons: first, the census data is nearly two years old, and second, the "population by age" tables in 11 WP98 are not separated into individual ages but are instead quantized into "15-19" (of whom there are 39 560 000) and "20-44" (population 215 073 000). Women aged 15 to 19 in 1998 will be aged 17 to 21 in 2000; Similarly, of 1998's "20-44" category, there are now 215 073 000 ((|25 - 22| + 1) / (|44 - 20| + 1)) = 34 411 680 females within my chosen age limit. The sum, 66 059 680, represents the total number of females aged 18 to 25 in developed countries in 2000. Unfortunately, roughly 1% of these girls will have died since the census was taken; Of course, beauty is a purely subjective trait whose interpretation may vary from person to person. Luckily it is not necessary for me to define beauty in this essay except to state that for any given beholder, it will probably be normally distributed amongst the population. Let's assume that I will settle for someone a mere one standard deviation above the normal; Accordingly, that portion of the female population must also be considered off-limits. Assuming, as previously mentioned, that personal attractiveness is normally distributed, there is a mere 50% chance that any given female will consider me even marginally attractive. In practice, however, people are unlikely to consider pursuing a relationship with someone whose looks and personality just barely suffice. Let's make the rather conservative assumption, then, that a girl would go out with someone if and only if they were at least one standard deviation above her idea of average. Conclusion It is here, at a pool of 18 726 acceptable females, that we end our statistical analysis. At first glance, a datable population of 18 726 may not seem like such a low number, but consider this: assuming I were to go on a blind date with a new girl about my age every week, I would have to date for 3493 weeks before I found one of the 18 726. As a North American male born in the late 1970s, my life expectancy is probably little more than 70 years, so we can safely say that I will be quite dead before I find the proverbial girl of my dreams. So there you have it, my friends -- finally, a cogent, scientific, non-self-deprecating argument for why I will never have a girlfriend. That said, if you happen to be a girl deluded enough to think that you and I have a chance together, feel free to 14 drop me a line, but I warn you, you face odds of 157 060 to 1. Update (2000-04-01): My sarcastic pleas for some e-mail have finally been answered. Take a look at this 15 letter from a hysterical female reader, which I think perfectly demonstrates the point of this entire essay. Bureau of the Census, Report WP/98, World Population Profile: 1998. Intelligence^1 This paper was written when the author was at Griffith University, Australia. They will consequently return to the dating scene, entering a sequence of blas relationships with mediocre girls for whom they don't really care, until they finally marry one out of fear of spending the rest of their lives alone. I am convinced that this behaviour is the real reason for today's alarmingly high divorce rate. Presumably, the death rate graphs as a bathtub curve, but in absence of any numbers supporting this hypothesis, and for the sake of simplicity, I will conservatively estimate the death rate among this age group to be 1% biennially. Perhaps attractiveness, being a largely subjective trait, does not lend itself to quantification. It is not unreasonable, however, to assume that like most other traits, it has a normal distribution. Indeed, this assumption seems to be backed up by informal observation and judgment -- in any reasonably large group of people, most of them will be average-looking, and a tiny minority either exceedingly beautiful or exceedingly ugly. |
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| Salary.com -> www.salary.com/salary/layoutscripts/sall_display.asp Personalized data and advice for a win-win salary negotiation. Salary range reports in formats optimized for employers. Precise salaries reflecting industry, company size, location, and personal traits. Salaries for groups of 80 to 120 jobs, downloadable in a salary survey format. Compare and analyze existing pay practices versus any selected market. This complete solution includes tools for line managers. Expertly match relevant offers to appreciative audiences. This tool suggests the kind of question that you should prepare to discuss. Our timer lists salaries of leading tennis, golf, baseball, or basketball players, as well as TV and movie stars. |