River: They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see the sky and they remember what they are. Mal: Is it bad that what she said made perfect sense to me?

'Safe'


Natter 47: My Brilliance Is Wasted On You People  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


flea - Oct 17, 2006 8:05:41 am PDT #3971 of 10001
information libertarian

Question - does anybody know if there's a way to get TimesSelect coverage if you aren't an individual subscriber to the paper? We've (at work, in a library) found that Stanley Fish's columns, for example, aren't in the print edition, and don't make it into Lexis or Factiva. The library has a print subscription, but it's institutional and doesn't include TimesSelect (it's not an option).


bon bon - Oct 17, 2006 8:07:35 am PDT #3972 of 10001
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.

I'm not surprised about the median figure because there's a much larger group of marriageable people on the older side of 20 than the younger side.


Topic!Cindy - Oct 17, 2006 8:09:55 am PDT #3973 of 10001
What is even happening?

That's why I'm wondering if there's another reason they're using median instead of mean.


Tom Scola - Oct 17, 2006 8:10:12 am PDT #3974 of 10001
Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.

Is there a particular advantage to looking at the median, rather than the mean, in a table like the one linked above?

The distribution isn't bell-curve shaped. There will be quite a few people getting married in their twenties, and it will tail off as people get older. While there may be only a few people getting married in their 90s, it will make the average much higher than the median, and misrepresent the data.


flea - Oct 17, 2006 8:10:36 am PDT #3975 of 10001
information libertarian

My guess (ex-cloaca) is that in 1890 people waited to get married until they could afford to set up their own households, i.e. in rural areas. It took a while to amass the cash to do that.


megan walker - Oct 17, 2006 8:10:37 am PDT #3976 of 10001
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

What I found interesting (and comforting I guess) in the marriage stats was the huge jump in the "Never Marrieds" found here: Percent Never Married 1970-2004


Jesse - Oct 17, 2006 8:10:48 am PDT #3977 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Is there a particular advantage to looking at the median, rather than the mean, in a table like the one linked above?

I think it guards against outliers, so someone marrying for the first time at 50 doesn't throw it off as much as it would in a mean. If you have 15, 20, 20, 20, 25, 25, 50, the median is 20, but the mean is 25.


Topic!Cindy - Oct 17, 2006 8:13:24 am PDT #3978 of 10001
What is even happening?

Okay, that makes sense. Well then, I want all these tables in median, mean, and mode.


Topic!Cindy - Oct 17, 2006 8:13:55 am PDT #3979 of 10001
What is even happening?

I also want a cookie for remembering 'mode'.


flea - Oct 17, 2006 8:14:05 am PDT #3980 of 10001
information libertarian

I want a pony.