Wed 29 August 2007 - The results, if you’re wondering
The results from the birthday extravanganza of comments, as at this morning (80 responses, in 84 comments)…
Average age: 38.21
Median age: 36
Range: 18 to 65
Wow.
Thanks to all who responded, and thanks for the birthday wishes!
And a special happy birthday also to Paul, Shaun and Graeme, who it turns out also share my birthday! (What are the odds?)
August 29th, 2007 at 10:50am
365 to 1
August 29th, 2007 at 11:16am
Actually, a lot higher than that actually.
“In probability theory, the birthday paradox states that in a group of 23 (or more) randomly chosen people, there is more than 50% probability that some pair of them will have the same birthday. For 57 or more people, the probability is more than 99%…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox
August 29th, 2007 at 11:17am
Drop one of the ‘actually’s.
August 29th, 2007 at 1:33pm
Beware the biased sample of respondents!
Someone whose birthday is the same as yours would have been more likely to notice your daily blogg about a birthday and more likely to leave a comment there since they had something special to add.
Will’s comment above is correct, but only for a random sample.
Hope this makes sense and I’m not being a kill-joy!
Rog.
August 31st, 2007 at 10:52pm
Well, I found Daniel’s blog from ToxicCustard, when that used to get published on Usenet. Actually, I say “used to” - I haven’t been on Usenet in 2 years, so I have no idea whether it’s still there.
I noticed we share a birthday last year too, and posted to say so. So I’m not one of the “ooh this guy’s got my birthday also lets stalk him on his blog” crowd
Those interested in birthday-sharing statistical phenomenae might want to check out this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox
It’s rather interesting.
Cheers
Graeme