James Explains Probability Amongst Other Things

Hang on to your hats, it’s explaining time!

Although if I’m brutally honest, I can’t begin to explain why I opened with that particular line.

But I will try and explain some other stuff that people have asked me this week.

And I will do it right now!

First up, and inspired by last week’s scatalogical insights, Pete asks:

How come some people do not believe in the poo fairy?If it was utter **** , fairy nuff, but we all know it holds water. Which raises another question…..why does poo hold water?

To be honest Pete, I found it difficult to research an actual answer to your question without making myself feel a bit ill. So I think you may need to ask the poo fairy yourself. Although I did actually make the poo fairy up, so I would suggest we just forget this whole unpleasant episode.

Jay, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters preceding digestion and asks

How do people make it on baking shows who have no baking skills?

I’d like to imagine it’s a philanthropic gesture by the show’s producers to improve the state of baking as a whole, by allowing inferior bakers to learn and be inspired by more able bakers. But it’s probably just a cheap and cynical attempt at retaining viewers by injecting some ‘comic relief’ into the show.

Bryntin imagined that someone else asked him a question that he was unable to answer so he has now kindly passed the imaginary person’s query on to me. It is as follows:

If you are deciding something ‘on the balance of probabilities’, by definition, being balanced, the probabilities are exactly 50/50. How do you then decide which of the things you are deciding between is ‘on the balance of probabilities’ when the probabilities are obviously balanced?

Now, I should be able to explain this, having been a secondary school maths teacher at some point in my, admittedly chequered, career. But my lessons were so boring, even I wasn’t paying all that much attention. I do remember something about probability trees. Maybe you should grow one of those in your garden.

Gigglingfattie meanwhile is disturbed by this question:

James, why is it, when at work 1.5 hours after you were supposed to go home, you are rightfully exhausted but after the 3 minute walk home and getting into bed, I will be wide awake hating myself for not being able to go to sleep?

I think the problem is the hating yourself. Don’t do that. Own the insomnia. Get up, have a coffee and spent the night writing poetry instead. It doesn’t even matter if the poetry is actually any good. Bad poetry is an art in itself. Just look at my regular Wednesday posts…

On another note, you really need to stop doing the ‘working late’ thing. That kind of work ethic will only ever end in tears. Or, if you are going to work late, then do what I do and nap at work. It probably helps to have a meeting room available, and a key to that meeting room, and a work calendar that proclaims that you have a meeting scheduled, when really you don’t. But there are other ways to nap at work.

These Were Humans left this question in last week’s comments, but perhaps should have sent it to me via Twitter instead, (because, yknow, it’s bird related…):

Is it just me or is the concept of birds suddenly appearing every time someone is near (as in the song Close To You) utterly terrifying (as in the Hitchcock movie The Birds)?

I’d have to agree, it does feel like those birds have more of an agenda than just wanting to be close to the aforementioned person. Unless the person is actually the ‘feed the birds’ woman off of Mary Poppins, or the slightly strange, but ultimately kindly bird woman off of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. But I don’t think anyone other than birds would especially want to be close to either of them. Although tuppence a bag is an absolute bargain…

 

 

Do you have a question that only James can explain? Well don’t just stand there gawping, ask it in the comments below!