Only because we eat better and we eat more. Usually what we're eating is food.

Quote from: Pica Pica on November 11, 2008, 05:20:19 PM
well, technically we are taller as a species than we were.

not true. men in the mid ages were on average a lot taller than the average for men now. we're only now recovering from the revolutionary period lows.

Quote from: Nero on November 11, 2008, 05:25:09 PM
not true. men in the mid ages were on average a lot taller than the average for men now. we're only now recovering from the revolutionary period lows.

Now by average are we talking about the mean, median or mode?

i remember those words from maths, however I was in special needs maths so I don't actually remember what is all means.

Quote from: Pica Pica on November 12, 2008, 03:22:40 AM
i remember those words from maths, however I was in special needs maths so I don't actually remember what is all means.

special needs? you serious ginger?

yeah, i was top of the smart class with the brainy people for everything, except maths where I was with the dribblers, and art, woodwork and PE where I was told not to bother coming. I went to the library instead.

well now i don't feel so embarrassed to admit i didn't remember what Nicky meant either!

Posted on: November 12, 2008, 05:34:05 am

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PS bet the bullies had fun with you!

nope. i was never bullied. except when i first moved to coventry...but their bullying methods were so cliche, so out of a social education play that i laughed at them and invited me to bully me the next day, they never did.

bet that was a scene worthy of your hero.

not quite, he always had his nifty sword play to back it up. i just had a mouth.
of course in those days my nickname was matchstick and I wore trousers for children much younger than me, i was also just drifting away from being a truely rabid christian. all fun.

of course what i really fear is numbers  i count the till in the morning, and i never get the same amount twice.

you were a rabid christian? 

yeah, tried to convert people, didn't we all?

no.  i was a much more passive christian. oh god, you running around trying to convert people! did you have a trusty bible in hand on the playground? 

Quote from: Pica Pica on November 12, 2008, 03:32:06 AM
yeah, i was top of the smart class with the brainy people for everything, except maths where I was with the dribblers, and art, woodwork and PE where I was told not to bother coming. I went to the library instead.

I wish they would've let me not show up to PE. I cut that class as often as I could, finally one semester I was told that I'd flunk if I didn't show up, which would've screwed up graduating. They proposed that I wouldn't have to play any sports, just show up and sit on the bench and they would give me a passing grade. So I sat on the bench reading books. Frankly, I think libraries are much nicer places to read  They still tried to make me change into the uniform for class, and I argued that, saying what's the point if I'm not playing.

Z

Mean:  You add up all of the guy's heights, then you divide that number by the number of guys. 

Median:  You arrange all the heights in order (lowest at one end, highest at the other), then pick the number in the middle.

Mode:  You look at all the numbers, and count how often each one appears.  The one that appears most often is the mode.

when most people talk of averages they are refering to the mean.

I have to admit to being a bit of a maths geek. I seem to have an intuitive nack for it. I don't tend to know the 'rules' but the principals behind it just seem to come naturally. If you know the principals you can derive most of the rules anyway. At university I did a lot of Statistics and some stuff on applied logic. I'm pretty rusty now though 

I went to a catholic boys college ('high school' for the Americans). Not entirely sure when I lost my faith. I think I was 14 when I decided to actually think about what people were telling me. Then I felt guilty for a couple years then got over it.

Quote from: Pica Pica on November 12, 2008, 03:57:02 AM
yeah, tried to convert people, didn't we all?

Nope, lol. I was never a good catholic. Complained from day 1 that I didn't want to be there. Then I started to learn the in's and out's of the religion and started asking questions people couldn't answer. That was fantastic ^_^