January 31st, 2008 by aarondietz

November 19, 2007
Aaron Dietz
My address went here
Seattle WA 981xx

RE: MEGA Study

Dear Mr. Dietz,

On October 29, 2007, you enrolled as a participant in the MEGA Study* with S_____ L_____. Upon completion of your visit as a control participant, you should have received $50 compensation** for your time and travel associated with the study. Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding***, you left the clinic before S_____ was able to pay you.

Enclosed you will find a check for $50.00 to compensate you for your participation in the MEGA Study****. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you for you participation in the MEGA Study.

Sincerely,

S____ M_______
Research Assistant
CFAS, University of Washington

* A study that involved a penis swab test–kind of uncomfortable, but I wanted to do it to help “science”.

** Also a reason why I wanted to whip it out. I was there anyway–I might as well earn some money.

*** I rushed back to work, not aware that their plan was to give me $50 in cash on the spot. I figured they’d just send me a check.

**** What really happened was that the doctor called me up and said, “What the heck? Where’d you
go?” And I was like, “What I’m supposed to grab cash and run?” And he’s
like, “Yeah”.***** So I tell him that I don’t really get over to
that part of Seattle much and don’t really want to come back, so can he
please mail me the money. Then, the doctor said he’d bring the matter up at some big meeting of big wigs or something. There, they discussed the matter at length before deciding to send me a check.

***** Actual conversation not at all like this.

January 22nd, 2008 by aarondietz

It’s a statistical improbability that you have bad “luck”, that bad things will inevitably happen to you just because.

However, since there are so many people on Earth, it’s also a statistical probability that many of those people will actually experience something akin to having an unfair share of bad luck.

Let’s say that each year in your life contains one (on average) highly impacting event. This event could wind up being a positive or negative thing. Statistically, this means that over the course of 30 years, only 1 person in about a billion will have all 30 events turn out to be negative. It’s highly unlikely that this will be you, but…there are over 6 billion people on the planet, so it’s likely that at least six people experience such bad luck.

So, six people on the planet are walking around with extremely bad luck, and that doesn’t even cover the variants. If you consider 29 negative events out of 30 extremely bad luck (and I do), then you will accept that there are even more people walking around with extremely bad luck. And so forth. In fact, I’d say anyone who experiences bad luck around 75 to 80 per cent of the time can go in the “I have the right to complain” pile.

And I don’t know how many people that is, because I don’t want to review my combinations and polynomials or whatever this kind of problem would be. But some of them could be you. I’m so sorry.

Incidentally, this article blew my mind. Such a simple solution to a problem I deal with whenever I have time:

How to organize your LEGO bricks for efficient building

January 14th, 2008 by aarondietz

But they don’t say why.