GAME RULES: Using only song names from ONE MUSIC ARTIST that means a lot to you, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on and tag me too. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think. 

Battles @ Esplanade on 18 Mar!

Anyone wanna catch em? =)

Life is bewildering. There are so many things in my life that I don't know how to start writing about them; I was never good at writing in the concrete, and perhaps these months in the army has eroded my grasp of prose. I am adjusting to my new sergeant rank, new lifestyle, new faces, new unit, new job, etc. I'll get around to penning these down, once I can make sense of them!

I've been absent for too long. I miss people. I'll be spending my weekends getting in touch with old friends, and getting to know my new friends better.

Hey, Public Service Announcement for people interested in applying to Cornell:

1) There's a webchat with Cornell admissions staff and international students on Saturday (tomorrow), at 10 pm - midnight on local time (10 am - noon EST).

2) There's an information session on Monday, 7.30 - 9.30 pm, at Raffles Hotel. Doris Davis, Associate Provost for Admissions and Enrollment, will be there.

Yish and I just performed a Chrono Cross song for the President!!

Now I think I shall pass out from exhausion.

Shooting for the perfect record at prelims!

WHO'S WITH ME

Answers first!

1 - Libra. You believe what goes around, comes around. This makes it easy for you to shrug off failures and overcome setbacks. However, it also means you can be an ungrateful jerk.

2 - Aries. You're courageous, powerful, straightforward and incredibly egocentric. Everything's always about you, you, you. You'd make a good boxer.

3 - Aquarius. You are receptive, perceptive, and good at keeping your cool. Skilled with deals and compromises, your friends often rely on you to smooth things over -- until you decide you can sell them out for an advantage. Being willing to compromise everything often means you really stand for nothing.

4 - Capricorn. Versatile, partient, and subtle, you prefer to work slowly, adapting to changing circumstances but always building a power structure with yourself at the center. If someone crosses you today, you'll back down now and pay him back in a year. People of this type make good spymasters and better snitches.

5 - Gemini. You see both sides of every question and can quickly reach the facts. Unfortunately, you prefer Truth to facts -- so you spend a lot of time debating with yourself. People of your type are often philosophy professors or strung-out druggies.

6 - Scorpio. You're relentless. Your indomitable will scares people, but also fascinates them. People of your type are known as great lovers and cruel ex-lovers. They are the most effective poets, pimps, and telemarketers.

7 - Virgo. Wise, cautious and pure, you're efficient and hard to fool. Proving you're smarter is one of your favorite things in the whole world. People of your type would make good lawyers, drama critics, art critics, book critics... you get the picture.

8 - Pisces. Crisis brings out the best in you. because you're best at doing two things at once. In less stressful circumstances, this can make you look scatterbrained. You're good at any job that's 99% waiting and 1% sheer terror. Priests and hookers tend to be this type of people.

9 - Cancer. You're intuitive and sensitive, and your loyalty to the group is tremendous. This often sets you up for disappointment, if not outright betrayal. You'd be a swell mom, with a pack of sons who come by every weekend to check up on you.

10 - Saggitarius. You're more concerned with results than theories. You don't waste your time trying to control others, and you expect them to extend you the same courtesy. If you're not a drifter, you'll probably wind up as a freelance something or another.

11 - Taurus. You just keep plowing along without letting the setbacks get you down. You generally get the job done, but you rarely pause to ask if it's worth doing. You'd make a good receptionist or cop.

12 - Leo. Leadership and authority are your strengths. Arrogance and an insatiable hunger for approval are your weaknesses. You need people to do things to. You'd make a good CEO or cult leader.

Who?:	Was:	Chose:
chunhao	Aquarius	Gemini
doctorhoh	Aquarius	Virgo
ancal	Aquarius	Sagittarius
night_wraith	Pisces	Cancer
hongyu	Pisces	Cancer
vincente	Aries	Cancer
resiliang	Aries	Scorpio
kaiyang	Aries	Virgo
seng	Aries	Sagittarius
cjqsg	Taurus	Gemini
lowjh	Taurus	Taurus
thewayupward	Taurus	Virgo
ahsirakh	Taurus	Cancer
dnwq	Gemini	Gemini
snowmoon89	Gemini	Gemini, Cancer
friedpiggy	Virgo	Virgo
neojr4	Scorpio	Virgo
lanyingjie	Scorpio	Leo
cybermuse	Sagittarius	Virgo

Three out of nineteen correct! lowjh, friedpiggy and dnwq got it right. dnwq was the most vehement skeptic of astrology, so it must be karmic! justice! that he turned out to match his sign. It would have been four out of nineteen if snowmoon89 didn't pick two choices (tsk... no cheating!) -- she got it right on her first try.

Three correct is still quite surprising! The expected number is 1.6 correct answers. Three is a pretty big number.

There are some interesting observations. We have a very uneven distribution of birthdates. I notice that a lot of you have the Aries and Taurus sign. On the other hand, Capricorn, Cancer, Leo and Libra didn't get any representation at all.

As for the choice of signs -- I told dnwq beforehand that I hang out with a lot of 5 (Gemini) types. My hunch was correct -- 5 (Gemini) was the most popular choice, tied with 7 (Virgo). Both of them are the intellectual-ish personality types. That explains why a lot of you chose this sign -- some of you are from the GEP, which likes brainy kids. Also, if you're reading this, then I guess you must be interested enough to actually pay attention. I know I get really geeky at times, like in this entry. Like attracts like.

The signs were similar enough in some places to cause problems. Many of you said that 5 (Gemini) and 7 (Virgo) were similar -- they're both people who like to think. I can also see some similarities between 3 (Aquarius), 4 (Capricorn), and 12 (Leo) -- ambitious and good with people -- and also 1 (Libra), 6 (Scorpio) and 11 (Taurus) -- determined and focused. That tells you a lot about how much confirmation bias fools people, as thewayupward said. ("I'd pick almost any one of these.") If every sign fits you, then horoscopes would be too non-specific to be meaningful.

I realized that the writing was also pretty vague. These descriptions are in no means authoratative -- indeed, I doubt any source can claim to be authoritative! Each sign has a number of traits, and this writer chose to focus on certain ones. So this account is subjective. I didn't bother to cross-reference every single description I used, but those I checked matched up pretty well to the Wikipedia articles. So saying that you "fit your sign" is dependent to the writer's interpretation as well.

I was surprised to get so many responses! I never intended for this to be a serious scientific experiment -- I didn't use the proper methods or controls. But nineteen responses is enough data to play around with. So we do a significance test with the binomial distribution (I can hear a hundred math students collectively going: groooooaaaaan...) and four right out of nineteen gives a p-value of... 6.8%. That actually passes the test at the 10% significance level! In English that means, "Looks significant. Sorta. Not thaaat much, but still pretty much."

To me, that is... wow. Unexpected.

This does not, however, mean that the astrological sign is the cause of this effect! Still, it's unsettling enough to require some explanation. In a normal horoscope test, confirmation bias would be a contributing factor, but I didn't "suggest" any signs to you, so you wouldn't have any hypothesis to confirm! We can mostly rule that out.

I think a contributing factor is that many of you are somewhat familiar with the horoscopes, so that might give you hints on which one is yours. A probably contributing factor would be that if you did this test, you would have been born in the middle of the year -- factors favoring your parents having kids at a certain time of the year -- and also that if you did this test, you'd probably be 5 (Gemini) or 7 (Virgo) type -- otherwise you wouldn't even be interested in such theories. Sampling bias!

This was pretty fun, and I hope you got something out of it. =)

Quiz Time!!

I'm curious about astrology. It's a good conversation starter, and it's a nice serendipituous way to gain insights about yourself and about people. On the other hand, I don't take it as a serious fact-provding thing. But at least two of my big science influences (Kary Mullis, inventor of the PCR, and Leefy) are into it.

The common explanation says it works because of psychological reasons, but that seems too trivial. Some say they appeal by making you feel good, and some say they appeal to your self-disparaging sense. Some say they are insightful, and some say they are too generic to mean anything. Well, they can't all be simultaneously correct...

This calls for an experiment.

Here is a list of zodiac profiles. They're taken from the sourcebook of the Unknown Armies RPG (yeah, I know; I read sourcebooks in my spare time; I'm a geek) but they've been divorced from their signs and put in a random order. They're all written in a very unflattering tone. Don't worry about it. We'll still love you even if your profile says you're a jerk.

Read through them and pick the one that best describes you -- don't think too much about it, just go with whichever *feels* right. Then post a comment with the number and your birthday. No cheating! Googling is cheating. Looking at other people's comments for hints is cheating. Check back in a couple of days to find out if you chose your real sign.

Zodiac Signs

1 - You believe what goes around, comes around. This makes it easy for you to shrug off failures and overcome setbacks. However, it also means you can be an ungrateful jerk.

2 - You're courageous, powerful, straightforward and incredibly egocentric. Everything's always about you, you, you. You'd make a good boxer.

3 - You are receptive, perceptive, and good at keeping your cool. Skilled with deals and compromises, your friends often rely on you to smooth things over -- until you decide you can sell them out for an advantage. Being willing to compromise everything often means you really stand for nothing.

4 - Versatile, partient, and subtle, you prefer to work slowly, adapting to changing circumstances but always building a power structure with yourself at the center. If someone crosses you today, you'll back down now and pay him back in a year. People of this type make good spymasters and better snitches.

5 - You see both sides of every question and can quickly reacht he facts. Unfortunately, you prefer Truth to facts -- so you spend a lot of time debating with yourself. People of your type are often philosophy professors or strung-out druggies.

6 - You're relentless. Your indomitable will scares people, but also fascinates them. People of your type are known as great lovers and cruel ex-lovers. They are the most effective poets, pimps, and telemarketers.

7 - Wise, cautious and pure, you're efficient and hard to fool. Proving you're smarter is one of your favorite things in the whole world. People of your type would make good lawyers, drama critics, art critics, book critics... you get the picture.

8 - Crisis brings out the best in you. because you're best at doing two things at once. In less stressful circumstances, this can make you look scatterbrained. You're good at any job that's 99% waiting and 1% sheer terror. Priests and hookers tend to be this type of people.

9 - You're intuitive and sensitive, and your loyalty to the group is tremendous. This often sets you up for disappointment, if not outright betrayal. You'd be a swell mom, with a pack of sons who come by every weekend to check up on you.

10 - You're more concerned with results than theories. You don't waste your time trying to control others, and you expect them to extend you the same courtesy. If you're not a drifter, you'll probably wind up as a freelance something or another.

11 - You just keep plowing along without letting the setbacks get you down. You generally get the job done, but you rarely pause to ask if it's worth doing. You'd make a good receptionist or cop.

12 - Leadership and authority are your strengths. Arrogance and an insatiable hunger for approval are your weaknesses. You need people to do things to. You'd make a good CEO or cult leader.

I'm quite a hoarder. I was going through my old music collection, and I have waaay more music than I have space and time for. Some have got to go!

Does anyone want any of the CDs below? $14 each -- or make me an offer.

Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand
Dire Straits The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler
Super Furry Animals Love Kraft
Ben Folds Songs for Silverman
Mew And The Glass Handed Kites
Cat Power The Greatest
Blur Think Thank
U2 Best of 1990-2000
Dream Theater Octavarium
Linkin Park Hybrid Theory
Vangelis Odyssey
Bond Shine
Maksim Variations

Anyone else watched this year's national day parade and thought, "By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!!"?