Wednesday, July 20, 2016

How Fringy is our Fringe?

But there are times when the clearest eye also loves shadows
     and tasting sleep for pleasure before sleep demands,
Or a faithful man will also look gladly into the night,
     Yes, it's fitting to dedicate songs to her starry crown
Q: Philly has a reputation for being a dark city, but what about our window trims? Are there bright, saturated colors like the seeping rage Baudelaire wrote about rising from the unconscious of the Parisian metropolis? Did David Lynch take a break making films to design the parts of the buildings that most resemble the corner of our eyes? Here is a sample of 39 randomly selected window trims and their colors:


A: The answer is no. Like the human eyeball, they are mostly white.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Window Watching

The past post were primarily predicting things. In this instalment I want to just post some observations. The first part will be quiet and gentle. Philly does go to sleep and just as the sun sets, so does the activity you see from your window. However, just as there are street lamps lighting an otherwise sunless area there are passer bys that have their own curious electricity about them. ZZZZZZZZZZ



The second observation is less exciting. CARS. I get it. People like to drive cars and even think they are necessary. I tend to get excited about people passing by and forget about the cars, but I have to forget so many. Philly is a car town for sure. Here each hour I counted how many things passed by for several minutes. The graph has all the things added up. Honk Honk.


Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Cat Stats


Are you setting up smart expensive dinners--
in broad daylight too--while my companions 
tramp the streets in their search for invitations?

Q: Are you likely to pass by one window cat each block you pass?
A: The data suggests no and that it's only a fantasy

Window cats will be one topic that will preoccupy my studies which will call for duplicate studies for accuracy and also follow up studies to get a variety of information.

In this ground breaking study I wanted to do cats right. I decided to study an area that is 100 square blocks from my house. Blocks were chosen at random to make sure the sample was as accountable although my little map had some problems with it. Philly is pretty griddy but not always so. My problem was that I over gridded my neighborhood slightly.


The data from this study indicates that continued samples would likely suggest a number that is far from a 1 window cat per one block situation. I went to 30 random blocks within that chart above and counted the cats as I passed. The calculation below shows the miserable truth.


Another fact that bristles my whiskers is the revelation that cat paradise does not exist in Philly. There is an exponential relationship to the amount of window cats you will find. You are lucky to find at least one and it gets even more improbable if you want to find another cat before the stop sign. The majority of blocks will have 0 window cats.


Sample Data:

#Number of CatsSun Rating#Number of CatsSun Rating
1031603
2031703
3031803
4051903
5032003
6052103
7132203
8232303
9032403
10032513
11032603
12032713
13032803
14032904
15133003

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Taking a crack at it



Question: Are there the same amount of windows on both sides of my block?
Conclusion: It's a possibility

For the first stat I stayed close to home. I often look at the other side of the street through my window, but how many people can look back at me? Are the amount of windows the same on both sides of the block?

Based on a sample of 8 houses on each side of the block, the evidence does not indicate that there is a difference within a 95% confidence interval! There very well could be the same amount of windows on both sides. Maybe this study will be kept open for further study and let a few more stats blow in.

Sample number of Windows on my Block Data:

#South SideNorth Side
143
235
354
447
564
663
753
8116

Disclaimer:
I am actually not sure if this analysis finds the same amount but rather if the averages of the two populations are the same. So I could have just found that the the average house on both sides of the block have the same average amount of windows like ~ 4 or 5. I'll have to think about this more but I'm still going to present it like it is so any ways and make this text v small. Regardless, something has to be similar or I'll eat my shirt.