10 of the months I checked had a max of 14, a mean of 12.1 births in that range, a median of 13, a mode of 13, and a standard deviation (stddev) of 1.8. This implies that the max is easily within two stddevs of the mean, and really close to being within 1 stddev of the mean (both are significant facts). Now, let’s also think about this from another angle. Let’s say people are equally likely to be born on any day of the year. 512 people divided 365 days is 1.4 birthday per day. Spread that out over a 9-11 day period, and you get between 12.6 and 15.4 birthdays in those ranges. Most of the 10 months fall within 1 stddev of this range, meaning 10.8-17.2 (1 month had 9 births, another had 10 births). Again, this seems to point to the fact that 10 months out of the year, birth rates appear to be normal.

But what was the number I found for those suspected of being NYE babies? Did it follow this same trend? No, the number I found was 19. That’s almost 4 stddevs away from the mean. That’s also 0.3 births/day more than should be expected, assuming every day is equally likely to see the same number of births. Again, this number is statistically significant. I then decided to check another holiday: Valentine’s Day. Nine months later, +/- 5 days would be 9-19 Nov. I was actually a bit surprised to see the number was only 13. What does that mean? Well, your guess is as good as mine, but I think that couples are expecting a certain something on Valentine’s Day and are prepared for it. On NYE, they might not be, or are too inebriated from the festivities to care.

But wait! If you read carefully what I wrote above, you’ll notice that I said 10 of the months, not 11. Why did I exclude one? Well, there’s another event that happens on the last day of a month: Halloween. And what happens on Halloween in America? Parties. Apparently a lot more happens *after* those parties. How do I know, you ask? Well, if we fast forward nine months from Halloween, we get a range of dates from 25 Jul to 5 Aug. How many people were born in that range, you ask? 23! Yes, that’s right, 23. That’s nearly 5% of my contacts on Facebook as opposed to the 3% that it should be, or the 3.7% from NYE.

Just food for thought.

Yet another trip to Europe. This time though, I decided to go when it would be all pretty and white. The real reason I was going to Europe again is because my colleague had visa issues. He had a paper accepted to a conference in Meran, Italy, but was not able to go himself. Our adviser also was reluctant to go for obvious reasons. Thus, I did what any noble, chivalrous person might. I selfishly volunteered to go and have all the fun for him. I know, I know, I’m a nice guy.

This trip took me through a lot of countries, including two to which I had yet to visit: Austria and Slovakia. I also got to visit a new city in Italy, Meran. I’ll tell you more about that in a bit.

To start, the path of my journey went through Northern England, Paris, Western Germany, Zürich, Meran, Padova (near Venice), Vienna, and Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia), and Southern England. As mentioned previously, the first priority of the trip was to present my colleague’s research in Meran. The second point was, as opposed to previous trips, to see friends again. Most of the places I visited, I’d been to before. I wanted to take some time, relax, maybe even do a bit of work, and just visit with old friends that I hadn’t seen in quite a while.

All About Food: After proof reading this, I came to realize that the entire point of this trip was not just to see friends, but also to gorge myself on massive quantities of food. Hurray European cuisine!

What the heck was I thinking: As I landed into Heathrow, the pilot made an announcement “Hello all, just wanted to let you know the current weather in London. It’s sunny and a scorchingly hot 5C.” That’s 40F. I left Davis in 22C (68F) weather. What the heck was I thinking coming to Europe in the winter? I’m gonna die.

Trains in England: Inexplicably more expensive than those in the rest of Europe.

When I first arrived to London, I got ahold of my friend Carl and we found a tube stop at which we could meet, then go for lunch. We finished with enough time for me to make it to London Euston station at 14h40. When I got into the station, I went to a self-service ticket station and tried to book a ticket to Preston, England. The first thing I noticed is that the cost was £78. That threw already. Then I noticed that was the cost for “off-peak” travel, whose departure must be at or before 15h15. I had just missed the 14h30 train, and the next train didn’t leave until 15h30. I was a bit concerned, so I went to the ticket office and sure enough, I had to catch an on-peak train. The cost you ask? £130! That’s more than $200!

Oh but the fun doesn’t stop there. No, oh no. So instead of giving the train a track number ahead of time, the station waited for the train to arrive before announcing the platform. This was a train from London to Glasgow (and it was full, more on this later), so there were several hundred people all waiting at the departure board. As soon as the platform was announced, everyone made a mad dash for it. Seriously, it could’ve been a flash mob had it not been for a purpose.

So I fight through the crowds, make my way onto the train, and shortly thereafter discover that the entire thing is booked solid. I hadn’t thought to ask for a reservation, and the ticketer hadn’t though to ask me if I wanted one. I ended up spending £130 to sit next to the restroom, on my luggage, for three hours. Screw you, National Rail services.

Tenenbaum: Rachel knew I was sad that I wouldn’t get to have my Christmas tree festivities back in Davis. So she did what any good friend would, she “made” me put up her tree.

Another Premier League Game: Rachel had thought enough in advance to get some tickets to see Blackburn play Liverpool. It ended 0-0. The first half was quite crap, but the second half was very entertaining to watch. Gerrard played, but Torres was injured, unfortunately.

Käsespätzle: Rachel hosted many people for the night. Me, Sue, Martyn, and Sue’s friend (I’m really sorry, I already forget her name…). As we were planning for dinner the night before, Rachel asked what we would like. I thought “why not something with a lot of cheese” and recommended käsespätzle. Sue was more than happy to jump on that bandwagon. She looked up a recipe (in German), and 2 kilos of Gruyere (and 12,000 calories) later, we were eating fresh made spätzle. Life is good.

I hate European economy lines: But I’ll still use them. Luckily the flight (which was on a propeller plane) from Manchester to Paris was short, only a little more than an hour. I found it funny how as we were taxiing, a lot of people were getting their bags. This happens all the time. However, there was an incredibly indignant flight attendant who kept getting on the speaker and telling people to stay seated until the fasten- seat belt sign was removed. It made me laugh. But still, I hate economy lines in Europe. With the exception of speed of travel, everything about them is crap.

Wine is so cheap in France: After I landed, Sara, Sunny, and I stopped by a corner market to get some things for dinner. This included a bottle of red wine. When the total was shown, I was astonished. The final price was €6 (about $8.50). I asked if the guy forgot to ring up the wine, and Sunny said “no, the bottle was €2,50.” Admittedly it wasn’t a wine you’d have by itself because it’s so awesome, but it was a good dinner wine. I still can’t get over it.

Jetlagged or just recovering from the quarter: I couldn’t tell which it was, but for my first five days in Europe, which included two nights in London and three nights in Paris, I was sleeping in indefinitely. Sara and Rachel had to wake me up between 10 and 11 because I was missing all the fun. And it’s not like I was getting to sleep late. ‘t’was weird.

Getting to the top of Notre Dame de Paris: Sara and I found out why the line is so ridiculous. Only twenty people are admitted every ten minutes. We waiting in line, in the (what, at the time, was to me) cold, for about two hours. However, the view from atop was well worth it.

Fondue pots aren’t always found where you’d expect them: Sara, Sunny, and I went looking for fondue pots in a department store. The cheapest pot for savory fondue was €95. We were taken aback because we figured it would be around €30. We ended up buying two ceramic pots for sweet fondues, which did the trick just fine. Each was €15 so it fit the price point we were looking for perfectly. However, we still were bummed we didn’t get a savory pot. Funny thing though, the next day Suny and I went to a Fromagerie, and right there in the front of the store were decent-quality, savory-fondue pots for €30. Le sigh…

Cheese is also cheap in Paris: Seriously. I forgot how cheap good cheese. I think I spent in total about €10 on cheese for non-fondue consumption while in France. Which, if you do the price conversions for what we pay in the US, would’ve been about $50.

Sunny hates the french postal system: I’ll let her tell the story, but I don’t blame her. It’s pretty awful, especially after dealing with the German, US, and Korean systems. Which, despite all the bitching we do, actually work. More than can be said of the French system sometimes.

Staff Strike = Free Admission: Such was the sign on the entrance to the Musee d’Orsay. Hurray for French people constantly going on strike! Of course, the entire top level of the museum was closed because of the strike. Boo for French people constantly going on strike!

Crepes are still awesome: Though they are a bit expensive, nothing beats a nice, sweet crepe while wandering around an old neighborhood in Paris. I had a nutella (advertised as chocolate, I feel bad for those allergic to hazelnuts) crepe for €3 while wandering around Montmartre. I miss it already…

Spanish tortilla, AKA the devil: Not really the devil, more of a bitch than anything. I don’t know what we did wrong, but it just wouldn’t cook properly. It went from a tortilla to scrambled eggs and potatoes. But still quite good. Oh well, that’s what happens when you try to cook Spanish food in France. The normal laws of cooking go on strike.

I <3 French Dessert: After the tortilla, we enjoyed some wonderful beaufort and a buche de noël, or a yule sweet cake.

I came, I saw, I conquered. It only took three trips to Paris: I don’t know why, but the small statue of liberty took me forever to find. My first two trips to Paris, I hadn’t written down the location, and I couldn’t find it. This time, I knew where it was, but it took forever to make my way to it because it was farther from the Eiffel Tower than I thought. Got my proof though…

Shiny, shiny, shiny: I like how the Eiffel Tower lights up at night. Not quite so happy about the seizure inducing strobe lights that go off every hour though.

Picodon de l’Ardeche: Per Arnaud’s advice, I picked some up. I got the softer, less-matured variety and it was indeed quite tasty. Sad that I left half of it in Saarbrücken.

Good french meals aren’t always easy to find: You can randomly wander into a restaurant, but you don’t always get the best food possible. Luckily, Steffen knew of a great restaurant near St. Michel (I think). The food was good, the company was great, and even the french owner of the place was funny. Who’d'a thunk it?

First class is not always the way to go: Being as I’m now too old to buy a youth-saver ticket from Eurail, I had to buy a first-class ticket. I fully intended to take advantage of the amenities, so when I left from Paris to Saarbrücken, I hopped aboard and enjoyed my first class experience. That was, of course, until was told that a €30 reservation for the train was mandatory. F***!

Germany beats France, again: In terms of Christmas markets, the German regions simply know what they’re doing. Even Saarbrücken, a tiny town of 150,000 people, had a Christmas market three times the size and ten times nicer than the one in Paris.

Manhattan: No, not the city, the bar. After getting dinner in Saarbrücken, I met up with Dawid, Lionel, Robert, Conny, Carsten, Martin, and Boris at a cocktail bar. We went there because Thursday is “Happy Day.” €4 cocktails. Of course, you get what you pay for, they had pretty much no alcohol.

Why I usually set an alarm: Because my friend Dawid said that he’d set his, so I didn’t set mine, and he ended up snoozing for half an hour. I caught my train from Saarbrücken to Zürich, though with literally about forty-five seconds to spare.

Never go to Zürich: The place is just soooo expensive. I forgot how completely ridiculous the prices were. A hot chocolate? $7.50!

Again, the German regions just get it done: Zürich had a really big Christmas market (Christkindlimarkt in Swiss German). And of course, it wouldn’t be Zürich unless something was über-expensive. That would be the three-million CHF christmas tree, so valued because every ornament was a swarovski crystal. It was protected by a three-meter glass barrier.

First snow in Europe: As time progressed, the cold got worse and worse. Unfortunately, the rain washed out our plans to go sledding near Zürich, but we were able to go up to the ETH and see some real snow. We even had snowball fights! I have no aim, so I kept aiming for the branches above the guys to get snow to fall. Of course, that resulted in head shots to Pieter and Matthias. Sorry guys… Oh, but seriously Pieter, that last snowball was Matthias. I swear to whatever diety you propose.

Every heart beats true: Even the foreigners. Frederick bought an extra duvet and pillow for me. ‘t’was… appropraite I guess. = )

Gib mir benzin fondue!: We had fondue the second night in Zürich. Did I suggest it? No. Did I object to it? Hell no! And afterwards, beer pong. This is Matthias and Frederick after all. And now they both know not to turn their back on the double bounce.

Everything Is Illuminated: I finished the book. Adélaïde gave it to me before I left. It was very good, though hard to read at times because of the crazy Ukranian writing.

The Alps by any other name would still look as beautiful: Training through the snow-covered Alps was absolutely spectacular. I’ll miss the sight of the mountain tremendously.

Trains are always late: I forgot that outside of Germany, trains are always late.

Lack of Tact: I love how nerds aren’t known for tact. During the poster session, a guy from MSR came up to me and said that my colleague’s work was addressing a problem that was solved fifteen years ago. He then continued on, saying that his problem domain was obviously (and the only one) worth investigating. Oh well, besides that the poster session and the rest of the conference went great.

Du[ea]l Languages: Meran is a town inhabited by a mix of Germanic (I think more closely related to Austria than Germany or Swissyland) and Italian people. Most people speak both languages, or at least 1.5 languages. It was interesting to see shops with German signs immediately next to shops with Italian signs, immediately next to shops with both. And of course, because it’s a German area, the Christmas market was great.

Prepaid data access in Italy sucks: If all you need is email though, Vodafone is the way to go. Their “mobile internet special” for €3/week works great for email. For everything else, traffic is diverted through their WAP portal, which doesn’t work at all on smart phones.

English-language books are expensive abroad: Since I finished the book Adélaïde gave me, I need to get another one. I bought “A Good Thief’s Guide to Paris” for €10,50. It probably would’ve cost $6.99 in the US.

Conference Banquet: We got taken to Schloss Katzenzungen about forty minutes away from the city. The castle was quite nice, and the dinner was excellent. After dinner (and for some, a lot of drinks), we had a jazz performance, as well as a performance of “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” by two of the conference committee members.

Northeast Italy’s Castles: There were a lot of them on the ride from Meran to Padova. It was quite cool to see them. Most weren’t too big, but they looked impressive, sitting up on the hilltops, daring medeival armies to attack it.

Italian graduation celebration: Magda and Chiara explained to me that in Italy, when one graduates with their (equivalent of the U.S. undergraduate) degree, the person goes through a public display of humiliation. First a poster is made that tells stories of the person. On the poster there is a drawing of the person which typically has many phallic symbols. The graduate must, in costume, read the stories from the poster. When the person screws up, they have to drink, as well as get splashed with either water or beer by their friends. The splashing is typically followed by someone throwing flour on the person. Did I mention that this happens in a very public place? So the end result that is everyone is drunk (especially the graduate), laughing, and the graduate is thoroughly inebriated by the end of the session. It was really fun to watch.

Full-day train trips: Padova->Vienna was a “wake up at 05h30, get into Vienna at 18h30″ trip that involved a crazy taxi ride (80 km/h in a 30km/h, awesome), four transfers, and several delays. Ugh… Since I was riding in first class, there really wasn’t anyone to talk to. The cabins were pretty empty. And when there were people on the train, they were typically older (many looked like traveling, retired americans). I did get to see Austria under the snow though. Absolutely spectacular. Especially Salzburg. I wish I could’ve stopped to wander around for a little while.

Early morning delivery: Mohammed and Dawid showed up to Vienna around 03h30. Yes, in the morning. It took them eleven hours to get there from Saarbrücken. After some sleep, we wandered out into the city to see some sights.

Just can’t get enough: of Vienna’s Christmas lights downtown that is. They weren’t too fancy, but just really nice to walk around underneath them.

No such thing as too much: Though some might argue that point. I had four hot chocolates in one day in Vienna. Heavenly.

It’s good you came in Summer, in Winter it can get veeery depressing: After seeing most of the external sights of Vienna on Saturday, the three of us drive to Bratislava on Sunday afternoon for dinner and some sights. I couldn’t help but laugh and think of Eurotrip the entire time.

Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways: I can never get enough of pasties. They’re just so good! And even though I make them myself in the US, they’re different in England and I love not having to cook for an hour and a half.

FAIL!: That would be England’s ability (or complete lack thereof) to deal with the snow in the south. EVERY single train from London going south was either canceled or delayed. Luckily the train to Shoreham-By-Sea was a regular and “delayed” just meant that I caught the next train.

Indian Food in England: Was, I must say, different from Indian food in America. I definitely enjoyed it though. I had it twice, once with Tom, his girlfriend Sammy, and their friend Jasmine. That was in Shoreham-By-Sea and then once with Miles near Brick Lane at the East End. Miles described the East End as a place where posh Londoners go to slum it. I love that description.

The San Francisco of England: Brighton was quite nice I have to say. There were a lot of parallels with San Francisco, and more than just that each city is the gay-culture center of their respective country. The lanes in Brighton reminded me of Haight-Ashbury (I’m going to be going backwards on these analogies, because I saw SF first). The Brighton Pier was pretty much Pier 39. Both are on the sea. Both have milder weather than the inland areas. And both are very nice.

What, this is it?: That was my impression of the Brighton Christmas Market. Tom’s as well actually. It was really small, only seven stalls in total. But the nice was that the wurstchen stall was operated by Germans. Ich will mehr wurstchen. = (

Kenny Boy: I managed to see Ken for a bit as well. He met Tom and I in Brighton for lunch and then showed us this dessert place called “Scoop and Crumb” that was quite good.

Delays, delays, delays: The train I caught from Shoreham to London was absolutely jam packed. That’s because it was only three coaches instead of four, and it was carrying six trains worth of people, because the previous five had been cancelled. So instead of a relaxing train ride for an hour with some light reading, I got to stand shoulder-to-shoulder for two hours by the doors, and thus freeze whenever we stopped at a station.

No Kittie, that’s my pot pie! Bad Kitty!: I got to meet Alex for lunch in London. We went to a great restaurant that served wonderful pies in Covent Garden. I also got to try an Eton Mess, which I have to admit was splendid.

Chef Goes Nanners: But Miles, Jen, Rich, and I went to Banners instead. It was a quaint place near Highgate, where Miles and Jen are living.

Life is better in First Class: The saying is never more true than when I get bumped up to first class on the flight back to the US. God Bless overbooking flights = ) And I figured out why I keep getting bumped. I book premium economy, and I’m a single, foreign passenger. So when economy gets overbooked (which always happens), I’m usually one of the first premium economy passengers to get double-booked. Then, when it comes down to me showing up, and an economy passenger who got bumped to premium economy, they upgrade me since I payed for the more expensive seat. As I said, God Bless overbooking flights!

I happened to meet a great group of international students and have been getting along quite well with them. A few weeks ago, we got together with Outdoor Adventures at UC Davis and did a huge trip to Yosemite. The trip itself was a blast, and it allowed everyone to get to know each other better while seeing some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring sights in California.

This picture was taken in front of El Capitan, the largest single piece of (was it granite?) known to man.

A warm embrace with Half Dome in the background.

Starfish in Yosemite?

While small in comparison to its April size, this fall was still quite impressive.

My birthday happened to be a few days ago (hurray New Year’s babies!). I wasn’t planning on doing any sort of celebration for it. I was very pleasantly surprised when almost thirty people showed up at the Farmer’s Market for dinner. I figured it was just a good turn out. I was wrong though, Abhi had done some scheming and informed a lot of people about the night. Kristin and Margot (and Tom) also baked me a cake, which made the night even better. Of course, I turned bright red when everyone started singing “Happy Birthday”, but it was well worth the momentary embarrassment. One thing that I was also surprised at (okay, I might even say pleasantly surprised) was when, at 23h50, Abhi, Kim, Christoph, and Brad showed up with Champagne at my door. Yes, I was already asleep. Yes, I answered in my underwear. Yes, I scared them.

On my actual birthday (The Market was the night before) I had to be in San Jose for a conference. I got in around noon, went to a few sessions, then had a chance to go up to Sunnyvale to see Shakeh. After that, I went back to the conference, “presented” my poster which meant that I talked to about four people the entire time. My poster was one of ten (out of almost one hundred) unlucky ones to be outside of the main poster room, since there were too many. I then decided to fill up on fancy (a relative term) cheese and grapes, then at 20h sharp I split for Davis.

As soon as I got back, I grabbed my camping gear and headed for a looooooooooooong road trip.  Abhi, Christoph, Brad, Tony, Giacomo, and I drove to the Grand Canyon, Zion, and then back in the span of sixty hours. The trip was absolutely amazing. You can of course see photos in the usual places (Facebook, My photo site). I was asked to describe my feelings when I got my very first glimpse of the Grand Canyon. The response: “Words cannot describe the marvel and beauty. Pictures cannot accurately portray it. Any memory you have will pale in comparison to experiencing the views again.” All this occurred within a split second. Seriously, nothing compares to the first time you see something like this.

 
Taken at a mesa on the hiking trail down to the Colorado river.

Prolific shot of me at Zion.

Yoga in the desert, so relaxing.

Setting up a tent, when a bald butterfly emerges from its cocoon.

This picture doesn’t even do it justice.

Now, if you happen to see the views at sunrise or sunset, that’s even better! We were fortunate enough to not only see the sunrise and sunset, but we also got a view of the canyon by the light of the full moon. We couldn’t quite capture it on camera, but perhaps it’s better that way.

Sunrise on the rim.

We have seen a lot of this already, traditional media outlets becoming at digital distributors, whether they be illicit, legit, or somewhere in between. P2P transactions from things like Bittorrent, Napster, Kazaa, etc. are of course illegal. So it’s easy to see why media companies don’t like them and are suing their users.

But what about a blogger/news-aggregation site that heavily excerpts news articles, runs ads on their page, and doesn’t properly cite their sources, does barely any original work, and doesn’t split ad revenue with the source? Most (including myself) would argue that this is still legal. Until you blatantly ignore copyright, you are staying within U.S. Law. These actions though are killing their food supply. Newspapers are on the decline. Digital news doesn’t bring in the same kind of revenue that the printed paper did (mainly from printed ads, but also from subscriptions). Soon, the real reporters out there will lose their jobs, and the amount of legitimate coverage of news will rapidly decline.

Sure, we’ll always have big issues being covered. People always want to know about things like presidential elections, sports, wars, large company takeovers, etc. But what will be the thoroughness of that coverage? If all you get is blogger coverage for some issues, a blogger who has no editor and does not (for the time being) have to exercise due diligence in their fact checking, what can you expect? Sure, we can have some aggregation sites filter for us, but that will only take us so far.

Local news is another story altogether that I won’t go into. But what do you think? Will there be a balance struck somewhere? Will the government decide that the news needs to be spread however it can, or do you think that congress will enact laws protecting original news sources from now? How will these laws work? Will they only require proper attribution at the top of a story? Will news sources own their work, or will they be forced to share as they are now?

I honestly can’t predict how this will turn out. My hope is that a healthy balance will be struck. I personally would like links to original news stories, but I also love the ability to have an aggregated and abbreviated reading if I so choose. I would say that I’m confident that people smarter and more capable than myself will work this out, but we’re talking about congress, and thus I have many doubts.