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[popsofctown]

man, there's an xkcd for everything.

xkcd is a gift that keeps on giving.  Well, it gives three days a week at least.

Whenever Randall isn't sick.

[Ratsia]

In the Netherlands I believe the rain percentage is based on this simple formula:

They might do something like that for collecting monthly averages etc, but the percentages they report as part of the forecasts go well beyond that.

Weather forecasts are in general made with extremely sophisticated models (actually simulators) that use a lot of local sensor data but also take into account very large-scale weather patterns. The probability of rain in Netherlands depends naturally on whether it was raining yesterday across the border but more generally also on the pressure distribution (and other things) around the whole Europe and large parts of the Atlantic, and all of these are factored into the numbers they report. The resulting predictions are dramatically more accurate than simply looking at what usually happens in "similar conditions".

[Kirian]

The Netherlands are small enough that we don't really need to factor in coverage area for our national percentages; we just take averages and it's close enough.

So I just looked up land areas; I don't think I'd ever realized how tiny the Netherlands is (are?).  It's the size of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island together... three of the smallest states in the US.

[Davio]

The Netherlands are small enough that we don't really need to factor in coverage area for our national percentages; we just take averages and it's close enough.

So I just looked up land areas; I don't think I'd ever realized how tiny the Netherlands is (are?).  It's the size of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island together... three of the smallest states in the US.

You can drive top to bottom in about 3 hours.
And west to east in about 1.5.

So whenever I have to drive for more than 1 hour, it feels like a long drive while it's not uncommon for Germans (used to driving long distances) to visit our coastline, which is often a 2+ hour drive.

[2.71828.....]

The Netherlands are small enough that we don't really need to factor in coverage area for our national percentages; we just take averages and it's close enough.

So I just looked up land areas; I don't think I'd ever realized how tiny the Netherlands is (are?).  It's the size of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island together... three of the smallest states in the US.

You can drive top to bottom in about 3 hours.
And west to east in about 1.5.

So whenever I have to drive for more than 1 hour, it feels like a long drive while it's not uncommon for Germans (used to driving long distances) to visit our coastline, which is often a 2+ hour drive.

I am just getting into stride after 2 hours on the road.  To visit my parents from where I am right now is 17 hours.  To visit my grandparents is 21 hours.  I do have a brother that lives relatively close to me (5.5 hours).  Getting to the beach is between 3-5 hours (depending on which beach I want). 

[Witherweaver]

When writing multiplication on a computer I always use * (unless I am using LaTeX or some other program)

In non-TeX software, you can still insert a real multiplication sign with Alt-0215:  ×  This is a pixel or so higher, and is rotationally symmerical, which the small letter "x" is not in most typefaces.

But yes, the 7 - 2 + 5 x 0 - 4 or whatever boils down to this:

(xkcd image)

I'm not convinced the statement of this "riddle" is grammatically ambiguous in any way.. it's merely wrong.  Dude deserved to have his hand chopped off.

[jonts26]

Anyone ever read Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise? He has a chapter on weather forecasting which is quite interesting. But the most interesting part of it for me was that most local weather reports purposefully overstate the chance of inclement weather as people are more likely to remember times when the report was for good weather and they got bad (ruining their picnic or whatever) than the opposite. So in order to make people feel more confident in the weather predictions, they purposefully give worse predictions. Aren't humans great!

[Kuildeous]

But the most interesting part of it for me was that most local weather reports purposefully overstate the chance of inclement weather as people are more likely to remember times when the report was for good weather and they got bad (ruining their picnic or whatever) than the opposite. So in order to make people feel more confident in the weather predictions, they purposefully give worse predictions. Aren't humans great!

True, it's generally advantageous for the forecaster to overstate the severity of weather.

Then there's this guy:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130551

But that's clearly a case of the mayor not knowing how weather forecasts work.

[Kirian]

But the most interesting part of it for me was that most local weather reports purposefully overstate the chance of inclement weather as people are more likely to remember times when the report was for good weather and they got bad (ruining their picnic or whatever) than the opposite. So in order to make people feel more confident in the weather predictions, they purposefully give worse predictions. Aren't humans great!

True, it's generally advantageous for the forecaster to overstate the severity of weather.

Then there's this guy:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130551

But that's clearly a case of the mayor not knowing how weather forecasts work.

Still not as bad as turning seismologists into criminals.

[ipofanes]

So whenever I have to drive for more than 1 hour, it feels like a long drive while it's not uncommon for Germans (used to driving long distances) to visit our coastline, which is often a 2+ hour drive.

For me, the Dutch coast is closer than the German. But then, for me (as for ~35 per cent of the German populace) Brussels is closer than Berlin.

[Kirian]

So whenever I have to drive for more than 1 hour, it feels like a long drive while it's not uncommon for Germans (used to driving long distances) to visit our coastline, which is often a 2+ hour drive.

For me, the Dutch coast is closer than the German. But then, for me (as for ~35 per cent of the German populace) Brussels is closer than Berlin.

And for 100% of the US population!

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Edge Case: American ambassador in the Belgian embassy?

[Qvist]

Edge Case: American ambassador in the Belgian embassy?

Ambassador/Embassy seems like a nombo to me.

[jonts26]

Edge Case: American ambassador in the Belgian embassy?

Ambassador/Embassy seems like a nombo to me.

Not by themselves, but embassies are typically found in large cities, and ambassador/embassy/city would work quite well together.

[SirPeebles]

Anyone ever read Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise? He has a chapter on weather forecasting which is quite interesting. But the most interesting part of it for me was that most local weather reports purposefully overstate the chance of inclement weather as people are more likely to remember times when the report was for good weather and they got bad (ruining their picnic or whatever) than the opposite. So in order to make people feel more confident in the weather predictions, they purposefully give worse predictions. Aren't humans great!

I really enjoyed this book.  I'm glad that fivethirtyeight is starting up again this year.

Edit:  It was more than that, jonts.  The finding was the local weather reports overstated the chance of inclement weather when the forecasted chance was low.  If the models predicted a 70% chance, they tended to report a 70% chance.  But when the model predicted a 10% chance, they inflated it.  Viewers don't internalize probabilities well.  If they report a 10% chance of rain, viewers will think "the weather guy says it won't rain".  If they report a 70% chance of rain, viewers will think "the weather guy says it will rain".  If the weather model forecasts a 10% chance of rain, then 1 out of 10 days it really should rain.