As you know I like to ponder on some of the messages and what they actually mean - particularly in mediums such as advertising and how facts can be twisted and presented with such stark differences. A conversation on the radio prompted me to think of this again. For example, which of these sounds more likely to happen: (1) something happens to an American on average once every ten years, or (2) every second the same thing happens to an American.
The answer is - perhaps surprisingly - exactly the same. With a current USA population of 313.9 million, and a total of 31.5 million seconds in a year something that (cue Daily Mail style capital letter alarmist headlines) AFFECTS ONE AMERICAN EVERY SECOND ... is the exact same as something that only happens to an American on average once every ten years. Something that happens (cue headlines again) AFFECTS ONE AMERICAN EVERY TEN SECONDS? Happens once in one hundred years.
Basically, we're not very good at handling large numbers. And we can't compare between big and small numbers - so tend to think something happening over a small period MUST be big over a large period.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
Self-Tribute
I'm not usually a huge fan of excessively self-referential songs or videos - they usually fall on that fine line between smugness and egotism which isn't exactly appealing. However, I've been enjoying The Killers' latest video for one of their new songs, Just Another Girl, from whatever it is their greatest hits album is called.
As opposed to coming across as brash, it felt more of a reminisence, re-covering their previous videos from the past decade. Even as someone who is fairly agnostic on The Killers - they make decent tunes but can be a bit annoying at the same time - I could pick out several song references, such as the red costume from Spaceman, the wedding scene from When You Were Young, the dancing Japanese man in red from Read My Mind, the bird prop from Human and the slightly more obvious direct video insert of Bones as well as the opening montage of clips from All These Things That I Have Done, Human, When You Were Young, Runaways and Mr Brightside. There are probably more in there that I don't recognise by simply not knowing their songs or videos that well, but it's well put together. In other words, it seemed like a nod to their past songs on a sign-off note, which is actually rather well done.
For completeness I should probably link to the video itself - it can be found here.
As opposed to coming across as brash, it felt more of a reminisence, re-covering their previous videos from the past decade. Even as someone who is fairly agnostic on The Killers - they make decent tunes but can be a bit annoying at the same time - I could pick out several song references, such as the red costume from Spaceman, the wedding scene from When You Were Young, the dancing Japanese man in red from Read My Mind, the bird prop from Human and the slightly more obvious direct video insert of Bones as well as the opening montage of clips from All These Things That I Have Done, Human, When You Were Young, Runaways and Mr Brightside. There are probably more in there that I don't recognise by simply not knowing their songs or videos that well, but it's well put together. In other words, it seemed like a nod to their past songs on a sign-off note, which is actually rather well done.
For completeness I should probably link to the video itself - it can be found here.
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