I missed Left Handers Day yesterday, August 13th. But maybe that's because i was doing whatever i do to make more money that you poor righties. You can't argue with science, especially statistics.
That 2nd link reminds me of one of my many poorly-conceived and crafted science fair projects in high school. One year, sophomore or junior, i posited the thesis that lefties were more intelligent than righties, and "proved" it by using the PSAT scores of the sophomores & juniors in my high school. I got permission from the school to give everyone taking the PSAT a survey about their handedness preferences. As i anticipated, we southpaws came out on top. What i didn't understand, and no one helped me understand, was the concept of sample size, and why the average score of the 5 lefties (if that) that took my survey might be skewed by one outlier score. Say, by that of the author.
They also didn't help me understand my senior year when i just copied a computer program out of a magazine. It searched for prime numbers. I didn't pretend it was my own or anything; i just thought it was cool. My unoriginality didn't bother the judges. They slapped a ribbon on my board and sent me to regionals, where the big city judges stuck me off on a side-wing, so the real projects, like "The Mathematics of Snowflakes" or "Microbial Antagonism" or "Study of sterility in plant hybrids (F1 and F2)". I mean, F1 and F2; how can i compete with that?
Nowadays, the search for prime numbers is big business. Maybe i could resurrect that old program and search for the first 10-million-digit prime number, and snag that $100,000 prize. Maybe they'd even throw in a cool decoration for my basement. But i'm guessing my Dell Dimension couldn't handle the bandwith, since the crew that found the last prime number (over 9 million digits long) cobbled together over 700 computers.
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