Talk:1571: Car Model Names

2015-09-07T09:09:40Z

Thomas 633:

I thought that R would be used quite frequently.. (i.e Audi RS5).

Suzuki Sexism kinda has a ring to it... [[User:Bbruzzo|Bbruzzo]] ([[User talk:Bbruzzo|talk]]) 14:39, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Worth noting that there actually was an engine manufacturer named "Coventry Climax", who produced a range of racing engines and specialty machinery like forklift trucks. Coventry Climax's engine works were eventually bought out by Jaguar Cars in the 1960s. {{unsigned ip|141.101.98.154}}

Considering the existence of the Civic RX and the CR-V EX, Cervixxx should have been a Honda model. - [[User:Frankie|Frankie]] ([[User talk:Frankie|talk]]) 16:44, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

A simple Lua script I wrote to calculate these ratings: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/12259822/
Run it with your favorite Lua interpreter, and it should ask for a name. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.160|108.162.216.160]] 03:01, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly, "xkcd" has a high score of 4.1. {{unsigned ip|199.27.129.59}}

;Scores

Anyone know how the averages are calculated? I tried a couple but I don't arrive at the same numbers:

HONDA { -44 -80 -46 -21 -14 } Sum: -205 Avg: -41<br>
2CHAINZ { +6 +27 -44 -14 -21 -46 +83 } Sum: -9 Avg: -1.2857142857142857142857142857143<br>
Combined: (-205 -9) / (5 + 7) = -17.833333333333333333333333333333<br>

[[User:SG 01|SG 01]] ([[User talk:SG 01|talk]]) 15:29, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I think only the model should be considered. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 15:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

:2CHAINZ { +6 +27 -44 -14 -21 -46 +83 } Sum: -9 Avg: -1.29 Index: -0.13
:CLIMAX { +27 +12 -21 +19 -14 +126} Sum: 149 Avg: 24.83 Index: 2.48

Obvioulsy it's the average divided by 10. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 15:44, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah, it's so obvious now, thanks :) [[User:SG 01|SG 01]] ([[User talk:SG 01|talk]]) 16:00, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I worked it out to be average divided by 10 early on but why divided by 10? Is it because each category has 10 cars listed? This is the piece I've been stuck at. Understanding that part of the logic. --[[User:R0hrshach|R0hrshach]] ([[User talk:R0hrshach|talk]]) 16:05, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The only thing I can think of is to make the numbers be below 10 as a lot of scoring is done in that scale, then again, that doesn't include numbers below 1 usually (On a scale from 1 - 10).
Oh, also the 3x3cutrix, the i is worth -21, not -45 (which is E), the x in 3x3 is treated as a normal x with score 126
:3X3CUTRIX { +55 -126 +55 +27 -68 -18 8 -21 +126 } Sum: 290 Avg: 32.222... Index: 3.22
[[User:SG 01|SG 01]] ([[User talk:SG 01|talk]]) 16:17, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, my mistake. Thanks. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 16:27, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
BTW: 3X3CUTRIX { +55 +126 +55 +27 -68 -18 +8 -21 +126 } Sum: 290

Yea, made a typo there originally, did edit-fix it ^^ Also SIXAXLE4x4 { +15 -21 +126 -14 +126 +12 -45 +35 +126 +35 } Sum: 395 Avg: 39.5 Index: 3.95 (which is the number next to it)

[[User:SG 01|SG 01]] ([[User talk:SG 01|talk]]) 16:33, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Mercedes 3X-WIF3 scores a decent 3,33 [[Special:Contributions/198.41.243.9|198.41.243.9]] 18:46, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Anyone want a Porsche 911? [[User:Mikemk|Mikemk]] ([[User talk:Mikemk|talk]]) 18:53, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

:The Saab Y. Worst possible car name. The Oldsmobile XXX. Best possible car name. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.4|173.245.54.4]] 19:33, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Seems worth mentioning somewhere that 3x3cutrix is semi leet/133+ for the English word executrix, the feminine form of executor, but I don't know quite where it belongs. [[User:Miamiclay|Miamiclay]] ([[User talk:Miamiclay|talk]]) 20:49, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

"The letters F and B, with scores of 5 and -5, respectively, are about as common in English as in car models." Looked odd, at first reading. May need re-writing to point out that ±5 is as close to zero (parity between English and car-speak) as you get in this example. Perhaps "...scores of ''merely'' +5 and -5, respectively", or similar? But that also seems too brief. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.108|141.101.99.108]] 01:37, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
:Forgot to add what I meant to put here... Apostrophes. Very rare in car names (just the {{w|Kia_Cee%27d|Kia Cee'd}}), fairly often (over)used in standard English text. I wonder what its value is? (Not as easily 'assume it's a letter' as the x/times symbol.) [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.108|141.101.99.108]] 01:44, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

;Order of the scores
There are two possible explanations
;Score(x) = Frequency_in_cars(x) - Frequency_in_English(x)
I'm pretty sure it's a comparative scale between cars and English, not just a car-like/not-car-like scale.
:Randall uses positive numbers if a letter is more common in car models than in typical English (as X) which he then calls carlike. He used negative numbers if a letter's relative frequency in car models is lower than in typical English (as O) and he calls it English-like (more suitable for readable text). The letters F and B, with scores of 5 and -5, respectively, are about as common in English as in car models. With this nomenclature, the most English-like letter is Y because, while not the most common English letter, it is apparently extremely rare in car models.

;Score(x) = Frequency_in_cars(x)
English has no relationship with the score
:It seems that Randall arbitrarily used positive and negative numbers: if a letter is very common in car models (as X) he calls it carlike. If a letter is very uncommon in car models (as O) he calls it English-like. With this nomenclature the most English-like letter is Y, but actually Y is the least carlike letter. The most common letter in ordinary English is E. Y on the other hand is just in the middle (place 13), which can't be called English-like.
[[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 12:56, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
::"Y (...) can't be called English-like". Well, it can be, as it's not uncommon. And on the relative scale, it's much more indicative of being English than it is of being a car. And I'm going to give the explanation a further tweak, I think, hopefully small and agreeable. Also don't think the reversion helped (without checking the edit-changes), it was almost right. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.108|141.101.99.108]] 13:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
Now I understood your idea. I think I tweaked it to be more understandable. X is a letter that supports your claim. [[User:Xhfz|Xhfz]] ([[User talk:Xhfz|talk]]) 13:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest a third possibility, I figured it was a ratio: Score(x) = 100*(Frecuency_in_cars(x) / Frequency_in_English(x) - 1). This allows numbers to be negative or positive and would explain the questions raised above. [[User:Djbrasier|Djbrasier]] ([[User talk:Djbrasier|talk]]) 13:53, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, my "little tweak" became a big overhaul, then edit-conflicted. For the record, it became the following monstrosity:
Scores for letters and numbers are presumably taken from their frequency in car models. [[Randall]] doubtless analysed a car-name database, in a manner similar to that used to derive the {{w|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency#Relative_frequencies_of_letters_in_the_English_language|letter frequency statistics for written English}} against which the former seems to have been compared. From these, letters that appeared equally commonly in both lists (either rare or frequent, but consistently between the two) would have been given a hypothetical value of zero, whilst ones that were almost exclusively in one medium would have a high-magnitude score; positive for more car-like and negative for more English-like.
Without the raw car-letter frequency data it's hard to derive the exact formula used, but taking the mathematical {{w|Logarithm|log value}} of a ratio would give us zero for 1:1 (equally car-like and English-like) and high positive/negative values for comparisons more skewed more towards the former/latter.
The closest letters to zero in the comic are F at +5 and B at -5 and may hover somewhere around the same ratios in car-names as in English (around 2.2% and 1.4% of total usage in the above link), with just a slight car/English dominance. The most 'car-like' letter is X, that seems to be quite common in cars whilst very rare (<1% of usage) in English.
The most 'English-like' letter in the comic is Y with a score of -90. Y is not common in English (~2%), but presumably even more disproportionately uncommon in car names. The next most 'English-like' letter, O, with a given score of -80. It is significantly more frequent in English (~7.5%, and perhaps the fourth most encountered individual letter), and so is likely also more frequent in the raw car-name data, alone, albeit similarly much less than 'expected' from its English occurances.
It makes some sense that rarer English letters are over-chosen (for the novelty and stand-out effect) for car names, at the general expense of several commoner English letters without particular bias, thus the highest positive peak is greater in magnitude than the lowest negative trough. Although you could also point out that 'x' (used for 'times') is also a more useful car-name 'letter', whilst the letter O might be surpressed in alphanumeric sequences so as not to be confused with a zero.
When looking at the numbers in the table, Randall's analysis may have dealt with the decimal digits entirely seperately, based upon something like {{w|Benford%27s_law|Benford's Law}} for the natural occurance of numbers in common data, rather than from their disproportionately rare occurance within largely alphabetic English. It is thus not unexpected that the 1 that is most common in data is underepresented within numbers in car-names, whilst sub-avearge 5 becomes a 'power number' in the world of cars, and the third most car-like character in the comic.
There are 19 positive scores and 17 negative scores. They each add up to a score of 735 and -722, respectively, with the grand total being +13, suggesting that without rounding errors the whole system could have a neutral score. The numbers alone give a total offset of -0, the letters alone thus account for a not particularly unreasonable +0.5 'error' per character, and may also support the idea of separate analyses of these two sets.
...there was no easy way to resolve the differences, so the above is FYI. ('''TLDR: perhaps it's a Log function?''') In editing it down, I'd also had another bit:
The letters I and T may appear in non-word model-name strings to represent "Injection" and "Turbo", respectively, but with their overwhelming commonality already in English text they still appear ''more'' more in English than in cars.
...which was looked less useful and too wordy even for me, but might also be a useful fragment to consider. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.108|141.101.99.108]] 15:09, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

;Typo or Deliberate?

Randall gave REV-4 as an example car name. Did he accidentally misspell the (Toyota) RAV4, or was this a deliberate reference to chapter 4 of Revelations?--[[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.26|173.245.54.26]] 02:31, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

;Old Goths

49 is a reasonable age for those who grew up Goth in the 80s, just sayin'.
--[[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.123|141.101.99.123]] 08:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I thought this too. It could be a joke on a youth sub-culture growing up (old).
-- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.157|108.162.229.157]] 11:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

;'Quick' and Dirty Car Data
Examining {{w|List_of_automobile_sales_by_model|this page}}, which has notable exceptions (I specifically looked for the Toyota '''Y'''aris and the Kia Cee'd, neither of which were there), using a quick script to isolate the car names, a lengthy ''manual'' process of sanitising all the exceptions the quick script couldn't handle and then another script to analyse letter frequencies of the model names (''not'' the make/marque part), I came up with the following undefinitive data, that is almost certainly flawed but may yet be useful:
<spaces> = 85 (but this count of whitespace may not be accurate and is superfluous...
& = 1 (...as are these first four items of punctuation, given their absence from Randall's chart)
- = 23
. = 3
/ = 10
0 = 104
1 = 73
2 = 54
3 = 43
4 = 35
5 = 54
6 = 35
7 = 18
8 = 26
9 = 17
A = 231 (includes à)
B = 30
C = 95
D = 54
E = 210 (includes é and ë)
F = 46
G = 52
H = 18
I = 122
J = 12
K = 13
L = 113
M = 83
N = 99
O = 145 (includes ó)
P = 80
Q = 4
R = 202
S = 127 (includes Š)
T = 166
U = 45
V = 38
W = 19
X = 25
Y = 33
Z = 14
Comparing just B and F (natural frequency 1.4% and 2.2%, above 30 to 46, both instances being approximately 1:1.5 when comparing the two letters within the same source), this matches the similarly close-to-zero scores given to them by Randall. O vs. Y is 4.4:1, above, real life is 3.8:1 and adjusting for O being 1/9th 'more carlike' we get a similar value. But Z vs J is 7:6, real life it's 1:2 and I can't reconcile that with the 1.3:1 on Randall's chart. Probably indicates something non-linear (e.g. a log function) along the way, if O:Y wasn't so easy to distinguish. Might, of course, be a differently biased dataset and thus GIGO. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.108|141.101.99.108]] 00:35, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

1567: Kitchen Tips

2015-08-21T05:28:21Z

Thomas 633: /* Explanation */ Explained the Title text.

{{comic
| number = 1567
| date = August 21, 2015
| title = Kitchen Tips
| image = kitchen_tips.png
| titletext = Household tip: Tired of buying so much toilet paper? Try unspooling the paper from the roll before using it. A single roll can last for multiple days that way, and it's much easier on your plumbing.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, Cueball appears to be hosting a show giving out kitchen advice. He starts with a reasonable tip to use a meat thermometer instead of guessing when meat is cooked. His later tips, though, are little more than telling how to complete normal kitchen activities performed using common sense. Moreover, he repeats "If you're anything like me," suggesting he's actually ''done'' these things in his kitchen.

The first tip he gives is reasonable: to determine if meat is done cooking, one can either guess, or use a meat thermometer to check that the internal temperature has reached the correct level to render meat safe for consumption.

The second panel shows that Cueball throws away dishes and buys new ones every time they are used. This is perfectly normal if the plates were made of paper or Styrofoam, but we see his trashcan is filled with chipped ceramic plates and glasses. Naturally, this would be a very expensive and excessive practice. Cleaning them is the simple task of "washing the dishes," a chore he seems to be unaware of.

Cooking on a stove is typically done using a pot or pan, where food is placed in it to heat. Cueball seems to originally have cracked, and attempted to scramble, eggs directly on a burner. This will, of course, not cook the egg, nor will it be easy to clean. Moreover, his stove has open-flame burners, making the task even more impractical than cooking directly on, say, an induction stove or any range with a flat top.

Ice is usually manually made by filling an ice cube tray with water and leaving it in a freezer for several hours. Cueball, however, sprays a hose directly into his freezer compartment and quickly slams the door shut to trap some water inside. While this unorthodox method ''will'' make ice, it will result in a large sheet of ice on the bottom of the freezer. More importantly, it will also make it impossible to actually use the freezer to hold anything else (unless you don't mind breaking through a block of ice to get it out).

The title text relates to toilet paper, which most people normally use by using the whole roll, then throwing it out. Apparently, Cueball only uses it once, then throws it out, which means every time he wants to go to the toilet, he would need to buy another roll (which is obviously impractical).

==Transcript==
[Cueball at a kitchen counter, holding a meat thermometer]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you may have trouble telling when meat is fully cooked.

Cueball: Instead of guessing, try a meat thermometer!

[Cueball at a sink, holding a dirty dish, with a trashcan next to him full of broken ceramics and glasses]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you probably throw away your plates and glasses when they get dirty. But if you clean them, they can often be used again!

[Cueball cracking an egg over a pan on a hot stove]

Cueball: Making scrambled eggs? Put a pan under them!

Cueball: It's easier, and it keeps your burners clean.

[Cueball holding a garden hose, spraying it into the freezer compartment of a refridgerator]

Cueball: If you're anything like me, you make ice by spraying a hose into your freezer and then slamming it shut.

Cueball: But there's a better way...

{{comic discussion}}

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1571: Car Model Names

1567: Kitchen Tips