nypd masters of statistics

[jts]

Sorry, but isn't it obvious that what was meant was, that that day no murders were reported - meaning murders still may have occured unreported?

Way to go mocking the nypd, by taking every word literally in a quoted out of context sentence in a newspaper.

No, you missed the larger context - the actual statistically rare event was a day without (reported) violent crime, but the Dutch newspapers screwed it up. I'm not sure why it would make a difference whether they were measuring the day when a murder occurred, or when it was reported... in either case, it would be very rare for the average to be 1 a day and to go 300 consecutive days without dipping below the average.

[Joaz Banbeck]

When my wife and I joined households, we each had a cat. Hers was sociable. Mine was not. He had been an alley cat, and is still half wild. He distrusts/hates all other cats. Whenever we put the two near each other, mine would try to attack hers.

So we got several high powered squirt guns. We let them both loose in the house, and whenever he started after her, we soaked him with cold water. It took several days of vigilance just to get him to tolerate being in the same house with her. He learned that if he attacked her, or even started howling at her, he got wet.

Within a month, they could be in the same room without violence. We retired the squirt guns a couple of months later.

That was about 8 years ago. Today they can be about two feet apart before he starts hissing.


I believe that there is a moral in here someplace.

[hyperpape]

It's been a while since I read a stat in a newspaper and gave it any interest or credence (regardless of their accuracy).

You're just letting the terrorists bad statistics win!

[cyclops]

Sorry, but isn't it obvious that what was meant was, that that day no murders were reported - meaning murders still may have occured unreported?

It, indeed, is not what I meant. What I meant was that it is statistically almost impossible that no murderless days occurred before recently. I wrongly assumed that the reader of my first post could deduce that implicit message. Sorry for that.

Way to go mocking the nypd

I apologize to the nypd!

, by taking every word literally

shouldn't I?

in a quoted out of context sentence in a newspaper.

I quoted nothing out of the context nor was the sentence out of context. Whichever you might mean.

[Javaness2]

What's the prisoner population of New York as a percentage of the city's population?

[jts]

It's hard to say precisely because in America we have a federal system, so it isn't necessary to warehouse New York's criminals on 5th Avenue, but the main NYC jail has 14,000 inmates (per wiki) which would be an insignificant portion of the population of the city. You can dig around on NYC.gov/doc if you want more information.

[Javaness2]

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Ro ... 46193.html cites 55,599 as the population

Not really insignificant...

[jts]

You may be conflating New York state with the metropolis formerly known as New Amsterdam.