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Coincidences

Most science courses have modules on statistics. Even a fairly straightforward undergrad level practical course uses statistics to analyse the probability of the experimental results being true, and within what error limits.
 
I remember my statistics professor- his first lecture to new undergraduates was to prove the existence of a deity by statistical means and the task he set you was to disprove his theory. All light hearted but his point was that statistics are meaningless without proper context. A lesson I never forgot.
 
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I'm always having loads of coincidences, albeit quite trivial, but I never seem to be at a computer when they happen.

Last night, I was on a QPR forum about celebrity QPR fans, when on e poster got Annie Nightingale mixed up with news reader Mary Nightingale.
A moment later, Annie Nightingale appeared on the tv in a program about '1967: The Summer Of Love'.
Also, coincidentally, 1967 was the year QPR won their only major trophy - the league cup.
 
For some reason this tune popped into my head & stayed all day - a pretty obscure Traffic track which I haven't thought about or heard in decades, when bugger me if Stuart Maconie didn't play it that very eve on the Freak Zone.

A great piece of bluesy jazzy psychedelia with a rampant Hammond organ freakout some way in & soulful Steve Winwood vocal.
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Simon said:
I'm always having loads of coincidences, albeit quite trivial, but I never seem to be at a computer when they happen.
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On Friday at work (the day after the 20th anniversary of Diana's death), I was browsing through a prospectus, where one of the directors was called Diana Hunter (from the Roman God of the hunt, quoted by Earl Althorp at her funeral.)

Yesterday, I was browsing Ebay, thinking of buying a Steely Dan t-shirt, when I've just found out that Walter Becker has died.

Just over an hour ago, I clicked on a link on Twitter to play a song by Traffic, and just as I have decided to come on here to report my first two events, I notice hunck's posting above!
 
Simon said:
On Friday at work (the day after the 20th anniversary of Diana's death), I was browsing through a prospectus, where one of the directors was called Diana Hunter (from the Roman God of the hunt, quoted by Earl Althorp at her funeral.)

Yesterday, I was browsing Ebay, thinking of buying a Steely Dan t-shirt, when I've just found out that Walter Becker has died.

Just over an hour ago, I clicked on a link on Twitter to play a song by Traffic, and just as I have decided to come on here to report my first two events, I notice hunck's posting above!
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I knew something else happened on Sunday around the same time! Earlier in the week I was looking through the 'lower-down' Sky channels (not that low though!), when I came across an early 70s UK kids drama show called 'Freewheelers'. It ticked all the boxes I liked - classic 70s low production values and a posh attractive girl (this being the Jenny Agutter / Railway Children era!).
A few days later on Sunday, just out of curiosity, I was typing random terms into Google - Kays 70s catalogue annuals/books, 70s annuals, etc, when an image of a 'Freewheelers' annual came up!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/WxyoKtnCSKI/hqdefault.jpg
 
Just now I was reading Dark and Mysterious Cursed Movie Productions, about disastrous events connected to films.

I was up to a bit about an actor who shot himself because he had terminal kidney cancer. At the same time we were watching the credits of a TV programme about the brain, which was dedicated to its late producer Dan Oliver. I looked up what he died of, and yes, it was kidney cancer.

He also died on my youngest child's birthday, brr.

Oh yeah, and today we chatted with a man called Alan West. He told us that he lives on Saddleworth Moor, which sadly has a certain grisly fame in connection with the 1960s moors murders. A man called Alan West was the stepfather of one of the victims. Again, brrr.
 
Had a name coincidence today.

Yesterday I found a wallet on a car park. Had a riffle through it for ID and saw the bloke's driving licence. He had an unusual surname.

I sat in car with the wallet for a few minutes looking around, feeling sure that I'd see the owner searching for it as it can't have been lying there long.

Sure enough, a young bloke jumped out of a car and started frantically rifling the shopping in the boot. I recognised him from the licence photo and called out 'Mr XXXXX?'

He came over and claimed the wallet, thanking me profusely. His girlfriend was pleased too. Everyone was happy.

Anyway... this morning I was thinking about it and realised that I'd already forgotten the bloke's surname. How odd, considering I'd never met anyone called that name before!

Just then on the radio there was a mention of a scientific term, the CRISPR sequence. That was the very name, Crispa!
Just slightly weird.
 
Catching up with the random image thread a day or so ago, Vardoger and James_H drew my attention to Korpiklaani, and indeed to the genre of folk-metal, which was new to me, despite being on more than nodding acquaintance with both the constituent genres. The thrilling task I set my students earlier this evening was to quiz each other about their favourite songs. One nomination: ämmänhauta, by the aforementioned Korpiklaani. :thrash:

[Another nomination, although not really a coincidence, is worth mentioning: "Gloom", by Suicide Boy, because it always cheers him up :rollingw:.]
 
Thank you I really like that, listened to a couple of others too. On the 'Vodka' video linked he may be singing in Finnish but to me it doesn't half sound like a Cornish man singing 'laser'.
 
There was an intriguing (to me, anyway) coincidence that happened this summer -

I'd long wanted to own a Hand Of Fatima charm, but had never come across one. They aren't very common in this area. Well, back in June, my youngest and I were at the park when he found something in the grass. It was a bracelet with a Hand Of Fatima charm, among other symbols.

We asked around but no one claimed any knowledge of it. Eventually I decided it must be fate and put it on my own wrist. I thought it was the most wonderful luck.

A couple of weeks later, my OH was at work when he saw something glinting behind the open front door. He went to look and found another Hand Of Fatima charm! This one was larger, not attached to anything, just the charm. It was only a cheaply made trinket, but its appearance there was quite mysterious. It was not a likely place to lose such a thing.

So, within a short time I went from having no Hand Of Fatima charms to having two.:) This was not long after I'd bought an Eye Of Horus necklace for my birthday. This was interesting because...
Another meaning of this symbol relates to the sky god, Horus. It refers to the eye of Horus, which means humans cannot escape from the eye of conscience. It says that the sun and moon are the eyes of Horus. The Hand of Fatima also represents femininity, and is referred as the woman's holy hand. It is believed to have extraordinary characteristics that can protect people from evil and other dangers.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamsa
Hm. Makes you wonder.
:wide:

I'd been meaning to write about this and post pictures of the charms, but I've simply been too lazy. Apparently ancient magical symbols don't protect against that. :oops:
 
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Just as I was writing a post on 'The Friend Who Wasn't There' thread, about Ian Wright (former Arsenal player), Arsenal score against West Brom, who, coincidentally, were QPR's opponents in the cup final I mentioned in post #2321 on this page!
 
had a bit of a strange one this morning - coincidence or not?
i woke up at about 6.45am and for no apparent reason started thinking about my dad who died two years ago come December.
thinking to myself theres no point just lying there now i may as well get up. this i did, went downstairs for a brew and whilst sat there picked up my mobile and noticed a text from a mate of mine who id not seen or heard from for some months - in this text he said "my dads not got long to live can you tell me the name of 'such and such' "
the timing just seemed strange somehow ??
 
Man Bumps Into Kidnapped 6 Year Old Son At Shopping Centre

Not sure about the date given in this report. It says he was missing for 9 months but abducted in May 2016..

On the day in question, six-year-old Cheng Jiafu had been taken to a shopping centre in Qingxin, China, by his three kidnappers when his father Chen Zhonghong spotted him.

The boy had been abducted from his home in Matang Village, Qingyuan, on May 27 2016.

Incredible CCTV , filmed in February, shows the moment police swooped on one of the abductors after Zhonghong noticed his son and alerted officers.

Chinese courts sentenced the men, whose surnames are Chen, Li and Ou, to a total of 11 years in prison on Saturday, reports Qingxin News .

The judge said he believed the men had intended to sell the boy, along with other victims, to childless families
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Recently on'ere I was describing a facsimile newspaper I owned as a teenager which came with a free Hitler poster. A friend and I mutilated it humorously, pinned it on the wall and fell about laughing.

Today I was at an antique shop with a friend and she pulled out some newspapers, and the first one was the exact facsimile I used to have, with the Hitler poster present. What're the chances, eh!
 
escargot said:
Today I was at an antique shop with a friend and she pulled out some newspapers, and the first one was the exact facsimile I used to have, with the Hitler poster present. What're the chances, eh!
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Haha, I remember asking you about that on another thread! How weird that you found it again. :crazy:
 
Had one of those very unimpressive coincidences last night that nevertheless felt a bit weird as it happened. I went to a bar and a few minutes before arriving, while walking there, I got this terrific number in my head


When I got into the bar, it started playing on the jukebox within a few minutes. The song is about 14 years old so it's not like you hear it all the time.
 
This happened a few years ago. At the time I was secretary of a military charity. I ordered a mobile phone from the internet. The order number they gave me for the phone was the same as the registered charity number of the charity I worked for. The lottery ticket I bought on the strength of this coincidence (feeling I must be having a special kind of luck, as this was not only seven identicial digits but all seven were in the same order) did nothing at all.

coincidence.jpg
 
I think this is the first time I’ve logged-in in 2018, and I notice that Zeke has posted a YouTube video yesterday afternoon about MK Glitches on the ‘weird interviews’ thread. Bizarrely, I was watching that video only last night, unknown to me that it had already been posted here.
Also, I’ve noticed that quite a few old threads have been revived, including one where I posted under a long lost username!
 
Hello

Here are a couple of stand out coink-i-dinks from this last week.
They are also within a half hour of each other which is a bit alarming.
So anyway, I was drawing some pictures for a storyboard whilst listening to
a youtube clip about bigfoot... possibly a missing 411 david Palides episode.
So the script from which i was working called for a drawing of a young cartoon girl fixing
a fence. As i am drawing the fence the voice on the youtube clip says 'a fence repair man'.
So I stopped in my tracks and thought 'well now' that was pretty specific. Recently there
have been a great many small moments in which a 'synchronicity' of mysterious origins
has popped up but this one was a little much. I mean, the clip didn't say 'ranger, lumberjack,
simply 'repair man'... it was 'fence repair man' which when you think about it isn't really
a description of an occupation at all, making it a little more odd. I carried on listening to this
bigfoot stuff and what do you know a fella a little while (20 mins) later said 'you couldn't
unravel the scroll' ... what was I drawing at the time? A young fella, unfurling a scroll.

As always I find no relevance to these moments other than that they are rather startling
 
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