Making the connection...

My favourite audio connectors. These are hardcore, professional connectors from Neutrik.

I hate "pre-made plastic audio connectors"! It?s not just audio quality, it?s the fact that they are mass produced, unreliable and crackle. They'll give up on you when you least expect.

Whenever possible, I like to make all my own custom cables. These Neutrik connectors are cast metal and bomb proof. I can then make the cables to my own lengths and with my own connectors (also gets rid of dodgy adapters which also crackle).

Tonight I was making a new stock of 3.5mm stereo jacks to two 6.5mm mono jacks. These are used to connect iPods, laptops and the like to mixing desks. These are popular leads and tend to "walk".

It?s an eternal struggle round the church to keep the AV balcony locked so that things aren't "borrowed". From time to time, I have a wander and gather up all the cables cast around the church. After these iPod leads, the next most borrowed is 4-way mains leads. On a good day, I can find 5 or 6 of these marked "KBCAV" in various locations.

I don't believe it, but it was an "average" day today. That's two days in a row! Maybe "average" is more common than I thought.

But be careful of statistics. The "average" person is very bad at really understanding the implications and true meaning of statistics. So much so that 97% of all statistics are made up (generally by politicians).

You can really throw people off with statistics. You do know that the "average person" has less than 2 arms? (think about it!). Similarly, they have less than 2 legs!

This goes into one of my favourite topics of explaining "technical" or "scientific" concepts to the "non-technical". I do remember having great difficulty explaining reports for an airport manager. He was convinced he wanted to know the average, minimum and maximum waiting times. I tried explaining that the maximum and minimum were not very useful measures for that report, and he really wanted the Standard Deviation....he just wouldn't understand (both what SD was and why it was a better measure).

If we want to go further...we can look at the fun world of probability?
If I tossed a coin, what are the chances of tossing two "heads" in a row? (assuming the coin never lands on its edge...).
People will generally agree with me that the chances are 1 in 4.

OK competition time (much more complex than Goretex's)

If I have just tossed a "head", what are the chances of tossing a second "head".
1 in 4 or
1 in 2...
And what are the chances of throwing 2 more "heads" after the first one?
1 in 8
1 in 4 or
1 in 2.

You need to get both of these (plus an explanation of your working) to get points tonight.