[Off-topic] Parental controls

Do your parents decide before you are born when you will die?

(from Quirkology): "In 1999, Nicholas Christenfeld and his colleagues from the University of California, San Diego, uncovered evidence suggesting that a person's initials might affect perhaps the most important aspect of their life - the moment of their death. Using a large, computerised database of death certificates, they identified people whose initials formed a positive-sounding word (such as A.C.E., H.U.G. and J.O.Y.), and those that had very negative connotations, like P.I.G., B.U.M. and D.I.E. Using factors such as race, year of death and socio-economic status as controls, the researchers discovered that men with positive initials lived approximately four and a half years longer than average, whereas those with negative initials died about three years early.

Women with positive initials lived an extra three years, although there was no detrimental effect for those with negative initials. Further analysis suggested that those with negative initials were especially likely to die from psychological causes, such as suicides and self-inflicted accidents."


First of all, "statistics" is such a fantastic tool that it's useless. I prefer to look at the world in terms of binary probabilities, especially for predictive scenarios (but then again, what else is the ultimate use of gathering statistics?): There's a 50% probability that I'll die earlier than people who would be in my peer group in that study (that is, I will or I won't). There's a 50% chance that I'll get a good night's rest tonight (I will or I won't). There's a 50% likelihood that that tree in the backyard will fall over this summer (it will or it won't). Life gets a little simpler, eh? :)

I'm not sure what to make of the death-by-initials correlation for me and for Husband -- my initials are nonsense, and his could go either way (but we'll focus on the positive possibility)!

How about you all?