6.30.10

As I was playing solitaire the other day, I began to wonder how much total time I've spent playing this terribly addicting, yet strangely satisfying game of cards. Of course, those of you who know me well enough (my sympathies) know that this type of musing cannot simply sit in my mind by itself: it yearns for just the right mathematical equation, data, and/ or fantastic assumption to make it come to life - kind of like Frankenstein's monster mixed with outlandish greek symbols.

So I set to work: I've played about 42 games of solitaire since my innocent query; not the best of sample sizes, but it'll do for now. Based on this sample, the average time I spend playing one solitaire game is about 101.57 seconds (with a standard deviation of about 48 seconds). For here, the calculations are easy: my computer reports that I have played a grand total of 2,577 solitaire games (which, if I say so myself, is rather frightening) and so 2,577 * 101.57 = 261,745.89; the total amount of seconds I've spent playing solitaire.

Now, to find out how many hours and (dare I say it) days I've spent playing, the calculations are also quite easy:

261,745.89/ 60 = 4,362.4315 minutes
4,362.4315/ 60 = 72.7072 hours
72.7072/ 24 = 3.03 days

So, I've spent just over three days of my life playing solitaire - ghastly.

But the fun doesn't stop there: the next natural question is, naturally, how many days have I been living in total? And then, how much time have I spent doing other prominent activities?

The answer to the first question is 8,826, of course, excluding the time I spent playing solitaire in my mother's womb. The answer to the next question was particularly fun, but I did have to make some large assumptions.

The natural follow-up to time spent playing solitaire is time spent on the john (about equally productive, right?). Now, I haven't been recording the amount of time spent during each of my most recent visits to the loo, so here is where I make my first couple of assumptions: let's assume (a rather ironic word given the context, wouldn't you say?) that I have spent about 9 minutes on the can on average looking back across my entire life (my trip this morning lasted about 7 1/2 minutes and I would say that it might have been a little less than typical). Now, let's also assume that I make the epic journey about 3-4 times a week and have done so invariably throughout my life (I can obviously think of extreme cases on both sides, but outliers here, especially given the subject of discussion, will be, most benevolently, ignored). So, with these assumptions I can now flush out my desired calculations (whether the pun was more enjoyable to you than pulling teeth is, of course, left to your discretion):

9 * 3 = 27
9 * 4 = 36 --> [27, 36]
This is the average interval of time (in minutes) per week I spend on the john
[27, 36]/ 7 = [3.857, 5.143]
This is the average interval (in minutes) per day
[3.857, 5.143] * 8,826 = [34,041.882, 45,392.118]
So, this is the interval in which I expect to find the total amount of minutes spent on the john during my entire life
[34,041.882, 45,392.118]/ 60 = [567.365, 756.54]
This is the amount in hours
[567.365, 756.54]/ 24 = [23.64, 31.52]
This is the amount of days

So, in short, I have spent somewhere between 23 and 31 entire days of my life communing with our dear porcelain friend. Only about 0.3% of my life, but still, that's almost a month! Good thing I get so much thinking done in there.

And I didn't just stop there, oh no, but for the next couple of estimates I will take care not to subject you to the same mathematical mumbo-jumbo: I will simply give them to you most charitably, like a free lunch from an invisible hand.

- Estimated days spent sleeping: 2,537 (which is about 85 months or about 7 years)
- Estimated days spent eating: 276
- Estimated days spent in school: 1,078 (which is about 36 months or about 3 years)
- Estimated days spent in a vehicle: 275
- Estimated days spent eating dub-i-dubs: certainly not enough

Cheers.