Do March's lead articles obey Benford's Law? And how does the running total look?

 This is the results of the second month of monitoring news articles for which numbers they contain.

March featured the first days I missed (I blame Easter), so I will have to add two days on at the end of the year.

In the 29 days I did manage to capture, 273 numbers were used (~ 9 to 10 per day).  This is less than the ~15 per day from February.

1 and 8 are the closest to expected.  5 is over-represented. If you add together the sum of all the values of (observed-expected)squared, all divided by the expected, the calculated test statistic is 5.6.

The critical chi squared value for 9 items with only one line is ~ 15.507

The test statistic smaller than the critical value therefore the difference is not significant. This data does not disobey Benford's Law.

If you look at the rolling total of February and March, the numbers are starting to add up.  There were 709 digits in headline news articles.

7 and 8 are the closest to expected.  1 remains over-represented, as it was in February. If you add together the sum of all the values of (observed-expected)squared, all divided by the expected, the calculated test statistic is 3.49.

The critical chi squared value for 9 items with only one line is ~ 15.507

The test statistic smaller than the critical value therefore the difference is not significant. This data does not disobey Benford's Law.

Interestingly, as more numbers from articles have been added the calculated test statistic has reduced (February = 8.6, February + March = 3.49).  This is what you would expect to see if the numbers in the articles fulfill Benford's law.

F1 2021 - Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

Before all the noise about Mercedes not having the best car starts, it was good enough to help Hamilton from ninth to second within 27 laps, and he's still in the lead of the Drivers' World Championship, so let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Ferrari managed to finish fourth and fifth, which is almost acceptable. Since that is roughly where Leclerc was last year, I am suggesting that the driver of the second car might have been letting the side down. On the other hand, Ferrari, still only in fourth place in the Constructors's Championship, so no cookies yet.

No red cards either, although if there is a repeat of the radio issues that plagued Leclerc, there may be one. Consider this to be a yellow card for that offence, Ferrari.

Out of Blue

I'm going to start at the end.

When I came back from watching "Out of Blue" at the cinema I looked it up on Wikipedia, and found out that it's based on a book (Night Train by Martin Amis), and that book is a parody. Which makes the film make so much more sense. Unfortunately, the film lacked that reflexive self-aware quality of good parody. There's a beautiful quote from the Torygraph that I think sums the film up perfectly - "This New Orleans-set detective thriller from Carol Morley pulls off an undesirable yet weirdly impressive coup: the twist ending to its murder mystery is somehow simultaneously preposterous and obvious, like a clown car parping and swerving its way towards you from the far end of an airstrip."

That statement is true of everything that happens in the film. You think, oh, they're using this tired trope in this really unsubtle way to subvert it. And then they don't. It's not just one tired trope, it's all of them. In sequence. In obvious sequence.

It wouldn't be so bad, I mean basic thrillers are ten-a-penny, yeah, they're not good, but they're not bothersome either, they're Sunday-afternoon-plans-have-washed-out films. But this film keeps putting on these airs and graces, all "I am a serious film, making serious statements. I AM ART!" when it's really not. It tries to be clever and turns out dumb. Also the physics is terrible. But I suspect that's deliberate, because the physics they use is all trope-y and we're back to "tired trope played straight."

It's a waste of some lovely cinematography and a good soundtrack. And some solid performances. Patricia Clarkson as Mike Hoolihan gives enough mystery and enigmatic to be engaging despite being all but one of the hard-bitten female detective clichés. Toby Jones is Toby Jones so you know he's good. Aaron Tveit's Detective Silvero does a good job of sleazy and sinister ... like every other male character. Basically, the female characters suffer and the men are sleazy and sinister. It's very thin that way.

It's one of those rare films I'd actually disrecommend.

Do February's lead articles obey Benford's Law?

Benford's Law gains its power with larger numbers, and I started my Benford's law project in the shortest month.  I don't think these things through, do I?  But you have to start somewhere.

The 28 daily news articles contained 436 numbers written as digits (~15 per day).

3 and 7 are found pretty much exactly as often as expected.  1 is over represented.  

If you add together the sum of all the values of (observed-expected)squared, all divided by the expected, the calculated test statistic is 8.6.

The critical chi squared value for 9 items with only one line is ~ 15.507 

The test statistic smaller than the critical value therefore the difference is not significant.  This data does not disobey Benford's Law.*

*That noise is L shouting "obey is the word you want" but to me there's a difference between 'stats show x' and 'stats show not x' and to me, these show 'do not disobey'.