I need a mathematician

bwana

bwana

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So I'm working at the cricket today, snapping away, uploading the images as I go when some inconsiderate Titan decides to hit one for six and where does the ball land? Of course, on my laptop.

My DIY sunshield took the brunt of the impact, and the laptop itself is absolutely fine, but the sudden jolt borked my hdd.

So mathematicians - What are the odds?
 
cbrunsdonza said:
LOL
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:)

I'm pretty sure if I hadnt been writing to the hdd at the time I would have been fine. :(

Worst is I've got some awesome shots just sitting on my camera until I can restore everything to a replacement drive.
 
the event has occured
therefore there are no odds, it was a certainy :)
 
bwana said:
So I'm working at the cricket today, snapping away, uploading the images as I go when some inconsiderate Titan decides to hit one for six and where does the ball land? Of course, on my laptop.

My DIY sunshield took the brunt of the impact, and the laptop itself is absolutely fine, but the sudden jolt borked my hdd.

So mathematicians - What are the odds?
Click to expand...

Email to David O' Sullivan on 702 for his statistician, Trevor Samson, to answer :)
 
bwana said:
So I'm working at the cricket today, snapping away, uploading the images as I go when some inconsiderate Titan decides to hit one for six and where does the ball land? Of course, on my laptop.
Click to expand...

BTW, how is that set up? Tethered to the laptop? Does it both save on the card and transfer to the laptop at the same time?
 
Here's a start :

Firstly, if you consider the field to be absolutely round then the the random variable X ~ Uniform distribution in the interval [0,359]. But you also need to consider the probability that the batsman would hit the ball to a particular part of the ground, this would depend on his preference of shots, etc.
 
Start computer, open bios, enable S.M.A.R.T. feature on HDDs, it will warn if there are any problems at the next boot. To find out the odds, we need a few probability distribution functions and some more data :p

P.S. did they show your reaction on TV, slow motion :p
 
koffiejunkie said:
BTW, how is that set up? Tethered to the laptop? Does it both save on the card and transfer to the laptop at the same time?
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I was hot swapping cards. I had wanted to use the EYE-FI but I haven't yet figured out how to add the metadata on import.

Restoring from time machine now.
 
bwana said:
So I'm working at the cricket today, snapping away, uploading the images as I go when some inconsiderate Titan decides to hit one for six and where does the ball land? Of course, on my laptop.

My DIY sunshield took the brunt of the impact, and the laptop itself is absolutely fine, but the sudden jolt borked my hdd.

So mathematicians - What are the odds?
Click to expand...

Mechanical drive or SSD?

If it's a mechanical drive I suggest bitstream imaging it with ddrescue to another hdd, mount the image file and recover your data.

If it's a SSD then you are fooked unless you are prepared to pay MEGA$$$ on datarecovery.
 
ponder said:
Mechanical drive or SSD?
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Hybrid.

Funny thing is I can't even get spinrite to start doing it's thing. I'm not too concerned about the data, that's what backups are for. :)
 
w1z4rd said:
If its a mac you need to double the odds off the bat :D jk
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I'm kind of pleased it's got a sturdy case. I noticed a bit of buckling on the bottom panel so the ball must have actually hit that corner and driven it into the concrete. Of course it had to be the corner where the hdd is.
 
bwana said:
Hybrid.

Funny thing is I can't even get spinrite to start doing it's thing. I'm not too concerned about the data, that's what backups are for. :)
Click to expand...

If you are not worried about the data just RMA the drive it.
 
Will you settle for a memorable life-moment?
Mathematicians are quite rare, though you could leave them out in the sun for a bit to cook a little, perhaps at a cricket game, perhaps they'll actually be watching the game, and perhaps, the bloody mathematician will actually catch the ball.
 
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