MEET THE GUY BRINGING ‘DUMB DATA’ MOVIE MATH TO REDDIT
Check out this piece from WIRED about a movie buff conducting his own quasi-scientific investigations. Mark Hofmeyer sets out to answer those nagging moving questions no one asked: How far did Denton jump in Reign of Fire? How far does Jim travel underwater in Deep Blue Sea?
Hofmeyer, 35, is a film lover who’s spent the last two years writing deeply researched yet thoroughly un-scientific statistical analyses of horror and action flicks, which he posts to his own site, Movies, Films and Flix, as well as to the Reddit movies thread. One such study revealed that films featuring jet-ski sequences average a mere 29 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes; another measured Matthew McConaughey’s record-breaking, dragon-feeding long-jump in Reign of Fire; and an especially ambitious report analyzed Michael Myers’ Illinois-to-California drive in Halloween H20, which Hofmeyer believes took exactly 43.5 hours, with an average speed of 63.2 miles per hour. (He also noted that the slasher icon would have employed his blinkers 57 times along the way.)
Hofmeyer, a freelance writer who also works for a culinary-event company, doesn’t have any statistics training. He just re-watches certain films and scenes over and over again, and uses a combination of movie-review metrics, research, and best guesses to draw conclusions. In his first major analysis, in 2013, he determined that Jason Statham movies tended to perform better on Rotten Tomatoes if the star wore an overcoat on its poster, as opposed to a suit or cardigan. That report, like many of his findings, just needed a bit of armchair analysis; but occasionally, a bit of fieldwork is required.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: The latest on Raspberry Pi RP2350-E9, Bluetooth 6, 4,000 Stars and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
