track fan

i love when i pass friendly runners.

let me know what you think of the phone! i've been thinking of going to the iPhone for my next one. i am currently a verizon user and would have to switch though.

You're a very fit friendly runner your own self.

I'm in the dark ages when it comes to phones. I can make phones calls and text. That's about it. Oh, and I can play sudoku.

We want Gila Monster pix! Especially if you're going to have a cool new phone. You'll want to try out the camera right? Smartphones are so awesome. Congratulations. And I will still love you even though..."I'm a Mac."

sno, i'm a mac too :)

Sorry Sno, so far all my gila sightings have been while I have been running ... so no pictures available (I don't carry anything when I run).

I "almost" went to the iphone -- it was just that Froyo (android 2.2) is really really tied to the web, instead of apps, and I like Google -- a lot!

I know you will love your new phone, but I'm not sure what you are talking about with the Google thing. I have a web browser on my iPhone and use it all the time. Google, Bing, whatever I want.

another sighting!? very cool. great choice on the new phone as well.

Sno, Here is my "very rudimentary understanding" about the phones - there are now 3 types of smartphones:

iphone - basically uses proprietary Apple operating system , you can "surf" the web because there are applications that sit on top of the operating system and connect to the internet.

Android phones - HTC is the company that makes the phones themselves and most of them use Windows-based operating systems. Again, these access the internet by using applications that sit on top of the operating system and allow you to connect.

Google's Nexus One - HTC makes the phone, Google developed the operating system (called Android, now they are on version 2.2). Since Google made the operating system the connectivity to the internet is built into the operating system (so it is super fast). It is also sort of "open-source" -- meaning developers can actually make changes to the operating system of their Android phone. It is a very cool idea and "less" closed than the Apple and Microsoft operating systems. More geek-friendly.

The Nexus One looks a lot like the iPhone, but it is much faster. It is possible that the new G4 iPhone will be as fast, but since they are a more proprietary software company it takes a while to upgrade systems, and Google has managed to make significant improvements to their operating system in 5 months since it first came out -- mainly because they let programmer geeks work on things ;-).

Allie -- I know, I can't believe I have seen so many Gila Monsters. I told Dean yesterday that I thought the reason people say they are rare is because they are rare if you only go hiking once a week or so, but when you are out every (ding dong) day you have a much higher probability of seeing them. I am sure there is a good homework problem in there somewhere ;-).

If a runner runs twice a day, six days a week, for an average of 8 miles on each run and there are 4 gila monsters per square mile on the route that the runner runs, what is the likelihood that the runner will see a gila monster during any given run?

what is...29.99%?

hmmm. To a statistician, when you say "likelihood" we start thinking distributions and probability but that problem sounded more like an algebra problem.

The statistics problem would be:

Assume the distribution of number of gila monsters in Tucson follows a Poisson distribution with mean= 1 gila monsters/mile. What is the probability that Bonnie will see at least 2 Gila Monsters during a 2 week period, assuming she runs 60 miles/week?

i am sticking with my original answer. ;)

;-) 100% ... but that would drop down to 34% if the mean was 1 gila monster/100 miles.

i learned about poisson distribution this past semester in hel... i mean stats.

i am going to go with allie. she is smarter than me.

the one thing i remember about poisson distribution is how much i like saying poisson.