Well, technically it started on Thursday the 12th, but as Blogger was down more than half of today and so far three of my posts haven't been restored I'm going to ascribe it to the old superstition anyway. Now, it so happens that as a software developer I'm incredibly paranoid about relying on cloud computing and back up my posts to text files so the articles can't be lost, but at this point I'm still not sure whether I'll need to repost them. They disappeared, then reappeared briefly, and are now gone again.
So is there any evidence that unlucky things happen on Friday the 13th, aside from the far too many sequels that have been made about a certain hockey-mask-wearing machete-wielding maniac? According to this Slate article at least one study has tentatively concluded yes, though as usual with anything paranormal the sample size is too small and there are a number of other variables that could be in play besides the date.
It turns out there is one reputable study that has tried to assess whether or not luck actually does go bad on Friday the 13th. (I'm not sure which is more surprising: that someone actually spent time researching this or that I could find only one such study. This is, after all, a world that has studied even how chewing gum distributes saliva around the mouth.) The 1993 study, published in the British Medical Journal, compared hospital admissions for traffic accidents on a Friday the 13th with those on a Friday the 6th in a community outside London. Despite a lower highway traffic volume on the 13th than on the 6th, admissions for traffic accident victims increased 52 percent on the 13th. "Friday the 13th is unlucky for some," the authors concluded. "Staying at home is recommended." How you escape the bad luck at home they didn't explain.
At any rate, remember when I said in my last site update that I wasn't moving Augoeides to Wordpress? This outage has me reconsidering, except that I would still have to move about 500 articles over and that's a serious pain. If anyone knows a good way to do it automatically feel free to let me know in comments, but otherwise I'm not going to just abandon everything I've posted here and start over even though I'm none too happy with Google's service at the moment.
So is there any evidence that unlucky things happen on Friday the 13th, aside from the far too many sequels that have been made about a certain hockey-mask-wearing machete-wielding maniac? According to this Slate article at least one study has tentatively concluded yes, though as usual with anything paranormal the sample size is too small and there are a number of other variables that could be in play besides the date.
It turns out there is one reputable study that has tried to assess whether or not luck actually does go bad on Friday the 13th. (I'm not sure which is more surprising: that someone actually spent time researching this or that I could find only one such study. This is, after all, a world that has studied even how chewing gum distributes saliva around the mouth.) The 1993 study, published in the British Medical Journal, compared hospital admissions for traffic accidents on a Friday the 13th with those on a Friday the 6th in a community outside London. Despite a lower highway traffic volume on the 13th than on the 6th, admissions for traffic accident victims increased 52 percent on the 13th. "Friday the 13th is unlucky for some," the authors concluded. "Staying at home is recommended." How you escape the bad luck at home they didn't explain.
At any rate, remember when I said in my last site update that I wasn't moving Augoeides to Wordpress? This outage has me reconsidering, except that I would still have to move about 500 articles over and that's a serious pain. If anyone knows a good way to do it automatically feel free to let me know in comments, but otherwise I'm not going to just abandon everything I've posted here and start over even though I'm none too happy with Google's service at the moment.
