Pointless calculation...
This was during my A levels, which I'd been taking very, very seriously - getting up early and drinking far too much coffee.

I started by organising my CD collection alphabetically, then decided that actually, this wasn't telling me anything and I needed more INSIGHT!!!!

So, I created a scorecard which listed some friends and family for the purpose of comparison (7 people in total) and went through my CD collection ranking each CD versus each person on whether they'd love it, like it, find it passable, dislike it, or hate it. Each of which had a numerical value (1 for hate, 5 for love, etc.)

THEN, of course, I had to factor in length of CD, so I put each CD individually into my CD player until the total album time showed up, so I could note it down.

Then, for each person, I calculated how much of my CD collection (in minutes) fitted into each strata of 'liking-ness', then multiplied that number by the appropriate value from 1-5 for each strata.

I didn't know how to use spreadsheets (or have office) at the time so this was done with pen and paper and a calculator and took forever.

You know what? The person on there with closest music taste to me was the one person I'd added on only because I thought he was a total tool and I wanted to prove to myself I was much more discerning and 'tasteful' than him.

Also, of course, it was a monumental waste of time and not even a very robust scientific method.

Actually incredibly relaxing though!
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 14 Nov 2008, 0:04, Reply)