australia

More on the Hottest 100

27 January 2012

Following on from the last post on the Hottest 100, I received a few tweets from @mjdart demanding a deeper dive into the data. One of his questions was Of artists charting in at least 5 yrs, are Oz artists higher represented? I decided to broaden the questions to look at artists with at least [...]

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Hottest 100 for 2011

26 January 2012

Another year, another Australia Day. Another Australia Day, another Triple J Hottest 100. And that, of course, means an excellent excuse to  set R to work on the chart data. For those outside Australia, the Hottest 100 is a chart of the most popular songs of the previous year, as voted by the listeners of [...]

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Where is the cheapest petrol?

1 January 2012

For some time now, I have been meaning to have a look at Beautiful Soup, a python library designed to make it easy to scrape data from web-sites. Now that I have finally tried it out, I wish I had got to it sooner. It really is very handy and easy to use. As my [...]

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Roadkill Arithmetic

22 December 2011

Returning for another guest post, James Glover is once again drawn to a beer coaster for some quick, if somewhat morbid, calculations. For those taking to the road over the Christmas period, this post should also serve as a reminder to drive carefully! Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to The Other [...]

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Sculptures by the Sea

13 November 2011

It has been quite a long time since art was the subject of a post here on the Mule, but today we took the kids to see Sculptures by the Sea. Held each year, this exhibition consists of a series of large sculptures arranged along the coast from Bondi beach to beach. As usual, parking [...]

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Melbourne Cup

1 November 2011

I have been resting on my laurels for too long. Two years ago I had Shocking success tipping a winner for the Melbourne Cup. Needless to say the analysis was entirely bogus, but it was fun. Since then I have been reluctant to tarnish my spotless prediction record, but fortune favours the brave, so I [...]

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Train in vain

4 August 2011

James Glover is a regular contributor to the Stubborn Mule who tries, whenever possible, to incorporate back of the beer coaster calculations in his posts. Here his beer coaster helps him skewer the prospects of high speed rail in Australia. Don’t get me wrong–I love trains. I have caught trains around Europe and even the [...]

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The Chinese growth engine

16 December 2010
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As Australia’s economic fortunes continue to surpass the likes of the US, UK and Europe, it is hard to escape a lingering nervousness about what could happen if the mining boom were to collapse. What if the Chinese juggernaut were to falter? Would we be doomed?

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Disappointing the punters

1 November 2010

Some readers will recall last year’s astonishing correct tip for the Melbourne Cup here on the Mule. I was vaguely contemplating an equally spurious analysis this year, but inspiration has eluded me and so I will instead rest on my thoroughly undeserved laurels and preserve my perfect prediction record.

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A Delicate Balance

12 September 2010
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Ever since Julia Gillard managed to scrape through to a second term in government, speculation has focused on how long the arrangement can last…what do you think?

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