On being a 68 spotter

So I got asked to do another report on the 86. And I did. This is it. 

And this blog being mostly about things on wheels, you'd think the report would be about what its fans, whose number include me, pronounce as the "Tuh-jorah" 86. 

But you'd be wrong. This blog entry is (mostly) about the two numbers 8 and 6 -- and how they combine to shine in my milieu. 

The combo 68, because that was the year when this here Gen Xer got born, and the reversed combination 86, because that was when I somehow earned a matric certificate "with university excemption"* from what was then the largest high school in all of Transvaal.** 

Hence I've always been a 68/86 spotter, but it took some 40 summers before I started noticing the two possible combinations of 6 and 8 seem to appear wayyyyy too often in my day to be statistically on par with other number combos, eg. my first school year, '74. 

Spoiler alert, a statistical count of the numbers 6 and 8 reveal that in large closed systems, like registration plates on cars, they don't appear more often than the Law of Anomalous Numbers allows. But somehow, when it comes to in-yer-face titles and numbers cited in the news, or numbers used by fiction writers, there they are, in number, as it were. 

Like the Toyota 86. Or listening to the NEW-NEW-NEWWWWSTALK 680 on Jon Bois' excellent, screen-only, scroll-to-read, new-form scifi creations titled 17776 and 20020. Or the brilliant WWII inspired 2021 mech-anime "86" linked below.  

Or any of the call-free 086... numbers. Or the Daily Maverick's printed version, titled DM168.

Talking of 168, that was the also number of our family home's "nommer-seblief-number-please" party line in a two-horse town called Rayton. This of course made these three integers my bingo combo to spot. So imagine my warm fuzzies upon learning the decimals of phi, aka the Golden Ratio is 1,618). 

As for the numbers 6 and 8 not appearing more often than they should in combination, fact is not a day goes by without me seeing at least three such appearances in short order. Examples from today (I added the bold), started with the very first feed I got on YouTube:

-  86m workers "abandoned" in China. (This underlines my prediction of Modern China imploding).

- Then on Twitter I read: "In the last week, the Earth has set 1687 new daily record highs while only 124 new lows were set." (Though for my views on such climate change fear mongering, check out this report.)

- and Bernie Sanders tweeted, "the U.S. Senate is now debating an $886,000,000,000 defense budget."

- Then I learned in passing the temperature at which water boils on top of Mt Everest is 68 degree Celcius, 

- and noticed the poster under the shop's number on 268 Victoria Rd showed long life milk was selling for R86/pack.

So, is this like... good luck? 

Numerology ascribes a lot of vaguely pleasant and admireable traits to my bingo numbers, as this cult does to all numbers between 0 and 9, but I was nevertheless nodding along while reading about all my good points and presumably, the good karma that comes with it. 

Knock yourself out here to see more of these traits for your lucky number/s. Then go rinse out your credulity levels, before someone sells you a bridge, or (heaven forbid) some of those "safe and effective" vaccines the DM168 still touts, as mainstream media will do. 

The Law of Anomalous Numbers 

Moving from the farce that is numerology to scientific fact, the frequency at which my admittedly well-trained eye spots the 6 & 8 combo in the wild, obeys Frank Benford's Law of Anomalous Numbers shown below, viz. F(d) = log[1 + (1/d)], where F is the frequency and d is the digit in question.

Benford's law puts the random appearance of 6 at 6.7% and 8 at 5.1%.

...well, maybe just a little lucky?

But Benford's law just underlines the statistical rarity, if not impossibility, of me seeing the registration number 86168 as I set of on a milestone journey at the random hour of 9:20 am on the random day of Wednesday 12 Oct 2022. 

So can you blame me for taking a little supersitious comfort in my bingo numbers grouping up on me thus? 

Or for allowing myself the feeling that I am still on track when I see either the 68 or 86 combo popping up in the daily flow of information? 

(As for also getting those bingo numbers of 6 then 8 with a spare 1 when you add the twos in 12 Oct 2022 in reverse... ja well no fine. Moving along.)

If I think of it at all, I like to think of these numerical happenings merely as good omens; little pointers that reassure me I am still on track in this blind stumble we call adulting. 

Then again, thanks to all the Latin I took, I also think of any bird that fatally flies into my vehicle grill at the start of a long journey as a sacrifice to the road that will keep me safe, so perhaps don't read to much into my numerological musings. 

Besides, I've got to go read up on the money politcal cadres stole from TVET funds. It was 886 million, reportedly.  

but hey, do check out the new Tuyorrah Kuh-rollah

To wrap up this 86 report, the Tuh-yorah 86 is indeed a proper pocket rocket. But if you are into buying reliable fun with space for the family, I can recommend also test-driving the new Tuh-yorah Kuh-rollah GR. 

Serijaas.

The new Corolla, formerly the top name for all things bland and safely boring in motoring, these days adds all the grrr you need through the corners, without sacrificing any of the seats in the back.   

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* What they did not tell me is that "with university exemption" did not excempt me from anything, neither going to university nor national service conscription. 

** The school is still called after FH Odendaal, who was, the winning history writers tell us, "a pioneering educator; ballet and arts lover; and one-time member of the National Party's Bureau of Information". For the GenXer kids of railway and steel factory workers who attended the school with me in the 1980s, this sounds a lot like a politically connected member of the secret Broederbonders, a censorius snitch, and an old bloke who had a thing for young dancers in spandex.