WTF??

OK, I was doing, ahem, RESEARCH on amazon.com, and saw a link for a book quiz. Not really a quiz-taker, I was persuaded into taking this one. Just check off the things you have done, and it tells you "what kind of person you are." This struck me because, in the car yesterday, Joel asked what I was thinking about. "What kind of person I am," I said. Why waste my time with introspection?? Here was my answer! God, I love the internet.
So, I check off the things I have done, and this is what is says:

You are a Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager

0% of the 35785 people who have taken this quiz are like you.

Zero???? Out of over 35,000? I find this ridiculously supportive of individualism. I will have to ask Joel to do some math on this- out of 43 items, what are the odds that someone would get exactly the same things as you? Math is so tricky- maybe that is a very reasonable number. Anyway, here is their ad. Take it and see if you are the extreme individual that I (supposedly) am... lots of zeros would make more sense.

And, as a footnote, it didn't occur to me to wonder, "Am I a romantic, tree-hugging money manager?" in the car, I was actually thinking about consumerism and some of Joel's strong views about consumption, and wondering how far down the path I think I can go with him in this respect. Yes, DIY Christmas WAS awesome... but I would also like some power windows/locks on my next car, thank you very much.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager

***Joel's Math Update***

Jessica just pointed this out to me and wanted me to weigh in on the probability that another person would choose the same answers that you would on the 43 questions. It's actually pretty slim.

First of all, the questions are 'yes/no' types, where only a positive or negative response can be given. If there was only one question, there could be two possible ways for the test to be filled out; if there were two, four possible configurations; three questions, eight configurations; etc. etc. You can see where this is going. The possible unique ways that the test can be filled out grows exponentially with the arithmetic growth of the number of questions. If you crunch out the numbers, you'll see that for 43 questions you get 88,000,000,000,000 (that's trillions!) possible ways that the test could be filled out.

So the chances that one of the 35,000 that took the test filled it out the same way as you is almost statically impossible. And just to cover themselves, the folks that give the test tell you that "0%" scored the same as you. For this group of 35,000, 350 people would have to score the same as you to get even 1%.

Slim odds indeed.

But I'm sure you're really unique regardless.