TRC #369: Follow Your Career Passion? + Farmer’s Almanac + Subway Becoming Hal?

farmer1Not even the flu can keep Producer Pat from finally bringing you this week’s episode of TRC! First, Darren explores whether or not encouraging people to follow their passion when choosing a career is sage advice. Next, Cristina takes on a listener’s suggestion and points a skeptical lense at the weather forecasts made by the Farmer’s Alamanacs. Finally, Adam checks into whether or not the claim that Subway has Halal-only restaurants is fact or fiction.

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Should You Follow Your Career Passion?

Reference Book: Doing Good Better by William MacAskill

80,000 Hours

Quartz

Farmer’s Alamanac

Popular Mechanics: Why You Shouldn’t Trust the Farmer’s Almanac’s Prediction of a Brutal Winter

Discovery: Farmer’s Almanacs: Right as Rain or 3 Dollar Bills?

NPR: Decoding The Allure Of The Almanac

Neurologica Blog: The Old Poor Richard’s Farmers’ Almanac

Office of the Washington State Climatologist

Huff Post: Cold And Snow Predicted By Old Farmers’ Almanac

The Vane: The Weather Forecasts in the Old Farmer’s Almanac Are a Bunch of Malarkey

Wiki: Farmer’s Almanac

Slate: A Very Early Yet Highly Accurate Guide to This Coming Winter

The Vane: ‘Godzilla El Niño’ Coming to Raid Your Fridge, Teach Your Kids Bad Words

Climate.gov: August 2015 El Niño update: Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious

Subway Becoming Halal

Halal – Wikipedia

UK: Subway caves to Muslim demands, removes pork, sells only halal meat – Jihad Watch

Subway Removes Pork Products from Their Menu? – Snopes

Stop Halal meat replacing the British traditions in Subway. – Change.org

Subway Confirms that Bacon & Ham to Stay in US & Canadian Sandwiches! April 30, 2014 – Cornwall Free News

Certified Halal Meats – Subway UK

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2 Responses to TRC #369: Follow Your Career Passion? + Farmer’s Almanac + Subway Becoming Hal?

  1. Dan Kuchta says:

    Love the podcast!

    But I was listening to your farmers almanac segment when I heard a bit of surprising woo from you! A statement was made that a 50% correct prediction rate was no better than flipping a coin. What? you guys are into statistics and should know better than that.

    Simple example – if I roll a die, odd are I can correctly predict the outcome 1 out of 6 times by chance. If in fact I correctly predict the outcome 50% of the time, that is MUCH better than chance.

    It depends on the metric for the weather prediction, but it is rarely binary as with flipping a coin. There are many factors involved, and many possible outcomes (like the die) so that a 50% correct prediction should indicate much better than chance.

    -Dan Kuchta

  2. Georgina says:

    A motivating discussikn is definitely worth comment.

    I believe that you ought to publis more on this
    topic, it might not be a taboo matter buut typjcally people don’t talk about such issues.
    To the next! Cheers!!

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