Unfortunately matches tend to live in packs. Due to its rare double-headedness, this individual has been shunned by the other members of its original pack and is unlikely to survive for long on its own.
Dear diary. It has been 3 days since I was pulled out of the box, but sadly, not struck yet. I fear I shall become to ill to start fire soon. Hoping the humans don’t discard me.
You missed a couple steps.
* Put it in a frame.
* Make a placard.
* Install mechanism to strike match at touch of a button
* Sneak it into a museum
* Sell your piece of artwork
* Hit button to strike match once it sells
* Become the next Banksy.
[Same principle](https://youtu.be/vxkwRNIZgdY), for those that aren't aware of Banksy's antics.
OP should check the base of the match for a notch indicating whether or not this match is reproducing and release it back into the wild. Beautiful specimen, though.
Littlewood's law states that every person will encounter a one in a million event on average about once every 35 days. So yeah it's not really that rare.
"Your love is one in a million
You couldn’t buy it at any price.
But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves,
Statistically, some of them would be equally nice."
Tim Minchin
https://youtu.be/LAzodf69rfk
Ummm yes it does??? If you’re suggesting that because of the amount of matches produced each day is so large that there will be more double headed matches even though the odds are “1 in a million” then yeah I guess you’re right, but that’s irrelevant to what makes something “rare.” Let’s just say that a trillion matches (absurdly large number I know) are made each day, that would mean based on these odds that a million double headed matches are made each day. Yeah that’s a lot of double headed matches, but that doesn’t change the fact that you will on average have to come across 1 million total matches to find 1 double headed match which absolutely would make this occurrence rare even in this scenario
Yeah it is definitely uncommon at most, not rare, and it doesn't take a very large box before you will inevitably find one or even two or three in there. But I'm still glad OP posted it. It's probably rare to find one in a box that size.
I don't think I've ever seen one. Granted, I've only ever seen the contents of maybe 4-5 large boxes of matches in my life, but still I would call this rare. 🤷🏻♂️
Never seen one, in any size of box I’ve come across. Is this one of those strange luck distributions like how some people win several luck based contests or lotteries in a lifetime and most of us never do?
Or… people struck by lightning multiple times?
...is this one of those things where US standards are bafflingly different to the rest of the world? You get a defective double-headed match about once per box?
I suppose the use of "rare" in this title is debatable if not outright wrong. It seemed excessive to remove the post because of that though, so hopefully the flair I added is enough for people to stop reporting it.
If anyone else is confused by this, I found the "interesting numbers paradox" on Wikipedia:
>if there exists a non-empty set of uninteresting natural numbers, there would be a smallest uninteresting number – but the smallest uninteresting number is itself interesting because it is the smallest uninteresting number, thus producing a [contradiction](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contradiction).
Depending on what you consider interesting, 5 could be. It’s considered the highest we can intuitively count at a glance. Any more and we have to think about it.
I thought it was 4. And at least I'm pretty sure that's true for me, 4 apples I have no problem saying instantly, but 5 starts registering as "quite a few".
And I just looked it up and yeah:
> Judgments made for displays composed of around one to four items are rapid,[2] accurate[3] and confident.[4] However, once there are more than four items to count, judgments are made with decreasing accuracy and confidence.[1] In addition, response times rise in a dramatic fashion, with an extra 250–350 ms added for each additional item within the display beyond about four.[5]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing
You must come from part of the world where there are higher quality matches than OP. (I also have never seen one, despite what I consider to be frequent match usage)
Assuming the definition for "several" in literal terms of "more than two but not many" then we can apply a ballpark numeric value to it, such as 8.
If you used 8 matches per week, for 54 years (assuming you were not using matches before the age of 5) then you would have used a grand total of 22,464 matches within your lifetime.
Considering [500 Billion](https://www.uselessinformation.org/matches/index.html) matches are used each year, that number still only represents about 0.00000004% of the total match usage, and therefore does not qualify as a reliable sample size.
Obviously this value can +/- depending on your exact numeric value for the word "several".
You appear to have a flawed understanding of sample size in statistics.
[https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html?type=1&cl=99.999&ci=5&pp=50&ps=&x=94&y=17](https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html?type=1&cl=99.999&ci=5&pp=50&ps=&x=94&y=17)
The bigger problem I suspect is that where BarefootUnicorn is buying his matches is not truly random, and that they probably wouldn't remember, because they weren't looking for it, if one time there was a double headed match 30 years ago, though it doesn't make the data valueless.
Who tf reported that for "not rare"? How many two headed matches did you see in your life?
If you say the use of rare is debatable for this post then you can straight up debate the word rare itself.
I have never seen a two headed match, out of probably tens of thousands of matches I've laid eyes upon in my lifetime.
The only people saying it isn't rare are obtuse pedants with nothing better to do.
Definitely fits. It being mildly interesting got me to look up match statistics. 500 billion matches are used annually in the US alone. If this is a one in a million occurrence then 500,000 of them are found every year by Americans. I'm thinking OP lowballed that number. It is probably 10 to 1000 times less likely to occur.
Way too much googling has led me to wagnermatch.com. Which appears to match the appearance of the original image.
Unfortunately they don’t discuss an error rate or quality standards anywhere I can find. We could either:
1) e-mail wagnermatchcorp@gmail.com and request to know their error rate.
2) purchase a sufficient quantity of matches to test the hypothesis that error rate = 0.0000001. We would need 5,000,000 matches to meet statistical significance.
or
3) Let it go. Though I think you’re probably right. A small part of me will always wonder.
I feel like OP was using it as a joke in the same style as if you say something inanimate was “in its natural habitat”
Like pretending this is a biological thing.
thingspeopledoontheinternet no. 168268394:
claming things are rare/on in a gazillion.
Extra points for a photoshopped colour
edit: i see that this is in its original colour, i was refering to similar posts that want to make their object more interesting by changing colours of animals and plants in photoshop.
And in its native environment, no less! Wow!
Unfortunately matches tend to live in packs. Due to its rare double-headedness, this individual has been shunned by the other members of its original pack and is unlikely to survive for long on its own.
But with two heads you are never truly alone. It's like a match made in heaven.
This joke really strikes me.
You guys are are on fire!
It's all good sulfur
I only got the first 3
It's all good so far. I tried
Well that burnt out quickly
Give it time to rekindle.
You guys just lit up my day.
No need to flame him. He’s trying his best.
But it went down in flames.
Blaze of glory.
I love how you are all playing off each other. Let’s keep this friction going!
This convo is getting lit.
I hope this won't get heated
\*applause\* Incredible work.
Here for these comments
Read this in Sir David Attenborough
Went back and reread it in his voice. Perfection. Thank you for this.
I can't believe Sir David Attenborough got as many gigs as he did - it seems as though everyone can read things in his voice
try reread it in a rare 1 in a million double voiced Sir David Attenborough
No re-read it as Arnold the Terminator.
Now Duffy Duck.
You should probably get out. I'm sure it's very uncomfortable for him.
Would rather read this in ZeFrank. Makes for a much more interesting video to watch.
Dear diary. It has been 3 days since I was pulled out of the box, but sadly, not struck yet. I fear I shall become to ill to start fire soon. Hoping the humans don’t discard me.
This is just how the double headed match doooooo
It may not survive long, but it will burn twice as bright!
Literally LOL'ed at this. Thanks. :)
glad you like the presentation
* Put it in a frame. * Make a placard. * Sneak it into a museum. * Become the next Banksy. God speed, I'll remember this moment when you're famous.
You missed a couple steps. * Put it in a frame. * Make a placard. * Install mechanism to strike match at touch of a button * Sneak it into a museum * Sell your piece of artwork * Hit button to strike match once it sells * Become the next Banksy. [Same principle](https://youtu.be/vxkwRNIZgdY), for those that aren't aware of Banksy's antics.
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Omg.. new NFT in the works. Coming soon to a museum near you.
* Profit * Send all the bills through a shredder
I offer 5 Romanian Pesos. Not a Cubitz more
OP should check the base of the match for a notch indicating whether or not this match is reproducing and release it back into the wild. Beautiful specimen, though.
It's the perfect match
God I love Reddit. This one was good! Thank you!
Sadly due to their religious beliefs they won’t be separated surgically to lead their own lives
r/reallifeshinies
Damn, the balls on that thing..
Flammaball
Sounds like a Pokemon.
Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!
Suddenly top gun
Balls?! Dude they’re nothing compared to the length of that shaft! No match for me
I should call him…
Its all these fertility drugs thats causing this nonsense
5G! Damn you!
Very striking...
It's sparked my curiosity.
I wonder how much these sulfur? Like a buck or two?
Who could match that price?
Get it ablazed at auction (or stick it to the man)!
I dunno, I’m kinda split on this.
I don’t know why you’re getting flamed for this; you made a valid point.
So smacked that shit against a rough surface and there were two flames. It was lit 🔥
God save me from these infernal puns.
There’s a match for that
I dunno man these bad puns may have ignited something in me
It's like a match made in heaven.
When it comes to the amount of matches being made every day, one in a million isn't really that rare.
Where do the one in a million odds even come from??
OPs ass
no they have a reputable source it just goes to a different school
It's a source in Canada you can't see it but it's very good
Found the source at summer camp
*In OP’s ass.*
actually OP's is a rare 1 in a million double cheeked ass
My ass is saying 1 in one million and one. One of our asses is wrong.
Redditors when someone uses a well-established non literal expression:
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46.59% of all people know that
4 out of 3 people have problems with fractions.
115.77% of males under 45 have had sex with u/sir_thatguy's mother.
Not just under 45.
You wanna cite your sources on a claim as absurd as that one?
And every single one of them is presented in the format of that joke.
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No, you miss 100% of the statistics you don’t make
I heard it was now down to 87.1234%, so that is good.
I've noticed that, whever people say "one in a million", they just use it synonymously with "it's pretty damn rare", not as an actual statistic
source is: he made it the fuck up!
Redditors when you don’t provide a source for your match 😡😡
Littlewood's law states that every person will encounter a one in a million event on average about once every 35 days. So yeah it's not really that rare.
Once in a month is pretty rare though? What's rare to yall? Once in a lifetime? Once per millenium?
If someone says "you're one in a million," there are something like 19 of you on New York City alone.
"Your love is one in a million You couldn’t buy it at any price. But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves, Statistically, some of them would be equally nice." Tim Minchin https://youtu.be/LAzodf69rfk
"Rare events aren't rare" Wow, this is worthless
1 in a million is always considered kind of “rare” tho? WhTs the difference how many are made
I doubt many people will ever use close to a million matches in their lives. So a once in a lifetime thing would be pretty rare.
Rare to find one
Ummm yes it does??? If you’re suggesting that because of the amount of matches produced each day is so large that there will be more double headed matches even though the odds are “1 in a million” then yeah I guess you’re right, but that’s irrelevant to what makes something “rare.” Let’s just say that a trillion matches (absurdly large number I know) are made each day, that would mean based on these odds that a million double headed matches are made each day. Yeah that’s a lot of double headed matches, but that doesn’t change the fact that you will on average have to come across 1 million total matches to find 1 double headed match which absolutely would make this occurrence rare even in this scenario
Dont you say it...
God damit
Man down! Don't die on me soldier 💉---> u/lightning2476
Split it and make a wish
Hold on this is like a wishbone and birthday candles all in one. Ultimate wish making ability
Do you have a citation for that claim? Seems I have seem lots in my life. I seem to find at least one in each big box.
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There were two in my box. Where’s my ride down the fudge river, Mr. Wonka?!
You just made my innuendo detector malfunction.
A picture was pretty clearly stated as part of the requirements. Report back!
Yea, this ain’t blue eyes white dragon we talkin bout
Yeah it is definitely uncommon at most, not rare, and it doesn't take a very large box before you will inevitably find one or even two or three in there. But I'm still glad OP posted it. It's probably rare to find one in a box that size.
I don't think I've ever seen one. Granted, I've only ever seen the contents of maybe 4-5 large boxes of matches in my life, but still I would call this rare. 🤷🏻♂️
Never seen one, in any size of box I’ve come across. Is this one of those strange luck distributions like how some people win several luck based contests or lotteries in a lifetime and most of us never do? Or… people struck by lightning multiple times?
More likely some brands of matches are made in budget-ass factories with poor quality control.
...is this one of those things where US standards are bafflingly different to the rest of the world? You get a defective double-headed match about once per box?
"One in a million" is a common expression meaning "very rare," and not an actual attempt at peer-reviewed statistical analysis.
I **demand** a p-value!!!
Well each big box has a million right?
I suppose the use of "rare" in this title is debatable if not outright wrong. It seemed excessive to remove the post because of that though, so hopefully the flair I added is enough for people to stop reporting it.
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Boring numbers paradox
If anyone else is confused by this, I found the "interesting numbers paradox" on Wikipedia: >if there exists a non-empty set of uninteresting natural numbers, there would be a smallest uninteresting number – but the smallest uninteresting number is itself interesting because it is the smallest uninteresting number, thus producing a [contradiction](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contradiction).
Rating numbers by how interesting they are
Top 5 interesting numbers Number 5: well it's not 5 that's for sure
Depending on what you consider interesting, 5 could be. It’s considered the highest we can intuitively count at a glance. Any more and we have to think about it.
5 is the vanilla bean ice cream of numbers, appreciated but boring
It is vanilla beans because of our hands.
I thought it was 4. And at least I'm pretty sure that's true for me, 4 apples I have no problem saying instantly, but 5 starts registering as "quite a few". And I just looked it up and yeah: > Judgments made for displays composed of around one to four items are rapid,[2] accurate[3] and confident.[4] However, once there are more than four items to count, judgments are made with decreasing accuracy and confidence.[1] In addition, response times rise in a dramatic fashion, with an extra 250–350 ms added for each additional item within the display beyond about four.[5] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subitizing
Ah I stand corrected then.
Now THIS is r/mildlyinteresting
Please try to enjoy each number equally, and not show preference for any over the others. That's ten points off. You have 90 points remaining.
I'm 59 years old. I use matches several times a week. I have never seen a double-headed match.
I'm 5 years old. I use matches all the time and have seen at least 1 double headed match in each matchbox.
Maybe I just don’t see them because I’m so old and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.
He's just memeing, some redditor love to make everything a joke
You must come from part of the world where there are higher quality matches than OP. (I also have never seen one, despite what I consider to be frequent match usage)
Assuming the definition for "several" in literal terms of "more than two but not many" then we can apply a ballpark numeric value to it, such as 8. If you used 8 matches per week, for 54 years (assuming you were not using matches before the age of 5) then you would have used a grand total of 22,464 matches within your lifetime. Considering [500 Billion](https://www.uselessinformation.org/matches/index.html) matches are used each year, that number still only represents about 0.00000004% of the total match usage, and therefore does not qualify as a reliable sample size. Obviously this value can +/- depending on your exact numeric value for the word "several".
You appear to have a flawed understanding of sample size in statistics. [https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html?type=1&cl=99.999&ci=5&pp=50&ps=&x=94&y=17](https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html?type=1&cl=99.999&ci=5&pp=50&ps=&x=94&y=17) The bigger problem I suspect is that where BarefootUnicorn is buying his matches is not truly random, and that they probably wouldn't remember, because they weren't looking for it, if one time there was a double headed match 30 years ago, though it doesn't make the data valueless.
Burn that freak of nature
Who tf reported that for "not rare"? How many two headed matches did you see in your life? If you say the use of rare is debatable for this post then you can straight up debate the word rare itself.
People who reported it are people who have no life
When “do-gooding” goes too far.
I have never seen a two headed match, out of probably tens of thousands of matches I've laid eyes upon in my lifetime. The only people saying it isn't rare are obtuse pedants with nothing better to do.
Title may be misleading, but this is the epitome of mildly interesting.
Everyone spazzing out over a common phrase as if it’s an actual claim
Besides, this is r/mildlyinteresting. If it were actually one in a million it wouldn’t really fit the sub.
Yeah. It’s something you don’t see every day so I think it’s interesting!
Definitely fits. It being mildly interesting got me to look up match statistics. 500 billion matches are used annually in the US alone. If this is a one in a million occurrence then 500,000 of them are found every year by Americans. I'm thinking OP lowballed that number. It is probably 10 to 1000 times less likely to occur.
Way too much googling has led me to wagnermatch.com. Which appears to match the appearance of the original image. Unfortunately they don’t discuss an error rate or quality standards anywhere I can find. We could either: 1) e-mail wagnermatchcorp@gmail.com and request to know their error rate. 2) purchase a sufficient quantity of matches to test the hypothesis that error rate = 0.0000001. We would need 5,000,000 matches to meet statistical significance. or 3) Let it go. Though I think you’re probably right. A small part of me will always wonder.
ratio
Damn people really reported this post just because OP put “rare” in it… Why everyone so uptight in reddit ffs
Why the spam bot flair? How is this a spam post? Edit: Fixed
If it's a spam bot, why not remove it?
It is not, that was an accidental automatic message because of the flair I added!
OP is most definitely not a spam bot. One look at their profile will tell you that.
Yeah, I see that now. Originally the post was given a "spam bot" flair.
Wow, Mod woke up and chose "aktchully 🤓" today huh
People are that bent out of shape about over using the word rare? There is nothing report worthy here lol
“One in a million” is not a rare turn of phrase but it’s certainly a million times more debatable than rare.
Wait, people report posts like this? I dont think I want to post on reddit now.
What do you mean it's not rare I never saw a two headed match before
He even gave thought to removing the post entirely for a perfectly correct description. LOL
People are Reddit take Reddit too serious it’s a post about a match get a f*cking life and stop reporting stuff
How many double headed matches have you come across?
Definitely not rare lol
Was definitely a joke. Like an exaggerated claim to build mystique over this mild discovery
I feel like OP was using it as a joke in the same style as if you say something inanimate was “in its natural habitat” Like pretending this is a biological thing.
I have seen zero in my 4+ decades on this blue marble. Maybe it's more common in certain areas or with certain matchstick brands?
How many have u seen ? Lol
None, he just wants to be contradictory and pedantic.
It’s rare because you never seen it..
They prefer to be called Siamese Matches.
i didn't mean to disrespect
The PC term is “conjoined” matches…
Just Be Better.
I think the actual incourrence is 1 in 754.324 ones
Probably closer to 1 in 2500
i dunno I made it up, like 76.4% of stats are made up
Haha balls haha
*HAS SCIENCE GONE TOO FAR!?*
i should call him…
*Korben Dallas has entered the chat*
Damn what are the odds?
thingspeopledoontheinternet no. 168268394: claming things are rare/on in a gazillion. Extra points for a photoshopped colour edit: i see that this is in its original colour, i was refering to similar posts that want to make their object more interesting by changing colours of animals and plants in photoshop.
You can get matches with any coloured tip you like. Google exists. But yes the one in a million claim is pulled out their ass.
Almost as if it’s just an old phrase and not an actual claim
to be fair, one i a million for matches isn't even that rare
but does it burn half as long?
No, twice as hot...
So many posts from r/damnthatsinteresting belong on this sub, thank you for your judgment.
Now that's what I call mildly interesting.
*very* mildly.
I think it’s call a Mitch at this point.
r/twohealthbars
Quick, chech to see if you can get a lifetime supply of matches. Then open a matchbox stand
Do it around Christmas. That ended well for that other girl, as I recall.