Good morning, how can I help you? ** Hello. Now, this might seem an extremely blunt question, but the bloke at the door wasn't too communicative. So; am I dead? **Gosh, sorry about that. It's a lot of pressure I suppose, being right up there in front. Still, you would have thought you'd develop a certain... manner - it's easy to judge, isn't it, but I'm sure I wouldn't want his job... Anyway, yes, you are. OK. Well, OK. I thought so. All the... everything... Do you need a moment? ** Hmm? Uh... no, actually. Not much point, is there? No, so, uh... what happens now? *Well, whatever really... what did you used to do? * Don't you know? *Why would I know? * Well... isn't that your job? *So you don't know my job, but I should know yours? * No, no. Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. I suppose I have a few preconceptions about how Heaven works. *Who said this was Heaven? * What?! *I'm joking! I'm joking! Anyway, don't worry, most people do. Have preconceptions, I mean. Everyone, really. * Right. Well... I was a data analyst at Banterson & Hedges. *I see. * Sounds a bit of a waste now I say it to, like, a celestial being. *No, no, not at all. * I mean, you try, don't you? There are mountains out there, and all sorts of people spend their time discovering diseases and hang gliding off things and having epic romances. Everyone used to say I was pretty good at drawing, but... I mean, I'm also good at analysing data. Well, I'm OK. Was OK. *Hey, hey. Nothing wrong with that. * Exactly! *People need data analysed sometimes. They must do, they pay for it. * Exactly! They must do. Keeps the world... going. Probably. *Anyway, I'm not here to rip on you for your boring life. * Thank you. What? *You know what, no, seriously, you know what? Here, let me show you something. You might find it interesting. * What's this? *Your stats. * My... oh, wow! *You like it? * I mean... it's a little overwhelming, but... yeah. 'Kilograms of meat consumed...' sweet Jesus! Sorry. *Nah, don't worry about it. * I ate seventeen squids? Squid? Squids? *Apparently. * I don't even like squid. I'm sure I wouldn't have had it even seventeen times. How did-. I walk- woah. I walked 512,762 miles. That's a really long way! *Good for you buddy. Hey, have a scroll. * Five sexual partners? I was sure it was... oh. Oh. **What? Hey, there's your average time- I... nothing. Let's keep going. What? 'Number of paper bags torn: 103'. Why would I want to know that? *Why not? * It's just... I mean, look at some of these. 'Average poop time: 3 minutes, 23 seconds'. *You can compare to the global average with this button. * I don't - I'm OK, thanks. 'Total chairs sat on'? *Ooh, what was it? * Who cares? *You know, for some people, that's zero. Think about that. * What are these for, anyway? *Well, we can use them for all sorts of things. Actually, I thought maybe you could help. * Really? Well... sure. If I can. What do you need? *Well, we're trying to trawl through the data to try and present something to Planning. Make thing- y'know, a little bit better, where we can. * Oh, wow. That's great. Like, correlation, trends... hey, have you tried running a normal distribution? You might find- *Yeah. You're not the first data analysist to have ever died. * Oh. Sorry. *Not at all, we'd love to have more help. What sort of project would you like to work on? * I mean, I suppose I'd really like to do something important. What about, just... happiness? You know, what trends do we see in people with higher levels of happiness, how can we increase those- *Mmm. To be honest with you, that's kind of an old one. We've got it wrapped up as much as it will be I think. * Oh. *Yeah. * Well... what is it? *What's what? * The trend, the, the formula. How does it work? *So I take it you have no compunctions about the dual nature of your enquiry? That once you know the truth, you will never be able to not know. * Nope. *No concerns about ruining the great mystery of life? * I'm dead. *Well, true. That is true. * So what is it? *Average distance to a fish. * ...what? *Yeah, basically. I mean, you can refine it with a couple of different variables, but if you weight them too heavily it gets unpredictable... average distance to fish is the primary correlate with happiness. * That can't possibly be true. *Why not? * Well... like, alive, or dead? *Alive, obviously. * Obviously? So, if I get nearer to a, a, an ornamental pond, I'll be happier. *Of course not. It's the average distance, over the course of your life, to the nearest fish. Factoring in other variables to ease out the kinks, but this is the strongest similar trend among happy people we've found. * Look, what about... you know, family? Or... wealth? Life satisfaction? Dignity? *Nope, nope, circular reasoning, and if you can tell me how to measure that, you will be a big hit around here. * But... I mean... that can't be true. *Well, it is. * Why would fish make people happy? *Who's saying that? Come on, I thought you were a data analyst. Correlation only. Oh, cheer up. I mean, there are some addendums which make it work a bit cleaner - and it depends what you're looking for. Filtering by wild fish gets you the best match for happiness. But, people with fishtanks are much happier than people who are otherwise similar, but who do not have fishtanks. Interesting, no? * Huh. You know, I always thought fishtanks were a bit... sad. *Very common misconception. May have caused untold misery. * Well what about dentists? Lots of them have fishtanks, and don't they have a really high suicide rate? *Well, if you're going to start factoring in dentists, I don't know what you think you're going to find. *