Minai99

Hilarious Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Miscellaneae

So I started watching Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei this week, and eventually made it to the first episode of Zoku. About halfway through the episode,  I paused and gaped a little bit as I saw something that I found personally very funny. After copying down the quote verbatim, I decided to google it, and found out that it was an answer to someone's question on Ask.com. Personally, I've never studied Fuzzy Logic or Fuzzy Set theory, although I've had exposure to both set theory and probability, and would certainly take a class in either of the above if given the chance. (Or I could just go to my school's library and probably find a book on it :p)  The quote is this:

Fuzzy logic is derived from fuzzy set theory

Dealing with reasoning that is approximate

Rather than precisely deduced from classical predicate logic.

It can be thought of as the application side of fuzzy set theory,

Dealing with well thought out real world expert values

For a complex problem (Klir 1997).

Degrees of truth are often confused with probabilities.

However, they are distinct conceptually.

Fuzzy truth represents membership in vaguely defined sets,

Not likelihood of some events or conditions.

For example, if a 100 ml glass contains 30 ml of water,

Then for two fuzzy sets, Empty and Full,

One might define the glass as being 0.7 empty and 0.3 full.

Note that the concept of emptiness would be subjective

And thus would depend on the observer or designer.

Another designer might equally well design a set membership function,

where the glass would be considered full for all values down to 50 ml.

A probabilistic setting would first define a scalar variable

For the fullness of the glass.

And second conditional distributions describing the probability

That someone would call the glass full

Given a specific fullness level.

Note that the conditioning can be achieved

By having a specific observer

That randomly selects the label for the glass,

A distribution over deterministic observers, or both.

While fuzzy logic avoids talking about randomness

In the context, this simplification at the same time

Obscures what is exactly meant

By the statement the glass is 0.3 full.

Anyways, this really cool kinda "easter egg" in the show inspired me to write this blog. After watching through the first season, it occurred to me that , while I was entertained at a basic level in the show, there were probably a lot of interesting miscellaneous facts and jokes throughout the show that I either missed because it went by so quickly, or because I didn't understand it. For those of you who have seen Sayonara Zetsubou or any of its'derivatives, what are some of your favorite interesting miscellanea that caught your attention, and made the show an amazing, hilarious, and possibly informative experience? All responses related to this, even if it doesn't directly answer that question, are welcome! :D