Of bookshelves and statistics

[Mauro]

Thank you for this understandable write-up. I feel your pain on grasping the concepts.

May we see your collection of periodicals, or are they not suitable for all ages?

Hahahaha loool, no no don't worry, they are quite harmless. They are You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., an Italian science fiction magazine published from the early 1950s to, I think, today. If it's okay for you I send you a link to a website which holds all the cover images (1700 numbers!): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (mine are tucked away at the top of a cupboard). They really started publishing with a certain height and a yellow back, then the height was reduced and the back turned red, then more reduction and the back turned white with a coloured lozenge around the issue number, then the lozenge disappeared and only the number remained, etc. You can tell at glance the time they were published just by looking at height and colour of their backs. To be fair, they are more akin to the different sections of the VMS, with abrupt jumps, rather than to a gradual gradient along bifolios, but at least it's a concept easier to grab than multivariate analysis formulae  

I have them from my late teens, an (incomplete) collection, around 600 issues iirc, with some from the 50s, a good quantity from the 60s and most of them from the 70s. I also had issue number #1, but I gave it as a gift to a friend.