Michael Flynn's Blog, page 33

The search for weenie p's

On the Reasons Why Correlation Does Not Constitute a Scientific Law

The Painter of Light

If Thomas Kinkade had painted SF art:

The Problem of Evil

This account appeared in Jerry Pournelle's mail bag.

Philadelphia woman faces $600-a-day fine for feeding needy neighborhood kids
Published August 14, 2012
A Pennsylvania woman who offers free lunch every day to low-income children in her neighborhood faces a $600-a-day fine next summer if she continues because she did not clear the food giveaway with township officials.

Angela Prattis donates her time to distribute the meals — supplied by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia — and adheres to strict paperwork, like filling out weekly reports and being visited bi-weekly from a state worker, MyFoxPhilly.com reports. (Philadelphia News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29 <http://www.myfoxphilly.com/>)

"Angela saw it as a way to contribute to the community in a positive way," Anne Ayella, a member of the archdiocese, said. "There was nothing in it for her."

Prattis laughed and said, "I don’t make a dime."

Prattis lived in the township for three years. She reportedly distributes the meals to the 60 or so children at a gazebo on her property during the summer months, when children are home from school.

The Delaware County Times reports that another resident alerted the council about the distribution a few weeks ago. The council investigated and ruled that the practice is not permitted without a variance, the paper reported.

"You have houses here, the roofs are falling in, and they could be focused on a lot of more serious issues than me feeding children," she said.

Chester Township, which has a per capita income of $19,000 a year, says Prattis lives in a residential zone, hence handing out food to children is not allowed. The township says she needs to go before a zoning board to ask for a variance, which would cost her up to $1,000 in administrative fees.

"I don’t think it’s my responsibility to go to her to say, ‘why don’t you come to talk to me to see if there’s something that we can do to help your program,’" William Pisarek, the Chester Township business manager, said.

Prattis told The Delaware County Times that she is not going to stop feeding the children in the area.

There is a discussion elsewhere on the web regarding the problem of evil.  One need look no further than this evil woman deliberately and maliciously feeding poor children without government permission!   Worse yet, she was working with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and therefore had Catholic Cooties. 

Then there is William Pisare, who doesn't think it’s his responsibility to see if there’s something that we can do to help her program.  In which circle of Hell did Dante put the likes of him? 

Captive Dreams

Amazon dot com is pining for customer reviews of CAPTIVE DREAMS.  Do not leave them in the pines. 

The Wonderful World of Statistics - Part I

Yes, it's that time once again.  So sit yourself down, kick your feet up, and pop a couple of brewskies, and ready yourself for:

The Allegory of the Fluoropolymers
Once upon a time, when the world was younger and TOF still had to work for a living, TOF came to the Land of the Fluoropolymers somewhere in the wilds of central New Jersey.  Among the many sterling qualities of these fluoropolymers - indeed of all polymers and many other substances beside - is the viscosity of the material.  Viscosity may be thought of as the flow of that which is thick.  High viscosity is "thick" and low is "thin."  It is measured (usually) in centipoise (cps) although TOF has been in situations measured in poise and (once, memorably) in which it was measured in kilopoise.  (The latter involved not liquids dripped through a Zahn cup, but solid plastic pellets pushed through an orifice.  TOF will leave you with that thought.)  The science fiction masterpieces of Flynn have sometimes been called not "hard SF" but "high viscosity SF," much like the wit of TOF, which is also said to be thick. 
Read more »

War Among the Pagans

(h/t Mark Shea)Leprechauns (lupercorns) are tricksy and deceiving.  Could this be why Loki always was trying to trick Thor?  Was Loki a Lu(per)Co(rn)?  Inquiring minds want to know. 

Of course, we all know that this is simply a prefigure of the War in Heaven between Michael - an Irish name, right? - and Lucifer.  And if we remember that the classical Latin c was pronounced always as k, there is some hidden relationship between Loki and Luci(fer). 

See?  It all makes sense.

On the Razor's Edge

Received the following intelligence from a Knowledgeable Source:

On the Razor’s Edge will publish next July. I saw some very cool-looking art the other day. Not quite final yet,

As regards the cover, I sense a Running Motif (see above).  I can make a wild guess regarding the background, but suspect that the foreground may feature a nicely rounded space ship.  Betting line forms on the left.  But let us recall the words of Ravn Olafsdottr in Lion's Mouth: 

Attend my tale and learn
Why once great cities burn!

Will red be the dominant color this time?  Inquiring minds want to know.  

A Foretaste:

Chubby Chickers

Stressed Men Prefer Chubby Chicks

The estimable Dr. Briggs reveals yet another giant leap for mankind in the course of Science Marching Onward.  Old fogies like TOF can remember when Science used to March On to moon landings or cures for smallpox; but then we live in rather more timid times.  That does not prevent intrepid researchers from reaching universal conclusions from limited samples. especially since they achieved Statistical Significance and used really-truly super-scientificalistic fMRI brain scans!  If they had a digital read-out that would be the cream in their ever-loving coffee. 

Unmentioned is the niggling problem of sampling theory: in what was were the 81 WEIRD students representative of any population larger than themselves?  The conclusions of a sample can only be extended to the population from which the sample was randomly drawn.  Dr. Briggs tells us:

Here’s a title for you, “BMI Not WHR Modulates BOLD fMRI Responses in a Sub-Cortical Reward Network When Participants Judge the Attractiveness of Human Female Bodies.” How about that? I had my money on WHR.

What? Waist-to-hip ratio, of course. The preferred marker of attractiveness for many men. I myself like to reward my sub-cortical network with larger WHR and not higher BMI. But that’s just me, and I’ve been under a lot of stress.

The remaining drollery can be found here.

today's feast

Commemoration of St. Edith Stein
a.k.a., Sr. Teresa Benedicta a Cruce

b. 12 October 1891, Breslau, Germany

d. 9 August 9 1942, Auschwitz-Birkenau 

 

“Come, Rosa, we’re going for our people.”

Bad Data! Bad!

Started a new fact article for ANALOG entitled "Spanking Bad Data Won't Make Them Behave" about the problems of definition, measurement, sampling, and adjustment of data, illustrated with various personal experiences from my storied youth. 

The good news is that it is up to 5000 words already.  The bad news is that the standard limit for such articles is 4000 words.  And I'm not finished yet.  Ah, well.  I must hone me boning knife.  

An excerpt from the first draft: