rattus rattus’ blog

Change an assumption
and save the world.

— Heinz von Foerster, 1970

Quoted after Paul Schröder who 2009-11-14 at the Heinz von Foerster Congress 09 said he found this quote several times in his notes.

99% of all numbers provided to support an argument — be it in scientific or popular media — have no value whatsoever unless they come with proper mention of at least the confidence intervals, the size of the sample and its properties, or other means of making reliability comparable such as standard deviation.

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I guess I do have a somewhat weird sense of humor. Anyway, as the headline already suggests, this is serious matter. Your very health is at stake. Not just science.

You are 80% less likely to die from a meteor landing on your head if you wear a bicycle helmet all day, by Ben Goldrace, Bad Science blog, 2008-11-15

And, yes, this great posting had me laughing from the headline to the end :D
Thanks, Ben.

For those who know what science means in its very original sense it is obvious that the exact sciences are at least the lesser of two evils. No one wants contused lacerations.

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[Dow Jones Industrial Average Index from 1900 until today on a logarithmic scale; chart courtesy of StockCharts.com, click the image for details.]

Now that there is so much talk about the (financial) crisis I see that the word crisis of course shares its etymology with one of my most favorite words: critique.
Come on folks, let’s have a closer look. Let’s be critical about the “crisis”.

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Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest.

— *nix fortune

Today’s *nix computer fortune:

What you don’t know can hurt you,
only you won’t know it.