rejected posts

Msc Kvetch/PhilStock: TSA to remove nudie scanners from airports

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Mayo

headlessTSAOsis Systems (OSIS) up $2.90 to $70.55 today after it reached an agreement with the TSA regarding its Rapiscan Automated Target Recognition software. It’s been creeping up since the drop to around $50*, see my Nov. 18, 2012 post, after it was disclosed that the TSA was investigating whether it had falsified test results of the Rapiscan software used in its backscatter full body (airport) scanners. But I see no revelation one way or another as to whether the company was guilty of manipulating the testing of its system. In fact, Bloomberg reports today that:

“The decision to cancel the Rapiscan software contract and remove its scanners wasn’t related to an agency probe of whether the company faked testing data on the software fix.”

Presumably, the case has disappeared, or so it seems.

TSA to remove nudie scanners from airports because they couldn’t make them less nekkid (POSTED ON JANUARY 18, 2013 BY MARY KATHARINE HAM)

A minor victory for those of us who think security theater shouldn’t look like a Pussycat Theater. If you’re ineffectively protecting us, we should at least have the Continue reading →

Categories: Misc Kvetching, phil stock, rejected posts | 1 Comment

Msc kvetch: unfair but lawful discrimination (vs the irresistibly attractive)

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Mayo

Photo on 12-22-12 at 12.31 PMIs it really “a victory for family values” when it is ruled that a male boss may fire a female employee solely because it is claimed she posed an “irresistible attraction” to him (and thus a threat to his marriage)?  Maybe it would be better to do something to enable this man to acquire the free will to “resist” starting an affair with a female employee of 10 years who had no interest in an affair with him. I guess she could have put a bag over herself… What do you think?

Iowa court rules boss can fire employee he considers an ‘irresistible attraction’

Published December 22, 2012

Associated Press

A dentist acted legally when he fired an assistant that he found attractive simply because he and his wife viewed the woman as a threat to their marriage, the all-male Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The court ruled 7-0 that bosses can fire employees they see as an “irresistible attraction,” even if the employees have not engaged in flirtatious behavior or otherwise done anything wrong. Such firings may be unfair, but they are not unlawful discrimination under the Iowa Civil Rights Act because they are motivated by feelings and emotions, not gender, Justice Edward Mansfield wrote. Continue reading →

Categories: Misc Kvetching, rejected posts | 8 Comments

Clinical Trial Statistics Doomed by Mayan Apocalypse?

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Mayo

I don’t know what kind of adjustment of p-values might be required in a case like this, but here’s an excerpt from “LiveScience”:17923-7DayForecast

Mayan Apocalypse Dooms Medical Research: By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

….As part of the Canadian Medical Association Journal’s lighthearted Christmas issue, oncologist Paul Wheatley-Price and his colleagues wrote about a “study” considering the effect of a world-ending doomsday on medical clinical trials, which are research studies with strict guidelines meant to test the safety and effectiveness of a treatment or device on humans.

The conclusion? Mayan Doomsday “is bad,” say the authors. The obliteration of the human race is going to make it very tough to see a difference in survival in people recieving experimental treatments versus those who aren’t. [2012 Mayan Apocalypse (Not): Full News & Coverage]

“If the world’s going to come to an end, you won’t have time to see the difference, ’cause it will all just fall apart,” Wheatley-Price told LiveScience. Continue reading →

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New Kvetch (and Query): Code Doc

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Mayo

CodeDoc: Kvetch and Query

I scarcely heard my Mac Air laptop slipping ever so gently off the slide of my sensuede recliner as I moved to answer a phone this morning, and couldn’t believe that a gentle little slip-slide could devastate the screen, causing a garish puncture-like black hole in the screen: a crater with jagged lines rippling outward.  (After all the travel, planes and ferries left it intact). Did you ever have this happen? Did I note the drop was really gentle? Continue reading →

Categories: Misc Kvetching, rejected posts | Tags: | 4 Comments

Are you butter off now?

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Mayo

“Are you butter off now? Deconstructing the butter bust of the President” D. Mayo

I thought the sand sculpture of the President was strange, but this unsalted butter bust of the President being wheeled around Chicago (under the banner of “Harvest”) seems downright creepy.

“If you see a yellow-ish sculpture of a man’s head rolling through the Loop Friday afternoon, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you: It really is a bust of President Barack Obama made of butter.”

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Butter-Bust-of-Obama-Takes-to-Chicago-Streets-175971941.html#ixzz2AWegVEhW

 “Though one would be right to say that artist Bob Kling is buttering up the President with his high-fat bust of his likeness, the act shouldn’t be considered an endorsement. Continue reading →

Categories: danger, rejected posts | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

Phil Faux

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Mayo

Why is faux finish rendering better than the real thing?  (to me at any rate) What makes trompe l’oeil (“deceive the eye”) so cool? Today, after more than a year of planning, the trompe-l’oeil mural we designed was installed.* For the past decade or so, interior decorating, wall-unit design,  and furnishing of our places have been the main outlets for my artistic interests; when we acquired the condo a couple years ago I felt the terra cotta carvings outside should be brought inside somehow, hence this project. Now, through trompe-l’oeil sleight of hand, the Beaux-Arts sculpture that graces the building’s façade now graces my walls. There’s even a faux volume of EGEK in a faux crevice above the statue’s head. Continue reading →

Categories: phil art/fashion, rejected posts | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

Msc Kvetch: tsa retaliatory pat downs

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Mayo

I think it’s true. The TSA retaliates against travelers for disobedience, a “bad attitude” or for not showing sufficient deference, especially in certain big city airports. Having a bad attitude can just mean being “a female optout” to begin with, requiring someone (of the right sex) to come from afar to do the invasive pat down. Last time,although the person doing the pat down was a woman, they asked if it was ok for these two men to watch. TWO! Perhaps they were in training. They were intensely interested. I couldn’t see why these guys should be watching my pat down, but I figured I’d be further punished if I objected. I have never worn a dress during the era of scanners, but wonder how horrible that would be. I may try it. So far the worst I’ve done (aside from engage in futile arguing in Europe once when they wouldn’t let me opt out)  is bring copies of materials on the risks of the whole body scanners, leaving copies for others. Continue reading →

Categories: Misc Kvetching, rejected posts | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

Stat on a Hot Tin Roof (statistical theater of the absurd reblog)

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Mayo

Statistical Theater of the Absurd: “Stat on a Hot Tin Roof”? (Rejected Post Feb 20, 2012)

Dear Reader: Not having been at this very long, I don’t know if it’s common for bloggers to collect a pile of rejected posts that one thinks better of before posting. Well, I began to generate such posts, and eventually created a blog within a blog (first on private). Some initially rejected posts were even rejected for the “rejected posts” blog, but most are here. It seems fitting to reblog my very first “rejected post” as my very first rejected post, particularly since we have recently discussed George Barnard.  Sincerely, D. G. Mayo

Originally posted on February 20, 2012 by Mayo Edit

Did you ever consider how some of the colorful exchanges among better-known names in statistical foundations could be the basis for high literary drama in the form of one-act plays (even if appreciated by only 3-7 people in the world)? (Think of the expressionist exchange between Bohr and Heisenberg in Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen, except here there would be no attempt at all to popularize—only published quotes and closely remembered conversations would be included, with no attempt to create a “story line”.)  Somehow I didn’t think so. But rereading some of Savage’s high-flown praise of Birnbaum’s “breakthrough” argument (for the Likelihood Principle) today, I was swept into a “(statistical) theater of the absurd” mindset. Continue reading →

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Rejected Post: The Elba palindrome: Myth or reality 4-27-12

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Mayo


On the Palindromist (on line mag) I found, to my surprise, that they were searching for the actual author of the paindrome “Able was I ere I saw Elba,” denying it was Napolean:

“Able was I ere I saw Elba” – 1860s (NO, it was not Napoleon. He was French, remember? Source: O.V. Michaelsen)”

But that isn’t exactly telling evidence against, especially given that in a museum on Elba, within a house Napolean lived in, it says otherwise. I mean, I don’t know how it would look in French, but why couldn’t it have been in English? Therefore, pending further research, I will continue the palindrome feature on this the errorstatistics.com site.

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Statistical Theater of the Absurd: “Stat on a Hot Tin Roof”? (Rejected Post Feb 20)

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Mayo

Dear Reader: Not having been at this very long, I don’t know if it’s common for bloggers to collect a pile of rejected posts that one thinks better of before posting. Well, here’s one that belongs up in a “rejected post” page (and will be tucked away soon enough), but since we have so recently posted the Fisher–Neyman–Pearson “triad”, the blog-elders of Elba have twisted my elbow (repeatedly) to share this post, from back in the fall of 2011, London. Sincerely, D. Mayo

Egon Pearson on a Gate (by D. Mayo)

Did you ever consider how some of the colorful exchanges among better-known names in statistical foundations could be the basis for high literary drama in the form of one-act plays (even if appreciated by only 3-7 people in the world)? (Think of the expressionist exchange between Bohr and Heisenberg in Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen, except here there would be no attempt at all to popularize—only published quotes and closely remembered conversations would be included, with no attempt to create a “story line”.)  Somehow I didn’t think so. But rereading some of Savage’s high-flown praise of Birnbaum’s “breakthrough” argument (for the Likelihood Principle) today, I was swept into a “(statistical) theater of the absurd” mindset. Continue reading →

Categories: phil stat, rejected posts | Tags: , | Leave a comment

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