lingua mortua

Aug 19
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Why a tiebreaker in gymnastics undermines the scoring system:

When the FIG (Federation Internationale de Gymnastique) revamped the scoring system, they did so to insure that the new scores were as fair as possible.  1 Judge is responsible for the A, or difficulty score, which is essentially a tally of the ten most difficult skills in the routine, plus connection bonuses.  6 Judges are responsible for the B, or execution score, which consists of deductions out of a possible 10.0.  Of these six B scores, the high and the low are dropped, and the remaining 4 are averaged.

FIG says that this formula is “most fair.”  However, when you introduce the concept of a tiebreaker, you are looking for a way to get different results.  There is no way that these “new” results can be “equally fair,” otherwise they would be numerically equal to the original results.  

What this means is that a tie is broken by deriving either a “more” or “less” fair score.  If the tie breaking proceedure, which consists of further reducing the number of scores given until the results are no longer equivalent, produces a “more” fair result, why not use this superior formulation in the first place?  If the reduction produces a result that is actually inferior to the original score - that is, if the result is less fair, more biased, or more subjective - then why break the tie at all?

Either way, tie breaking in this manner is a slap in the face to rationality, and a black mark on the sport.

Aug 18
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Apparently I missed this meme the first time around.  I laughed so hard it got painful. (via the previously posted Internet Meme Timeline)
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Memestream: The constant flow of internet phenomena across the public consciousness of the wired. The information of the memestream is widely known by members of most internet subcultures, yet remains peripheral to the mainstream.
— Me (You heard it here first!!)
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A copper cannister reacts to the unclaimed ashes of a mental patient.  Photo by David Maisel (via BLDGBLOG: Library of Dust)
A copper cannister reacts to the unclaimed ashes of a mental patient.  Photo by David Maisel (via BLDGBLOG: Library of Dust)
Aug 15
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Anastacia Liukin, all-around gold medalist! So deserved!
Aug 08
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Aug 07
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Conventionally, scientific hypotheses are considered “scientific” if and only if they can be falsified by some experiment (at least in principle)…That’s the part I couldn’t get my head around. How could you ever design an experiment that would disprove future causal influence on a current condition? I just can’t imagine how one could do that, but I am open to suggestions.
Aug 06
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