Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Years ago when Saturday Night Live was funny they had a skit about a guy with a computer. It was an early one, maybe before the IBM PC, and the character was quite the nerd. In the skit he'd been laboring away on his computer, creating a wonderful program. When it was done it displayed a cheesy line drawing of a bowler and announced, in big letters, "You have six hats."

Then, below the picture, it listed his six hats.

That cracked me up as it showed just exactly how useless computers can be and may have been the genesis of my belief that just because you can do something, that doesn't make it a good idea.

Computers, as we've come to know them are very good at record keeping. By that I mean filing. They're also quick at arithmetic, and can add very quickly. Oh, and less we forget, subtract, too, but that's about it.

I'm reminded of how quickly computers can make errors today when I glanced at my stats and saw that today, for the first time ever, I received over 1,000 hits on this blog.

I counter-predict.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, also years ago the LA Times had a columnist Jack Smith, who was funny, witty, poignant, and popular. Each year he'd list some of the more famous (but no more accurate) psychics and relay their predictions for the coming year. It was the typical crap, who would be getting married, giant meteors hitting the earth, floods, deaths, and for nearly every one Jack would proclaim "I counter-predict."

He created that phrase as a shorthand of predicting the opposite, and it's stuck with me for years. Whenever Jack totalled up the tally at the end of the year, it should be no surprise that he was far more successful in his counter-predictions than any psychic was with their predictions, and I now use the term to reflect my disbelief.

The only way Crenellated Flotsam could draw 1,000 visitors is if I were giving away $20 bills. I suspect a new horde of robots have been unleashed, but I may add a PayPal (tm) link and see if I can con everyone into sending me a buck.