One one one one that's what god said.
If I didn't think math was stupid I'd
attribute yer fascination to Bedford's
Law. (robotwisdom's got the link
soory I'm so slack)
- frank 6-11-2001 6:23 am

Isn't it "Benford?" I had a quick link to a post on the FoRK mailing list about this weird quirk of math (there's also the follow up on FoRK about why you can't use it to gamble on horse races which is a use I immediately thought of when I first saw this.) I believe I've read other places that some organizations use Benford's law to spot fraud (counterfit invoices and such need to take into account the law or else the fakery will be very apparent under analysis - not enough leading ones.)
- jim 6-11-2001 4:32 pm

Benford's Law
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990710/thepowerof.html
When I saw yer post I was sure that Bedford must be correct
but no. Remembering Bedford over Benford is I believe an example
of a concept called "promotion" where
a voiced consonate "promotes" itself over an unvoiced.
If I were smarter I could type & explain
how this connects to Laura Riding's idea
that meaning actually does reside in words
& words are not signs. Keep up the tireless labor Jim, I'm awed.


- frank 6-11-2001 9:33 pm

I think I can get away with that "if I were smarter" b.s., but I'm not so sure you can. Anyway, I'd love to see you take a swing at connecting that to L(R)J.

I'm loving you posting anything here, any way you want. That said, if you want to make a link (let's say out of the words 'new scientist') just type it like this:

<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990710/thepowerof.html">new scientist</a>

[edited 4:27. Sorry, my link example turned into an actual link. Should be visible again now.]
- jim 6-11-2001 10:06 pm

Goaded by flattery Frank launches
his vaingloriousness into the Penetralium
Of Eternal Mystery. A few years ago
I heard a lecture on mushroom taxonomy
by Gary Lincoff where he argued the
concept of species based on binomial
nomenclature, that is Homo sapiens
or Amanita muscaria was being seriously
eroded by DNA testing. Things long
thought to be closely related were turning
out to be not related at all & things
thought to be totally unrelated were
turning out to be , gasp, the same thing.
An ugly toadstool long thought to be
a special genus, under genetic scrutiny,
turned out to be the exact same "thing"
as Amanita muscaria but had a weird
enviromentally caused case of arrested
developement & never got to be all red
& lovely. Things got even weirder. Some
toadstools showed one kind of DNA in
their mycelium & another in their fruit &
yet another in their spores. Deconstucted
taxonomies make it impossible to name these
things he claimed. What can we possibly name
this toadstool he proclaimed. I shouted, Ed.
Each thing deserves it's own name. There
is no end to things. They all warrent
individual consideration. Words on the other
hand are not things. Red is not a thing.
Earth is not a thing. Plato is a name.
Chaos is now Complexity & I hope will
soon become too complex to be anything
but the Mystery. AI is the East Midland
dialect of the great AngloCeltic tongue
called English. It is the most Hi Tech
we will ever get. Once, when I was
returning from an amazing stint in The
Living Klein Bottle House of Time, I got very
worried over my appearence, my wife
is not going to like living with a flourescent
lobster I kept thinking. Turns out she does.












- frank 6-12-2001 7:14 am

i hate this site
- anonymous (guest) 4-08-2003 10:35 pm

so do I
- anonymous (guest) 4-08-2003 10:36 pm

this site makes me very very very angry and pist
- anonymous (guest) 4-08-2003 10:38 pm

man I hate everything this site stands for man this site makes me pist
- tommy redwood (guest) 4-08-2003 10:39 pm

What is it this site stands for again..?
(Must be confused with PST.)
- alex 4-09-2003 12:48 am