FlaSoxxJim

She's probably tracking too fast (12 mph currently) for that to happen. And the unusually large Bermuda high pressure ridge that kept Frances from turning north is going to keep Jeanne from turning at least until it makes landfall. Most of tthe models still have it doing a boomerang thing - coming onshore between 30 and 100 miles south of me, then getting into the trough on the west side of the pressure ridge and tracking north to go back out into the Atlantic around Jacksonville. But the increased forward speed may change that and keep the storm moving west across the state and into the Gulf. That would be better for me and the other Atlantic coasters, and it would minimize the erosion risk.... otherwise there are going to be some beach houses turning into houseboats. Thanks for all your thoughts, all! Back to drinking and boarding up.

... Except with much more potential devastation. Jeanne is coming. Yippee. I just got power back last Thursday. I just took the last of the boards off the windows Sunday. We have a preliminary assessment of $30-40 million in damage at work from Frances. I just got done moving CPUs into the storm bunker and tarping up for the second time in 3 weeks. After I finally got the smell of dead feet out of my fridge at home I just bought $100 dollars worth of groceries that we'll likely lose again when the power goes. There is alread no ice and very little gasoline. If you find gas, it's at least a 20 minute wait in line to purchase. Now I get to go home and put boards back up. The insurance adjuster was suppoesd to come out to the house today, but called and said we should just wait and see what breaks this time around... I hate to be a such a complainer, but this is wearing thin. Oh, well. Can't reason with hurricane season. Time to stock up on alcohol. Cheers, Flaxx

I beg to differ on some points, Tex. As far as Jeb - he is liked by a lot of Floridians, and I think he's a personable, genuinely caring guy. I also think he's a heck of a lot smarter than his big brother. The problem is that big brother W knows the hurricanes and the state and federal response to them can become a political pivot point and he is compromising Jeb's honesty in the process - especially about where the state and feds are falling down on preparation and recovery efforts. My institution's 'lobbiest' (he can't really lobby for us legally, but he's the guy in Talahassee that makes sure we have a voice so that's essentially what it is) has been talking with Jeb and Jeb candidly has said some things to him about some state and federal blunders this season that he obviously cannot say in public. I do think there is the potenial for a Bilandec effect for some swing voters or some typical non-voters. I however think that will be dwarfed by the Democratic voters who were disenfranchized and/or bullied away from the pools in 2000. And again, some portion of the apathetic typical non-voters have been roused to (relative) action and will vote. Florida is ANYTHING but a lock for the 2004 election (although I think Jeb is in for the long haul), if the election is allowed to proceed without tampering. Even with 97,000 Nader voters, tens of thousands more 'accidentally' purged from the rolls by Choicepoint, polling places in predominantly black precincts closing suspiciously early, etc., the state was decided by less than 600 votes. Well the state GOP did successfully get Nader back on the ballot last week, but since he's not going to get that Green party vote he'll get nothing like tthe support he had before. We also will have (get this) international polling monitors from five continents watching over the election (in the birthplace of democracy - whodathunkit?). Florida is not going to be automatically George's in November. Not by a long shot.

Lies! All Lies!!! Oops... Wow, I guess they're right after all.

PA, Turns out thousands of Americans were duped into giving money to illigitimate 9-11 disaster funds that were actually a bunch of assholes pocketing the money. Cat Stevens did not knowingly give money to radical terrorists. He is the one who said that with each innocent that is killed, so is killed the whole of humanity. He is the one who has said that radical terrorists have 'jijacked his faith.' He is the one who donated HALF of his 2001 box set proceeds to 9-11 relief funds (the rest going to his charities for homeless and orphaned children in Bosnia, Kosovo, and elsewhere). Somehow it doesn't seem like the M.O. of someone into the buisness of aiding and abetting terrorists. If as a younger, naive, early convert to Islam, someone misrepresented a cause and duped him into giving money to supplicate religious types he thought worthy of trust, then that would be tragic, but no different than the above example of how American compassion led many to be scammed after 9-11. If, on the other hand, our intel that Stevens has given money to Hamas exists because Israel accused him of it... Foriegn Affairs Jack Straw has, fortunately, given Colin Powell an earful about the stupidity at work here. And if there is something more to the 'this isn't his first incedent with radical islam' claim other than his railroading in the Rushdie blowup in 1989, please elaborate.

Then I have the perfect stat... The team that wins the most games is the one I think is going to take the Division...

Ach, yes he is right and you are as well. the original point was that nobody is going to consider r^2 = O.5 to be a 'strong' correlation. I could have and should have stopped there without trying to force a weak analogy. Let me try it this way. For some omnistat purported to be a strong predictor of how a team will fare in a season, and r^2 of 0.5 is less than stellar. How is that?

True, which is why I kept with the coint toss analogy. With only two possible discrete outcomes, there's a 50/50 chance of getting it right (accidental perfect correlation) each time. With open-ended continuous variables (like in sports stats), the analogy is imperfect. The point was that no statistician is going to consider a correlation coefficient of 0.5 "strong". Think of it as the difference in guessing the outcome of a coin toss (half of the time you are dead-on) versus guessing what number is going to come up on a roulette wheel (5% chance with 20 numbers). The roulette analogy is certainly closer to the sorts of sports stats in question, where accidentally guessing right happens much less than half of the time. But if the NHL stat is being used as some kind of predictive tool, having a best-fit line that only allows x to be predicted based on y about half of the time, it is no better than a coin toss.

I was going to say it but you already did, Cheat... an r or r^2 of 0.726 is FAR from a strong correlation. Those numbers you posted for OPS and Runs Scored minus Runs - now those are strong correlations (as you said, closing in on a perfect r-value of 1.00). I will take exception to your suggestion taht that NHL stat with r=0.587 is a 'strong correlation.' From a statistical significance standpoint it is anything but strong, basically saying y is a good predictor of x just over half of the time. In other words, you'd do just as well to flip a coin.

here's my post on the matter from the MLB Sox site. Of course there are yahoos still getting the Rushdie thing wrong like they did in 1989. Then again, abcnews.com is still getting it wrong too, I see, so what do you expect? ----- What a well-oiled machine our Homeland Security is... Buncha dumb@sses. http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20040921_2381.html Yusuf Islam - formerly Cat Stevens - was on a flight from London to new York and his name pops up on the terrorist watch list and the plane is diverted to Maine and Islam is denied entry into the US. He'll be put back on a plane to London tomorrow. So what's the deal? Is he a terror threat because he only donated SOME of the proceeds from his 2001 box set release to 9/11 families, having already promised the rest to homeless and orphaned children in Kosovo and Bosnia?? Is it because he has ONLY openly condemned 9/11, the Beslan school seige and other fundamentalist Islamic atrocities like 100 times in public, expressing "heartfelt hooror" and accusing these murderous people of "hijacking my religion"?? is it because the humanitrian relief charity organization (Small Kindness) and the educational and scientific charitible trust (WAQF AL BIRR) he founded are grave and gathering threats?? Nah, it's gotta be the UK Islamic school he started up that has people all riled up... Is it because he re-recorded and released 'Peace Train' last year as a peaceful protest against the US' illegal war in Iraq?? Is it because his misconstrued comments about Salman Rushdie two decades ago are still perpetuated today? The world would be a vastly better place if there were more Yusuf Islams. Buncha dumb@sses.

RIP Johnny Ramone. Cancer, OD, cancer.... and only one of the original members still alive. That is really, really sad. Gabba Gabba Hey!

Yippee! Our power came back on last night, and we checked out of the hotel this morning. Now it's time to slowly get things back to normal, starting with trying to find an affordable car to replace my Toyota that decided to blow up in the middle of all the Frances madness.

Still no Power at FlaSoxx Acres... :angry: We moved into a hotel room last night - a major feat in and of itself because there are still 30K+ without power in my county and also several thousand relief and emergency workers packed into the hotels. On the bright side, with no cable and no Extra Innings package, I didn't have to suffer through that 'statement game' (*cough cough*) last night. Now my friends from Mobile who have been calling us to see how we're doing are themselves on the run from Ivan, which is shaping up to be a badass mutha. Oh yeah, Jeanne is lookong to make an appearance at my doorstep Monday unless she remembers that HURRICANES ARE SUPPOSED TO TURN BEFORE THEY GET HERE!!! Kap, we will likely recover most lab data and specimens. We had a generator failure that put some stuff in jeopardy, but I think it was rescued and relocated in time. This forwarded message below may only be funny to those who have gone through this, but I can tell you the observations below are just about 100% accurate. Subject: FW: 30 Things Hurricanes Teach Us 1. An oak tree on the ground looks four times bigger than it did standing up. 2. Even after all these years it is still nice to spend time with Col. Mustard in the ballroom with the lead pipe. Mustard in the ballroom with the lead pipe. 3. When house hunting look for closets with lots of leg room. 4. Water from the shower is much colder than water from the kitchen sink--and tastes just as bad. 5. AA, C and D are the only alphabet we need ( batteries ) 6. The four-way stop is still an ingenious reflection of civility. 7. Radio can be the best way to watch television. 8. Chain-saw wielding men are n! othing to be afraid of. 9. SUV's are the best makeshift tents on the market. 10. You can use your washing machine as a cooler. 11. It's your God given right to sit on your back porch and eat Chinese takeout by candlelight in your underwear. 12. We shouldn't complain about "useless" tools in the garage-- we actually DO need a generator 13. You can' t spell "priceless" without I-C-E. 14. Downed power lines make excellent security systems. 15. Lakes can generate waves. 16. Gasoline is a value at any price 17. Cell phones: Breaking up isn't hard to do. 18. The life blood of any disaster recovery is COFFEE 19. The need for your dog to go out and take care of business is inversely proportional to the severity of the storm. 20. Candlelight is better than Botox--- it takes years off your appearance 21. Air Conditioning: BEST. INVENTION. EVER. 22. Water is a comfort food. But 3-day-old Cheetos are too. 23. Shadow animals on the wall---still fun. 24. No matter how hard the wind blows, roadside campaign signs will survive. 25. You should never admit to having power at your house in the presence of co-workers or neighbors who do not. 26. There's a plus to having NOTHING in the refrigerator. 27. Getting through the day should be an Olympic event. 28. The movie theater can be a most pleasant place, even if the feature is Alien vs. Predator 29. Somebody's got it worse. 30. Somebody's got it better. Obviously, they're getting preferential treatment.

We're hanging in there - thanks all for the well-wishes! Well, it's 11 days after Frances and still no power (or AC!!) in my neighborhood. The semi-gypsy existence of staying with various friends and family on both coasts has grown very old, but sleeping in a pitch black, 90 degree house has somehow also lost its appeal. Today is my first day allowed back on my institution's campus, which took a major hit by the storm. A couple of key buildings sustained severe damage and either need major repairs or replacement. My building suffered mostly cosmetic damage (clay roof tiles and aluminum gutters and trim gone), but there is some evidence of first floor water intrusion as well. There were some unanticipated generator failures and our commercial marine fish culture subsidiary did end up losing about half of its live inventory (clownfish, aquarium corals, etc.). There was an emergency relocation of much of our cryo-preserved biomedical collection when the generator went, so hopefully none of that collection has been lost. I held out hope that while I was continued to be out touch that the Sox would have put a nice winning streak together, but I see by the shellacking the Angels gave Contreras that I was being unduly optimistic on that count. And now, back to digging out. Flaxx

I found a computer so I figured I'd check in while we have power. Frances chased us away from our Melbourne home Saturday morning. We boarded up and sandbagged and whatnot ovver Thursday and Friday, and then waited to get a read on the storm. Saturday we woke up around 5 to teh first heavy feeder bands coming across and turned on the news to see the track had not changed much from the night before. We figured our house was safe enough (block homne, new roof, @10 miles inland on high ground) to ride it out, but that the kids might get freaked out by 18-24 hours of howling wind shaking them up, so we boogied to the other coast. And that's here we sit, getting slammed by lots of rain. We lost power at my mother-in-law's house in St. Pete BEFORE we lost it in melbourne (I kept phoning until the answering machine stopped picking up). So now we're at my bro-in-law's kid's place. Power has mostly stayed on here, but there are 3.2 million customers without power now. Statewide, 47 of 67 counties had some sort of evactuation order given due to Frances. Melbournne looks clear now, and I;m anxious to get back and assess the damage. But Frances still has to clear out before us and the 4 million other displaced residents turn I-4 into a big parking lot for the return trip. I'm most concerned about my place of work. It sits on a canal to the Intracoastal and is just above where the eye made landfall at Sewall's Point. One of our commercial subsidiaries raises clownfish ("Nemos") for commercial sale, and they probbably had to nuke $100K worth of inventory bacause their BBMP's say that's the only way to prevent release of exotic cultures if the big one is heading for you. That's probably just the tip of the iceberg. The building I work in is right on the canal, and has about $3 million worth of inventory in scientific journals and library holdings. We also have millions of dollars worth of frozen microbial specimens from our 'drugs from the sea' group that we can't afford to lose. I'll give an update when we make it home.

A friendly reminder to all - but mostly to I4E, natch ... Leave out tthe personal attacks and play nice, please. Oh yeah, don't poop in the sandbox either.

16-hour flight + lots of little airline bottles of booze = 1 wicked drunk hi8is.

It's something for the Admins to consider is all. Ideally it has nothning to do with trustworthiness. It has more to do with letting a volunteer really put some effort into something for a finite period, but then be able to take a break and not feel bad about it as well. People's activity waxes and wanes on on this site - even the hardcores. A Mod who is burned out, needs a break, plays summer tours with his rockin' teen combo (PA ) can get a break and everybody gets a chance to pitch in. Like being a crossing guard in 6th grade - you do it for two weeks but then give up the post before you get DRUNK WITH POWER!

I would also be happy to do a rotating Mod thing, and be more than happy to step aside as well. It's not a tough gig, it's fun, and most of us are on the site fairly regularly at any rate. but Tex is right, you fell compelled to follow threads more closely as a Mod to make sure things aren't getting out of hand and it would be better perhaps to share that duty. There are certainly lots of people here that are more than capable of it. My enjoyment of the site comes from reading and contributing to the threads, and I can do that with or without the extra doodads on my control panel. Current issues and all of us not seeing eye-to-eye on things aside, this is a GREAT site with a great big - if sometimes dysfunctional - community (we put the 'fun' in dysfunctional?). That is precisely why people get emotional about it.

At this point, I'm reserving judgement. As a whole, certainly the answer is no. As for individual Admins and choices they make... Well, people are people, and at times people can be petty.

I'm not suggesting that it is, but that is the recent issue of cw post-changery that had been pointed out to me. I nor, Vince, nor anybody else on the site wants this to boil over into a board war. he was always, always about building up the community here and not tearing it down. And in the end, this was Jason's decision to make whether others agree with it or not. Getting some of it out in the open doesn't change that, but I think the issue deserved consideration by the community here.

Again, I have nothing to say about the accusation of lying. I hope cw will respond to it in some form. Steff, you're right and I'm trying to be careful about what I say in this thread versus what is said in private conversations. I post that lengthy post as an addendum to Spiff's charge in a vaccuum of cw editing his posts and those of others, and suggested that the accusation be less vague. I stayed clear of all of that until those details were posted by another Admin.

Ah, but you just don't get it... It's really so very imporant to ascertain whether someone met D12 on an airplane OR in an airport, and to flush out the goddamn liar if he gets it wrong.

There. That is the accusation. And on its own it is rather damning. I think it deserves more explanation, particularly regarding the following: cw did/does edit his posts after the fact. Usually to fix typos or bad syntax. Partly this is a marginally effective way for him not to let dyslexia (which he admints to suffering from) get in the way of what he is trying to say. Partly it is because he is often tthinking fast and typing faster, and inadvertant ommissions or grammatical mistakes change the contextual meaning of what he is trying to say. As I have said to others, I believe cw feels an ownership and a responsibility for his words, and he would rather make post hoc edits than to have his words convey something other than what he intended. Thus far then, cw was utilizing a board feature avvailable to us all - whetther we choose to go back and edit. So, that is at worst a questionable practice as a poster, a quirk of his posting style, but NOT an abuse of Admin powers. as for the more serious accusation of editing others' posts - clearly something only Mods or Admins can do. It is importannt to be careful with this allegation. If the perceivved transgressions come down to cw going in and again editing HIS OWN WORDS that now appear as in-post quotes posted by others, then that needs to be stated. because, again, for a man who stands on his words as the means to express often well-read and scholarly opinions, letting typos or dyslexia or clumsy finggers get in the way of what he is trying to convey woud be hard to take. Yes, it causes confusion, and yes, there are probbably better ways to say, "Hey, that's not what I meant!" So, this is a part of tthe accusation that does bear consideration. Now, if the accusation about editing others' posts really means editing other posters' words, it's a lot harder to justify. cw has been accused of doing that, and he flatly and patently refutes the allegation (Admin-deleting of offensive, attacking posts notwithstanding, I assume). Admins who have helped to make this decision: Has it been demonstrated that cw used his Admin authority to change someone else's word in his/her posts as suggested?? I cannot say anything about the last part of the charge - lying about abusing the Admin priveleges. cw should ad I'm sure will be the onne to speak to that.

That's untrue. I know he pseted B-day greetings to JoeBatters on Wednesday. Even with the twoo weeks of missing posts, May 24 cannot be right.