And its one, two, three strikes your out at the old ball game ....

To warn  ... to caution
Race walking is one of those events that has to be judged. And believe you me, judging is a constant cause of consternation among walkers, official and judges alike!

First of all in New Zealand, a judge is presented with a judging sheet the distinguishes between a warning and a caution. Now in my book, these words are pretty well synonymous. However, in race walking they mean different things. A caution is not as serious and a warning. A caution is given by individual judges to the walker concerned that he or she is either lifting (both feet seen as visibly off the ground - wavy yellow paddle) or bending the knee (right angle yellow paddle).

A walker could be potentially cautioned once by every judge to no ill effects. Each judge can caution each athlete only once for an offence.

A warning is a different affair. The judge does not warn the athlete, but rather sends a red card to the chief judge. This is the judge's "proposal for a disqualification". These proposals are then marked on a board at the start/finish line for each lap for the walker to plainly see. These then constitute a warning. Once three of these reds are up on the board, the athlete will be disqualified. The chief judge will show them a red paddle.

Each judge must also record all her/his determinations on a judging sheet which is given to the chief judge after the event.

Give me five minutes more, only five minutes more ....

It is the song of the Derby County football team. The team went into the premier league a few season back but they couldn't hack it and fell back into football league championships where they languish just below half way down

It seem England are being given good odds (5/1) in some quarters to win the world cup - at this stage a tad behind Spain (4/1).

I don't like odds and prefer to convert them to pobablities; England 1/6 (.1667), Spain 1/5 or .20 and Brazil 11/2 which is a probablity of 2/13 or .1548.

I have done a small analysis of the probabilities of winning by group.

It is pretty clear to see that group A will be very hard fought with so many teams with similarly low probabilites,


By contrast, group H should se an easy win for Spain. New Zealand in group F with a 0.001 probability of winning will have their work cut out against Italy with a 0.0909 probability of winning.

Money makes the world goes round ...That clinking clanking sound Can make the world go 'round.

Liza Minelli cavorted on stage singing this one.

Shortly Bill English will "cavort" in the "house" and give his budget address. It is budget day in old Nu Zulun.

Now call me irresponsible, call me unreliable, throw in undependable toooooooo....

But the Budget day is the biggest, unadulterated bore of the year. Now I am not saying Bill is boring  ... that is too kind ... too kind  .... just tooooooo kind.

The evidence suggests that more New Zealanders start losing the will to live on budget day than any other day of the year.

Turn off the radios   ... switch off the teles  .... and don't buy a newspaper on Friday morning.

Sit down and be thrilled by the sensation of watching      paint dry ....infinitely more charming than listening to a budget address. Watch reruns of Gone with the Wind and The Lost Weekend.

Anything to avoid the budget will be a gud bet.


And then at long last another budget will be....

I can see clearly now the rain has gone ....

I found a fascinating article called Induction, deduction, and the scientific method: An eclectic overview of the practice of science by one Irving Rothchild.

Now it sounds rather heavy stuff for the usually lighter tone of this blog!

But it is a good article that begin by examining the relationship between induction (often viewed as reasoning from the particular to the general) and deduction (reasoning from the general to the particular).

Towards the end he outlines in simple terms the keys steps in the scientific methods. The steps are applicable in part to any research project or indeed problem solving activity.



So I will list them here:

1. Making observations: "Whether in the field, the library, the laboratory". Rothchild goes on to say "how these observations are collected, classified, interpreted and used as a base for theorising is more or less what science is about".

2. Point of view: "In science, the importance of our point of view   when examining information of any kind cannot to be strongly emphasised, for how we look at things determines what we see."

3. Asking the right questions:  Rothchild reminds us that Alexander Fleming "did not look at his moldy cultures and ask, 'How can I get rid of these pesky molds?' Instead, he asked, 'why are there no bacteria near the molds?' and penicillin was conceived."

4. Theorizing: "It doesn't matter whether it comes as a question, a hunch, a hypothesis, or a theory .... Theory is more important than facts, Einstein told Heisenberg, because theory tells us what the facts mean."
Often theorising involves hunches and Eurekas (I have found it).

5. Experimentation: (Gathering more information).

6. Statistics: Now of course this in only relevant to a quantitative problem. You may be relieved to know that Rothchild suggests that "Statistical tests should only be used as aids in resolving uncertainty about whether a difference between one condition or another is important." I don't entirely argue with this especially in the case of exploratory statistics.

Irving Rothchild is Emeritus Professor of Reproductive Biology  at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Cleveland, Ohio

It's Impossible It's impossible, tell the sun to leave the sky, it's just impossible. It's impossible, ask a baby not to cry, it's just ...

The results of taking the first few chapters of Genesis literally are manifold.

Not the least is the old hoary: where did Cain’s wife come from?

Another is being forced into a position of defending the Bible as a scientific document.

And of course one is left with an extremely anthropomorphicview of God (God confined to human form walking and talking).

To these and countless other dilemmas, innumerable books and commentaries have been written to defend the indefensible - a literal six creation and then God resting (now that's got ta be metaphorical if nothing else folks).

Wise folks know not to argue the merits of a 10,000 year old literal creation with me. It is the proverbial red rag to a bull.

But here’s the one that annoys me the most.

My antagonist says: “don’t you realise that us coming into being by pure chance is utterly minuscule?”. The probability of blah blah blah is next to zero”.

But that is daft post hoc nonsense.  The probability of almost any event after the fact is also minuscule.

Do you realise that the probability that particular button ended up on your shirt in that position is also infinitesimal?

But that is entirely the wrong use of probability.

Dawkins classic definition of evolution includes the non-random selection of random variation. That takes a bit of unpacking. Part of the reason is that the word 'random' in mathematics and scientific reasoning  means something quite different from its everyday use.

Now folks, I am not a great Dawkins fan. His brand of atheism/agnosticism suiteth me not.

I think Genesis read with due consideration for much of the metaphorical content points us to a deep understanding of that ultimate reality that we call God. It points us beyond words to an encounter with "the name that cannot be named".

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat .....

Well okay it's a bugle


One motto of the Calliope athletic club that is etched in the minds of all members who have been with the club over many years is this:

" No run has ever or will ever be cancelled on account of the weather"

We were forced once by the Auckland City Council to cancelled an event because of a so-called Tsunami.

World War II forced us to cancel events.

This coming Sunday ( May 9th)  Calliope and Race Walking Auckland (RWA) were to challenge one another over a 10 km race walk.

Last night we older members Bill, Murray and myself arrived at the club to discover that the event had been postponed because of Mother's Day.

Who had perpetrated this ghastly deed we asked. Must be RWA. But no!!! It was, unbeknown to us, some members of our own dear club!

Bill reeled, I found myself gasping for breath and Murray was simply inconsolable.

It was a defining moment.

A watershed.

It spoke volumes about past and present values.

It hit at the very foundations of our athletic careers.

It is just too marvellous too marvellous for words .....

Yes it is ... it is maths     ....  maths deals to cricket ..... and leads it into the night light.

I am loosely following the world cup 20 over competition in the West Indies. I am like a cat lying around with one eye half open on the proceedings.

I see one of the players seems to being doing especially well folks. A fella by the grandiose name of Duckworth-Lewis.

Well, no actually, the name refers to a couple of statisticians by the names of Duckworth and ... you guessed it .... Lewis.

These blokes created a way of handling bad weather in limited over games.
Here's a graph of it:

Lots of Statistical tests are named after st ranged named statisticians. You see you can't be a statistician with a name like Smith.

My favorite test named after a statistician is ... now wait for ...it ...

Roy's Greatest Root aka Roy's Largest Root.

It is used in a MANOVA test.

Multivariate Analysis of Variance

heh but enough already!!!!

Back to Duckworth Lewis.

These guys base their analysis and resulting models on the idea that a team has two key resources at any given time in the game. Wickets in hand and overs remaining. The system is used to give a target score for the team batting second.

Of course the system has come in for a lot of flack from cricketers in particular. Most can't understand it.

But folks it is simple, elegant and really really works!!! It's mere child's play folks! I mean how could these two lovely guys get it wrong or was it these two lovely guys???