My mind has many nooks and crannies ... like an english muffin
Simpson's Paradox
· ☕ 339  words statistics  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I was recently re-introduced to Simpson’s Paradox in statistics - how aggregation can mislead. (I’m just making up the numbers here to demonstrate the concept.) Suppose you have China with an overall illness survival rate of 95% and Italy with an overall illness survival rate of 85%. On the face of it, that looks like China does a better job of taking care of patients than Italy. But now suppose you look at the survival rate by age group and Italy has a higher illness survival rate in every single age bracket.
Salem Witch Trial Connections
· ☕ 552  words genealogy  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I made a comment to my wife about the fact I have ancestors on both sides of the Salem witch trials. So of course I had to prove it out against the family tree (old New England families with relatives who were very interested in genealogy; the family tree currently has over 7,500 people in the database). So, just for fun, here are the results: Actually Accused Winifred Henchman (1597-1671), eleventh great grandmother, accused and acquitted (1659 well before the Salem hysteria).
Yes, you can celebrate with the competition!
· ☕ 147  words happy  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
From the Doctor Who tv episode “The Doctor Falls”: “Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because, because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun and God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works, because it hardly ever does. I do what I do, because it’s right!
Either they work or they don't. NOOOOOO!
· ☕ 380  words life science pandemic  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I recently had a useless discussion with someone who was unwilling to either wear a mask or vaccinate and took the position: “If the vaccines work why the fear, and if they do not work why take the risk of getting them?” His refusal to wear a mask was based on his trust in his immune system “I’m healthy and if you wear a mask you are living in fear and halfway dead already.
Creativity and Semantic Distance
· ☕ 172  words life creativity  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I am in the process of reading a study on creativity and semantic distance. A McGill University newsroom article on it is here. The concept is fairly simple - more creative people will find connections between words that general usage would indicate are “less” connected. “Cat” and “dog” have the feeling of being “related” words. “Cat” and “test tube” feel like “more unrelated” words. Efforts have been done (see the study link) on measuring the “relatedness” of words by crawling the internet and measuring how close the word pairs are to each other in normal usage.
Singing with a mask
· ☕ 352  words music  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
Someone raised a question about singing with a mask on, so experiment time! Obviously singing without a mask is more comfortable, but how does the sound change? I just threw these together for a listen (no production or effects or rehearsal). Yes, I know I’m flat in a few places - this was an experiment in singing with a mask, so not focused as much as I could have been.
Giving Compliments
· ☕ 222  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
The BBC has an article on why people should give compliments to others. There are studies that indicate that giving compliments results in a sense of reciprocity. Other studies indicate that people significantly underestimate how happy people would be to receive a compliment. All that being said, as an older male, there are a few things I need to remind myself about: Compliment something someone has done, not something they genetically have.
Slicing the Sourdough
· ☕ 331  words music  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz

How many of you have a kitchen utility drawer? How many of you buy your bread pre-sliced, but have a breadknife you never use? How many of you keep it in the kitchen drawer?

Usually I write my own melodies, but this is written to the tune of Waltzing Matilda

Stupid, Ignorant, Brain Freeze or Troll?
· ☕ 292  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
When reading stuff on the intertubes, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether a comment is stupid, ignorant, brain freeze or troll. You cannot see the other person and have no knowledge about their background. I would treat a lot of statements as simply trolls if I didn’t have the personal experience of an 18 year old American “honors” student ask me why people in Switzerland spoke German because their minds think in English.
Dust Bunnies
· ☕ 408  words music  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz

Inadvised use of percussive maintenance, but a good result from a sarcastic comment to someone who can actually change directions.

Procrastination
· ☕ 696  words life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I recently finished a 260 page analysis of some open source software projects at the request of someone in Switzerland (no one getting paid, this is open source software). That took about a month. It was followed by a week helping a guy in Italy resolve the performance problems of the software he maintains which had come dead last in the analysis. Then four days adding an feature to some software I have found myself as the maintainer at the request of someone else on the intertubes.
Do People Actually Want Solutions?
· ☕ 337  words politics life  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
It seems like a lot of people would have no meaning to life if they didn’t have someone to hate. Fortunately I hate everyone so a lot of targets would have to go away. From time to time friends in the international tax arena call and update me on the latest goings on. Usually it is fairly clear that most of the parties at the table are engaged in political posturing but do not actually seem to want to resolve the issues.
You Know You Have Been Living in France Too Long
· ☕ 935  words travel  · ✍️ Peter Hiltz
I haven’t posted in awhile due to grandparent duties. This post has no serious content and is just a list of items from an acquaintance living in France. Some of these are familiar to me based on either spending a lot of business travel time in France or living in Belgium, which share some French proclivities. You may or may not be amused. Bonus points if you actually know what a Department is in France without looking it up.