This one is artistic….

This one is just plan scary.

You can read more about the biggest bomb ever built here. The scary thing is that they did not even come close to pushing the limits of what was possible.

The barbarians running rampant in the Ethereal Land are known for their sometimes-violent dislike of academic mathematics. The present author appreciates this and recognizes that this article on statistical probability may cause pain and suffering if read. Nevertheless the reading of the same is recommended, because it is making an important point: that statistics are useless if you are not measuring precisely the right event.

To generalize, the fallacy presented here is the assumption of causual relationship between physically unrelated events. These hypothetical word-problem test questions could have been constructed in a way to actually make the probabilities compound, but they weren’t; the facts as stated do not warrant the assumption of relationship that the “right” answer supposes.

To apply, when people make unwarranted assumptions of relationship, they can then make further proofs using statistics (or logic) and then champion it as scientifically proved and incontrovertible. But statistics and logic are processes; they require inputs; all of the inputs affect the outcomes; and not all of the inputs are always confessed openly. Just because someone uses more complicated science than you understand does not mean that they used the science correctly or are right in their results.

From Times Magazine….

But bird flu, it seems, is back. Last month’s five deaths — one of the highest tallies of bird-flu deaths China has ever recorded in a month — were in locations as far removed from one another as Beijing in the north, Xinjiang in the west, Guangxi in the south, Hunan in the center and Shandong in the east. “From a disease-control perspective, the increase in cases in China is notable, as is the wide geographic spread,” says Dr. Hans Troedsson, the World Health Organization’s representative in China. There is still no evidence that the virus has mutated to spread easily between humans, he says. But while such a nightmare scenario, which could set off a global flu pandemic that could kill millions, has shown no signs of being an immediate threat, serious concerns remain. “The fact that this is the highest number for a single month in China reminds us that the virus is entrenched and circulating in the environment,” Troedsson says. (See pictures of the resurgence of bird flu.)

On Feb. 10, authorities in the far-Western region of Xinjiang culled more than 13,000 chickens in the city of Hotan after 519 died in a bird-flu outbreak. But until this week, China had reported no widespread outbreaks of the virus among bird populations, prompting concerns among some public-health experts that mainland health and veterinary authorities could be missing — or even concealing — the spread of the disease through poultry and wild birds.

(h/t Scott Mcpherson who is rather worried about the whole thing)

From The AP…

A federal aviation official says the plane that crashed into a house near Buffalo, killing 50 people, was on autopilot when it went down, a possible violation of airline policy in icy weather.

For those that don’t already know why being on autopilot is a very bad thing, watch this video.

From the Wall Street Journal….

Pentagon brass, satellite industry executives and NASA leaders for years have publicly expressed concern about the dangers of orbital debris. But the odds of a direct hit between satellites were considered so small as to be basically unthinkable. The ground-based and space-based reconnaissance tools available to the Pentagon generally were considered adequate to keep close track of larger objects.

Needless to say, it happened.