What was the chance of Mike Lynch's yacht sinking. Has anyone worked out the odds ?
Too many assumptions. Chance of being on a boat that sinks in a year is easy. But for that specific boat, you need to look at design issues compared to similar vessels, location, storm, any aggravating factors (crew). That kind of maths is how you end up jailing mothers who have multiple babies die of SIDS.
As DJL notes, the chances of two defendants dying* (any cause) within x period of a court case might be more relevant and much more easy to calculate. But even then, there are an awful lot of court cases each year and an awful lot of years to consider. Coincidences happen and "the driver of the car, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, remained at the scene and is assisting with enquiries" for the unfortunate runner is a strange way of doing a hit.
But yes, it does make you stop and think, doesn't it?
*not confirmed yet for Lynch, of course, but seems very likely, unfortunately
Total landlubber but the boat looks ready to sink in this photo and it's just normal seas
That is pretty normal. Looking at the boom and jib I assume it is on a beat. If it were a racing yacht or racing dingy or a racing catamaran it can be going over far far more than that. It is what they are supposed to do. If it goes too far you can let the sail out or turn it into wind, but if it goes too far the sails will spill the wind and the keel will prevent it from capsizing. In a dingy or catamaran there is no keel so you go for a swim (which I have more times than I care to remember).
I remember spending a happy afternoon on a small 'uncapsizeable' training boat in dead calm on loch goil trying to capsize it while the instructor laughed at us (I think they're was a bet involved). We did get the tip of the mast to touch the water.
ETA: No, I think what we managed was to get the guy hanging off the top of the mast into the water, not the mast itself
I have capsized so many times I have lost count. 4 times in one race. My biggest event though was crewing on a catamaran which pitchpoled (somersaulted). I was out on a wire and we were going hell for leather when the helm dug the hull into the water. I was full out on the other hull with only the soles of my feet touching the boat. The rest of me was hanging from the wire. Next thing I know I was flying through the air and then hit the water and went down some way. I tried to stop myself coming up which was hard as I had a buoyancy aid on because I was concerned about being hit by the boat. This was nonsense though because the catamaran had obviously stopped dead in the water and was now upside down. But you don't think clearly when you have just taken an involuntary flight.
Here is a video of an epic pitchpole. I doubt mine was anywhere near as spectacular, but in my mind it was.
Lucy Letby is an interesting phenomenon. Seems she's now being politically weaponized by the British Right as a way to bash the NHS.
Letby truthers are really very odd but it is not just the British right. Private Eye too has been questioning of it.
And Owen Jones. About the only tweets he's doing these days about anything other than Gaza are on Letby.
I do wonder how much support Ms Letby would get were she not - to put it bluntly - an attractive young lady. We're all suckers for beautiful people.
I wouldn’t classify her as beautiful and I don’t think many would TBH. Personally, I think a key reason she got convicted was her behaviour / demeanour at trial which came across as emotionally detached / weird.
I haven’t followed things too closely but there certainly seems enough questions to ask given the issues raised, doubts raised by experts about evidence etc.
Someone on here mentioned that there is an interest on the Right to imply Letby has been framed. That is maybe true but, conversely, there is an incentive on those invested in the NHS to put the blame of so many deaths on a rogue and evil nurse rather than look into more fundamental issues. Both sides have a vested interest in pushing their views on this one.
If people are asked to assess how honest and trustworthy they are based on a photo, then they will tend to give much higher marks to better looking people. I don't really think that is a contraversial point. Nor do I think it controversial to claim that - if all 70 million people in the UK were ranked in order of attractiveness - she would be comfortably in the top quarter.
This does not make her innocent or guilty; I am merely pointing out there is cold, hard scientific fact that we (as humans) are suckers for physical appearance. And I find it odd that you doubt this.
Don’t think I did dispute that physical appearance influences things (it’s certainly not in my post) but more her personality may also have had more of an impact and / or she wasn’t particularly stunning enough to influence the outcome.
I’m not an expert on the case but there feels enough odd to suggest it should be looked at more.
I think the fear is that we have had some serious miscarriages of justice before based on mathematical models, the SID cases being the most obvious example.
Very few lawyers, and even fewer jurors, have any real understanding of mathematics. To give you an idea I am considered unusually numerate amongst my cohort and yet I have lost count (ha) of the number of times I have made basic errors on here.
I think we are right to look at the modelling critically but we should not ignore the other evidence whilst doing so. My hesitation, at the risk of setting another haggis running, is why I would never support capital punishment. If we had it she would have been a prime candidate.
The mathematics is bollocks (or, not bollocks, but not relevant). Who cares if it's mathematically unlikely to be someone else than her (under various assumptions that probably don't hold). Even if the maths is correct, unlikely things happen all the time. People win lotteries, get struck by lightning, elect Donald Trump...
Maybe worth a thread header on the use and misuse of statistics in cases like this?
I don't know how good DNA sampling is nowadays but it certainly used to be the case that if you trawled the country for someone matching DNA at a crime scene you'd expect to find about 10 people.
A supposed "5 million to 1 chance" suddenly becomes a "1 in 10 chance" unless you have some additional evidence.
I never understood the police asked for people to be sampled so as to "eliminate them from enquiries". Or at least, I never understood why anyone would volunteer.
The standard probability calculated when there is an adequate supply of DNA is described as a likelihood of not less than 1 in a billion. This is calculated by the number of branches on the DNA found that match the accused. It has been explained to me that in most cases the chances of a false match are significantly less than 1 in a billion but that is the highest ratio they use in their reports.
There are some exceptions to this. If the sample is very small or if the accused comes from an ethnic minority which has comparatively few contributors to the data base measured against then the likelihood of the sample not being from you is much lower but as a generality if you know you didn't do something the risks of giving a DNA sample for elimination purposes is vastly lower than the risks of going to a jury trial.
And, of course, the police are entitled to take a sample from you anyway if you don't volunteer.
Thanks - I think my figures are probably going back 20 years at least.
Would the police really get permission to sample everyone in a town?
No, but they routinely take a DNA swab from someone who is in custody for any reason.
I had a particularly smart Jury question recently. They asked, how did they know to check the DNA of the accused? The answer, of course, is that the DNA tested had matched an entry in the DNA database because the accused had been previously convicted. Of course the Judge did not tell them that but someone on the jury had worked it out.
It is worth remembering that whenever you submit DNA for one of those "profiling companies" to see whether you are susceptible to skin cancer or dementia or supporting Reform or whatever, then the default tick box allows the the lab to share the results with law enforcement. (In the US at least.)
What this means is that when they get DNA at a crime scene, they can usually find a couple of people who are cousins of the accused. This can really help them narrow down where they should be looking.
Well a) only idiots go with profiling services, b) law enforcement should only be keeping records of those found guilty....I don't want harrassment because some own cousin does something bad
Are you telling me that noone in your extended family has gotten a DNA test? These days, it's increasingly common. Heck, your Aunt Dorothy might have gotten one as part of her cancer treatment, to see which of the various chemotherapy treatments she is most likely to be able to bear. That now means that if the police find your DNA at a crime scene, they will be able to work out that it's one of Dorothy's cousins.
"Dorothy," they'll say, "can you think of any of your relations, probably a nephew of yours, who might torch an Apple store?" And at the very least, they'll be able to look at her family tree, and you'll be recieving a call from Plid.
Every year, there are more DNA samples being collected and stored, and that means your ability to remain below the authorities radar screens is diminishing by the day.
Well I don't really have an extended family
I have "double second cousins". My mother had "double cousins". A result of a small village post-WWI where 2 brothers from one family married two sisters from another.
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
The Liberal Party but not sure this counts these days. According to Wiki: Only one of the twelve Liberal candidates in 2024 achieved 5% or more of the votes, resulting in all bar that one losing their deposits.
What was the chance of Mike Lynch's yacht sinking. Has anyone worked out the odds ?
Too many assumptions. Chance of being on a boat that sinks in a year is easy. But for that specific boat, you need to look at design issues compared to similar vessels, location, storm, any aggravating factors (crew). That kind of maths is how you end up jailing mothers who have multiple babies die of SIDS.
As DJL notes, the chances of two defendants dying* (any cause) within x period of a court case might be more relevant and much more easy to calculate. But even then, there are an awful lot of court cases each year and an awful lot of years to consider. Coincidences happen and "the driver of the car, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, remained at the scene and is assisting with enquiries" for the unfortunate runner is a strange way of doing a hit.
But yes, it does make you stop and think, doesn't it?
*not confirmed yet for Lynch, of course, but seems very likely, unfortunately
Total landlubber but the boat looks ready to sink in this photo and it's just normal seas
That is pretty normal. Looking at the boom and jib I assume it is on a beat. If it were a racing yacht or racing dingy or a racing catamaran it can be going over far far more than that. It is what they are supposed to do. If it goes too far you can let the sail out or turn it into wind, but if it goes too far the sails will spill the wind and the keel will prevent it from capsizing. In a dingy or catamaran there is no keel so you go for a swim (which I have more times than I care to remember).
I'm looking at an open deck a few tens of centimetres from the waterline. How do they avoid the boat being flooded?
A few decimetres? That's huuuuuge freeboard. I used to sail in the Forth with a chap with an open Dragon with wave crests just beginning to get interesting when heeled over.
He did have a bucket to bale out with, and the water in the bilges under the floorboards kept his stash of Carlsberg Extra Special nicely chilled in all weathers.
Lucy Letby is an interesting phenomenon. Seems she's now being politically weaponized by the British Right as a way to bash the NHS.
Letby truthers are really very odd but it is not just the British right. Private Eye too has been questioning of it.
And Owen Jones. About the only tweets he's doing these days about anything other than Gaza are on Letby.
I do wonder how much support Ms Letby would get were she not - to put it bluntly - an attractive young lady. We're all suckers for beautiful people.
I wouldn’t classify her as beautiful and I don’t think many would TBH. Personally, I think a key reason she got convicted was her behaviour / demeanour at trial which came across as emotionally detached / weird.
I haven’t followed things too closely but there certainly seems enough questions to ask given the issues raised, doubts raised by experts about evidence etc.
Someone on here mentioned that there is an interest on the Right to imply Letby has been framed. That is maybe true but, conversely, there is an incentive on those invested in the NHS to put the blame of so many deaths on a rogue and evil nurse rather than look into more fundamental issues. Both sides have a vested interest in pushing their views on this one.
If people are asked to assess how honest and trustworthy they are based on a photo, then they will tend to give much higher marks to better looking people. I don't really think that is a contraversial point. Nor do I think it controversial to claim that - if all 70 million people in the UK were ranked in order of attractiveness - she would be comfortably in the top quarter.
This does not make her innocent or guilty; I am merely pointing out there is cold, hard scientific fact that we (as humans) are suckers for physical appearance. And I find it odd that you doubt this.
Don’t think I did dispute that physical appearance influences things (it’s certainly not in my post) but more her personality may also have had more of an impact and / or she wasn’t particularly stunning enough to influence the outcome.
I’m not an expert on the case but there feels enough odd to suggest it should be looked at more.
I think the fear is that we have had some serious miscarriages of justice before based on mathematical models, the SID cases being the most obvious example.
Very few lawyers, and even fewer jurors, have any real understanding of mathematics. To give you an idea I am considered unusually numerate amongst my cohort and yet I have lost count (ha) of the number of times I have made basic errors on here.
I think we are right to look at the modelling critically but we should not ignore the other evidence whilst doing so. My hesitation, at the risk of setting another haggis running, is why I would never support capital punishment. If we had it she would have been a prime candidate.
The mathematics is bollocks (or, not bollocks, but not relevant). Who cares if it's mathematically unlikely to be someone else than her (under various assumptions that probably don't hold). Even if the maths is correct, unlikely things happen all the time. People win lotteries, get struck by lightning, elect Donald Trump...
Maybe worth a thread header on the use and misuse of statistics in cases like this?
I don't know how good DNA sampling is nowadays but it certainly used to be the case that if you trawled the country for someone matching DNA at a crime scene you'd expect to find about 10 people.
A supposed "5 million to 1 chance" suddenly becomes a "1 in 10 chance" unless you have some additional evidence.
I never understood the police asked for people to be sampled so as to "eliminate them from enquiries". Or at least, I never understood why anyone would volunteer.
The standard probability calculated when there is an adequate supply of DNA is described as a likelihood of not less than 1 in a billion. This is calculated by the number of branches on the DNA found that match the accused. It has been explained to me that in most cases the chances of a false match are significantly less than 1 in a billion but that is the highest ratio they use in their reports.
There are some exceptions to this. If the sample is very small or if the accused comes from an ethnic minority which has comparatively few contributors to the data base measured against then the likelihood of the sample not being from you is much lower but as a generality if you know you didn't do something the risks of giving a DNA sample for elimination purposes is vastly lower than the risks of going to a jury trial.
And, of course, the police are entitled to take a sample from you anyway if you don't volunteer.
Thanks - I think my figures are probably going back 20 years at least.
Would the police really get permission to sample everyone in a town?
No, but they routinely take a DNA swab from someone who is in custody for any reason.
I had a particularly smart Jury question recently. They asked, how did they know to check the DNA of the accused? The answer, of course, is that the DNA tested had matched an entry in the DNA database because the accused had been previously convicted. Of course the Judge did not tell them that but someone on the jury had worked it out.
It is worth remembering that whenever you submit DNA for one of those "profiling companies" to see whether you are susceptible to skin cancer or dementia or supporting Reform or whatever, then the default tick box allows the the lab to share the results with law enforcement. (In the US at least.)
What this means is that when they get DNA at a crime scene, they can usually find a couple of people who are cousins of the accused. This can really help them narrow down where they should be looking.
Well a) only idiots go with profiling services, b) law enforcement should only be keeping records of those found guilty....I don't want harrassment because some own cousin does something bad
Are you telling me that noone in your extended family has gotten a DNA test? These days, it's increasingly common. Heck, your Aunt Dorothy might have gotten one as part of her cancer treatment, to see which of the various chemotherapy treatments she is most likely to be able to bear. That now means that if the police find your DNA at a crime scene, they will be able to work out that it's one of Dorothy's nephews.
"Dorothy," they'll say, "can you think of any of your relations, probably a nephew of yours, who might torch an Apple store?" And at the very least, they'll be able to look at her family tree, and you'll be recieving a call from Plid.
Every year, there are more DNA samples being collected and stored, and that means your ability to remain below the authorities radar screens is diminishing by the day.
Is torching an Apple Store OK?
Would it be better if the person who did it wasn't caught?
What if people were injured/murdered?
What kind of society do you/we want to live in?
Complex questions, many of which don't have easy answers.
Dna is not the answer for the following reason....something happens dna is at the scene....it matches say 20 people. Suddenly they are all prime suspects....however nothing actually says the dna at the scene is relevavant to the crime. It is no different to phone records....your phone connecting to a cell tower in the area at that time makes you a suspect
I have a similar story: a friend of ours was going to get a DNA test, and his parents begged him not to. Turned out his dad was not his dad.
Yes heard many stories like that especially for children that were adopted young and the foster parents never told them. Just speculating it would be a novel motive for a murder mystery
How much does one care? If it turned out that I was adopted, I'd be mildly interested, but basically the "parents" I was used to would remain my (late) parents, rather than someone I'd never met. But I have friends who feel strongly that it'd be a Big Deal.
I have a similar story: a friend of ours was going to get a DNA test, and his parents begged him not to. Turned out his dad was not his dad.
Yes heard many stories like that especially for children that were adopted young and the foster parents never told them. Just speculating it would be a novel motive for a murder mystery
How much does one care? If it turned out that I was adopted, I'd be mildly interested, but basically the "parents" I was used to would remain my (late) parents, rather than someone I'd never met. But I have friends who feel strongly that it'd be a Big Deal.
I have a similar story: a friend of ours was going to get a DNA test, and his parents begged him not to. Turned out his dad was not his dad.
Yes heard many stories like that especially for children that were adopted young and the foster parents never told them. Just speculating it would be a novel motive for a murder mystery
How much does one care? If it turned out that I was adopted, I'd be mildly interested, but basically the "parents" I was used to would remain my (late) parents, rather than someone I'd never met. But I have friends who feel strongly that it'd be a Big Deal.
Lucy Letby is an interesting phenomenon. Seems she's now being politically weaponized by the British Right as a way to bash the NHS.
Letby truthers are really very odd but it is not just the British right. Private Eye too has been questioning of it.
And Owen Jones. About the only tweets he's doing these days about anything other than Gaza are on Letby.
I do wonder how much support Ms Letby would get were she not - to put it bluntly - an attractive young lady. We're all suckers for beautiful people.
I wouldn’t classify her as beautiful and I don’t think many would TBH. Personally, I think a key reason she got convicted was her behaviour / demeanour at trial which came across as emotionally detached / weird.
I haven’t followed things too closely but there certainly seems enough questions to ask given the issues raised, doubts raised by experts about evidence etc.
Someone on here mentioned that there is an interest on the Right to imply Letby has been framed. That is maybe true but, conversely, there is an incentive on those invested in the NHS to put the blame of so many deaths on a rogue and evil nurse rather than look into more fundamental issues. Both sides have a vested interest in pushing their views on this one.
If people are asked to assess how honest and trustworthy they are based on a photo, then they will tend to give much higher marks to better looking people. I don't really think that is a contraversial point. Nor do I think it controversial to claim that - if all 70 million people in the UK were ranked in order of attractiveness - she would be comfortably in the top quarter.
This does not make her innocent or guilty; I am merely pointing out there is cold, hard scientific fact that we (as humans) are suckers for physical appearance. And I find it odd that you doubt this.
Don’t think I did dispute that physical appearance influences things (it’s certainly not in my post) but more her personality may also have had more of an impact and / or she wasn’t particularly stunning enough to influence the outcome.
I’m not an expert on the case but there feels enough odd to suggest it should be looked at more.
I think the fear is that we have had some serious miscarriages of justice before based on mathematical models, the SID cases being the most obvious example.
Very few lawyers, and even fewer jurors, have any real understanding of mathematics. To give you an idea I am considered unusually numerate amongst my cohort and yet I have lost count (ha) of the number of times I have made basic errors on here.
I think we are right to look at the modelling critically but we should not ignore the other evidence whilst doing so. My hesitation, at the risk of setting another haggis running, is why I would never support capital punishment. If we had it she would have been a prime candidate.
The mathematics is bollocks (or, not bollocks, but not relevant). Who cares if it's mathematically unlikely to be someone else than her (under various assumptions that probably don't hold). Even if the maths is correct, unlikely things happen all the time. People win lotteries, get struck by lightning, elect Donald Trump...
Maybe worth a thread header on the use and misuse of statistics in cases like this?
I don't know how good DNA sampling is nowadays but it certainly used to be the case that if you trawled the country for someone matching DNA at a crime scene you'd expect to find about 10 people.
A supposed "5 million to 1 chance" suddenly becomes a "1 in 10 chance" unless you have some additional evidence.
I never understood the police asked for people to be sampled so as to "eliminate them from enquiries". Or at least, I never understood why anyone would volunteer.
The standard probability calculated when there is an adequate supply of DNA is described as a likelihood of not less than 1 in a billion. This is calculated by the number of branches on the DNA found that match the accused. It has been explained to me that in most cases the chances of a false match are significantly less than 1 in a billion but that is the highest ratio they use in their reports.
There are some exceptions to this. If the sample is very small or if the accused comes from an ethnic minority which has comparatively few contributors to the data base measured against then the likelihood of the sample not being from you is much lower but as a generality if you know you didn't do something the risks of giving a DNA sample for elimination purposes is vastly lower than the risks of going to a jury trial.
And, of course, the police are entitled to take a sample from you anyway if you don't volunteer.
Thanks - I think my figures are probably going back 20 years at least.
Would the police really get permission to sample everyone in a town?
No, but they routinely take a DNA swab from someone who is in custody for any reason.
I had a particularly smart Jury question recently. They asked, how did they know to check the DNA of the accused? The answer, of course, is that the DNA tested had matched an entry in the DNA database because the accused had been previously convicted. Of course the Judge did not tell them that but someone on the jury had worked it out.
It is worth remembering that whenever you submit DNA for one of those "profiling companies" to see whether you are susceptible to skin cancer or dementia or supporting Reform or whatever, then the default tick box allows the the lab to share the results with law enforcement. (In the US at least.)
What this means is that when they get DNA at a crime scene, they can usually find a couple of people who are cousins of the accused. This can really help them narrow down where they should be looking.
Well a) only idiots go with profiling services, b) law enforcement should only be keeping records of those found guilty....I don't want harrassment because some own cousin does something bad
Are you telling me that noone in your extended family has gotten a DNA test? These days, it's increasingly common. Heck, your Aunt Dorothy might have gotten one as part of her cancer treatment, to see which of the various chemotherapy treatments she is most likely to be able to bear. That now means that if the police find your DNA at a crime scene, they will be able to work out that it's one of Dorothy's nephews.
"Dorothy," they'll say, "can you think of any of your relations, probably a nephew of yours, who might torch an Apple store?" And at the very least, they'll be able to look at her family tree, and you'll be recieving a call from Plid.
Every year, there are more DNA samples being collected and stored, and that means your ability to remain below the authorities radar screens is diminishing by the day.
That's medical DNA sampling the auntie is having. Not part of the same pool of data that the cops use and that overlaps with familial DNA on genealogical websites.
How far the cops can intrude into medical databases I am not clear, but simple trawls without named suspects don't seem on.
But that doesn't change the basic point that putting one's DNA in those genealogical companies is absolutely insane.
Vide also e.g. recent stories about sperm donors and their children, and of course what happens if someone turns out not to be a natural child of a potential testator?
That said, I've seen an awful lot of LinkedIn posts over the last 2-3 weeks as various senior professionals in my network couldn't resist the temptation to grandstand about how much they deplore racism, anti-immigration sentiment, and homophobia etc, but I've noticed these are getting far fewer likes and reshares than before.
I think companies have begun to realise it doesn't make them money. Disney learned this the hard way over the last 4 years with flop after flop after flop and this year with two movies that resisted all of the bullshit they had two huge successes with Inside Out 2 and Deadpool and Wolverine and there's rumours now that Marvel has cleaned house and fired all of the people who were responsible for the failures they had from 2020-2023 because Disney can't afford for more $275m budget movies to do what The Marvels did and only make $199m globally landing them with an estimated an actual loss of ~$250m and a ~ $500m loss against expectations.
The Bud Light (and, to a degree, Target and Disney) episodes brought home to many companies there is an actual financial / share price cost to such policies.
Not just that it's generally a distraction, Unilever dumped all of that "products must have meaning" bullshit when the last CEO got sacked and the new guy has just concentrated on delivering for shareholders and getting rid of Ben and Jerry's and the 1y gain is ~18% since he's gone back to basics and dumped all of the bullshit branding exercises.
There was a poisonous attitude building among company execs from ~2018-2023 which was "well if they don't agree with what we're saying we don't want their money" but this really seems to have unwound over the last year or so, I actually found that UK companies were very susceptible to that attitude (as I'm sure @Casino_Royale will attest to).
There was no cost to many CEOs / CFOs / Boards from sprouting the woke message and it made them look ‘cool’ to a certain audience (plus cementing their chances of gaining other benefits such as positions on other Boards et ). Hence they did it.
It has now been proven there is a cost and hence the rowing back.
I have genuine respect for those who truly believe in the principles, even if I disagree with many aspects of what is being said. What I can’t stand are the fence sitters who will sprout their wokeness to look good but who retreat at the first sign of problems.
Dove still seem to be onboard from the latest ads.
Dove have been doing the "real women" advertising for decades, it works for them and isn't woke IMO. It's a direct appeal to their target market, Dove isn't an aspirational brand and using beautiful models to advertise their products wouldn't make sense for them. I do, however, think that they're starting veer into promoting obesity and unhealthy lifestyles but I guess it works for them in a country where 2/5 women are overweight.
But it's an object lesson in 'products having meaning'. All branded goods do, of course.
Unilever, which is pretty well defined by its brands, never ditched that - they just ditched the bits of meaning that weren't contributing to sales.
Mayonnaise will never have "meaning" and neither will stock cubes. They are commodity products. Dove is a beauty brand, it needs to connect emotionally with buyers. Unilever foods operate in a completely different market, most people don't even know that it exists and owns 10% of the food products in the supermarkets. Their products will sell based on two things - price and quality. If the mix of those is good then customers will buy their products, if the mix is bad they won't regardless of how many times they get Brian Blessed on TV to advertise Hellmans.
Lurpak is probably the best recent example, Arla were running a huge advertising campaign for it trying to "connect" with customers because they'd stupidly put the prices up and cut the size by 20%, they suffered a huge drop in sales because customers are rational, in the last few months they've dropped all of the advertising and the kilo price of Lurpak is now about the same as it was before they cut the pack size so sales rebounded. Ultimately, it's butter and one type of butter will be basically the same as another type for 90% of customers, if they see the own brand is 25% cheaper and 25% bigger they will try it at least once.
On butter, the exception is that Irish butter is much better than British butter, and for you poor folks in the old country, the premium price of Kerrygold is worth it, regardless of how much money they waste on crap advertising.
Although the butter is only relatively less expensive here because all the other groceries are more pricey. A punnet of strawberries worked out as €0.50 per strawberry at the weekend, and alcohol consumption seems to be declining because the price of potatoes has got to be so dear. The price of potatoes is a big deal, and if it doesn't see the current government hounded out of office then there's no justice in the world.
Kerrygold for me too. It used to be Anchor until they switched from New Zealand to British butter but kept the same name. Lurpak when Sainsbury's sell all the Kerrygold to someone else.
Lucy Letby is an interesting phenomenon. Seems she's now being politically weaponized by the British Right as a way to bash the NHS.
Letby truthers are really very odd but it is not just the British right. Private Eye too has been questioning of it.
And Owen Jones. About the only tweets he's doing these days about anything other than Gaza are on Letby.
I do wonder how much support Ms Letby would get were she not - to put it bluntly - an attractive young lady. We're all suckers for beautiful people.
I wouldn’t classify her as beautiful and I don’t think many would TBH. Personally, I think a key reason she got convicted was her behaviour / demeanour at trial which came across as emotionally detached / weird.
I haven’t followed things too closely but there certainly seems enough questions to ask given the issues raised, doubts raised by experts about evidence etc.
Someone on here mentioned that there is an interest on the Right to imply Letby has been framed. That is maybe true but, conversely, there is an incentive on those invested in the NHS to put the blame of so many deaths on a rogue and evil nurse rather than look into more fundamental issues. Both sides have a vested interest in pushing their views on this one.
If people are asked to assess how honest and trustworthy they are based on a photo, then they will tend to give much higher marks to better looking people. I don't really think that is a contraversial point. Nor do I think it controversial to claim that - if all 70 million people in the UK were ranked in order of attractiveness - she would be comfortably in the top quarter.
This does not make her innocent or guilty; I am merely pointing out there is cold, hard scientific fact that we (as humans) are suckers for physical appearance. And I find it odd that you doubt this.
Don’t think I did dispute that physical appearance influences things (it’s certainly not in my post) but more her personality may also have had more of an impact and / or she wasn’t particularly stunning enough to influence the outcome.
I’m not an expert on the case but there feels enough odd to suggest it should be looked at more.
I think the fear is that we have had some serious miscarriages of justice before based on mathematical models, the SID cases being the most obvious example.
Very few lawyers, and even fewer jurors, have any real understanding of mathematics. To give you an idea I am considered unusually numerate amongst my cohort and yet I have lost count (ha) of the number of times I have made basic errors on here.
I think we are right to look at the modelling critically but we should not ignore the other evidence whilst doing so. My hesitation, at the risk of setting another haggis running, is why I would never support capital punishment. If we had it she would have been a prime candidate.
The mathematics is bollocks (or, not bollocks, but not relevant). Who cares if it's mathematically unlikely to be someone else than her (under various assumptions that probably don't hold). Even if the maths is correct, unlikely things happen all the time. People win lotteries, get struck by lightning, elect Donald Trump...
Maybe worth a thread header on the use and misuse of statistics in cases like this?
I don't know how good DNA sampling is nowadays but it certainly used to be the case that if you trawled the country for someone matching DNA at a crime scene you'd expect to find about 10 people.
A supposed "5 million to 1 chance" suddenly becomes a "1 in 10 chance" unless you have some additional evidence.
I never understood the police asked for people to be sampled so as to "eliminate them from enquiries". Or at least, I never understood why anyone would volunteer.
The standard probability calculated when there is an adequate supply of DNA is described as a likelihood of not less than 1 in a billion. This is calculated by the number of branches on the DNA found that match the accused. It has been explained to me that in most cases the chances of a false match are significantly less than 1 in a billion but that is the highest ratio they use in their reports.
There are some exceptions to this. If the sample is very small or if the accused comes from an ethnic minority which has comparatively few contributors to the data base measured against then the likelihood of the sample not being from you is much lower but as a generality if you know you didn't do something the risks of giving a DNA sample for elimination purposes is vastly lower than the risks of going to a jury trial.
And, of course, the police are entitled to take a sample from you anyway if you don't volunteer.
Thanks - I think my figures are probably going back 20 years at least.
Would the police really get permission to sample everyone in a town?
No, but they routinely take a DNA swab from someone who is in custody for any reason.
I had a particularly smart Jury question recently. They asked, how did they know to check the DNA of the accused? The answer, of course, is that the DNA tested had matched an entry in the DNA database because the accused had been previously convicted. Of course the Judge did not tell them that but someone on the jury had worked it out.
It is worth remembering that whenever you submit DNA for one of those "profiling companies" to see whether you are susceptible to skin cancer or dementia or supporting Reform or whatever, then the default tick box allows the the lab to share the results with law enforcement. (In the US at least.)
What this means is that when they get DNA at a crime scene, they can usually find a couple of people who are cousins of the accused. This can really help them narrow down where they should be looking.
Well a) only idiots go with profiling services, b) law enforcement should only be keeping records of those found guilty....I don't want harrassment because some own cousin does something bad
Are you telling me that noone in your extended family has gotten a DNA test? These days, it's increasingly common. Heck, your Aunt Dorothy might have gotten one as part of her cancer treatment, to see which of the various chemotherapy treatments she is most likely to be able to bear. That now means that if the police find your DNA at a crime scene, they will be able to work out that it's one of Dorothy's cousins.
"Dorothy," they'll say, "can you think of any of your relations, probably a nephew of yours, who might torch an Apple store?" And at the very least, they'll be able to look at her family tree, and you'll be recieving a call from Plid.
Every year, there are more DNA samples being collected and stored, and that means your ability to remain below the authorities radar screens is diminishing by the day.
Well I don't really have an extended family
I have "double second cousins". My mother had "double cousins". A result of a small village post-WWI where 2 brothers from one family married two sisters from another.
In Rob Roy there is a brilliant line where Scott tells of someone riding up to the Clan Chief's castle "with all the arrogance of a second cousin."
Even in the 1820s this was probably something of a joke.
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
Eh?
The police won't need DNA to place your brother at the crime scene given that it's his house, and he'd need an alibi placing him elsewhere, DNA evidence or not.
On the other hand, sometimes murder victims will have the DNA of their assailant under their fingernails, and if your DNA is found there then you would have a lot of explaining to do, and likewise why you had scratches over your face.
Lucy Letby is an interesting phenomenon. Seems she's now being politically weaponized by the British Right as a way to bash the NHS.
Letby truthers are really very odd but it is not just the British right. Private Eye too has been questioning of it.
And Owen Jones. About the only tweets he's doing these days about anything other than Gaza are on Letby.
I do wonder how much support Ms Letby would get were she not - to put it bluntly - an attractive young lady. We're all suckers for beautiful people.
I wouldn’t classify her as beautiful and I don’t think many would TBH. Personally, I think a key reason she got convicted was her behaviour / demeanour at trial which came across as emotionally detached / weird.
I haven’t followed things too closely but there certainly seems enough questions to ask given the issues raised, doubts raised by experts about evidence etc.
Someone on here mentioned that there is an interest on the Right to imply Letby has been framed. That is maybe true but, conversely, there is an incentive on those invested in the NHS to put the blame of so many deaths on a rogue and evil nurse rather than look into more fundamental issues. Both sides have a vested interest in pushing their views on this one.
If people are asked to assess how honest and trustworthy they are based on a photo, then they will tend to give much higher marks to better looking people. I don't really think that is a contraversial point. Nor do I think it controversial to claim that - if all 70 million people in the UK were ranked in order of attractiveness - she would be comfortably in the top quarter.
This does not make her innocent or guilty; I am merely pointing out there is cold, hard scientific fact that we (as humans) are suckers for physical appearance. And I find it odd that you doubt this.
Don’t think I did dispute that physical appearance influences things (it’s certainly not in my post) but more her personality may also have had more of an impact and / or she wasn’t particularly stunning enough to influence the outcome.
I’m not an expert on the case but there feels enough odd to suggest it should be looked at more.
I think the fear is that we have had some serious miscarriages of justice before based on mathematical models, the SID cases being the most obvious example.
Very few lawyers, and even fewer jurors, have any real understanding of mathematics. To give you an idea I am considered unusually numerate amongst my cohort and yet I have lost count (ha) of the number of times I have made basic errors on here.
I think we are right to look at the modelling critically but we should not ignore the other evidence whilst doing so. My hesitation, at the risk of setting another haggis running, is why I would never support capital punishment. If we had it she would have been a prime candidate.
The mathematics is bollocks (or, not bollocks, but not relevant). Who cares if it's mathematically unlikely to be someone else than her (under various assumptions that probably don't hold). Even if the maths is correct, unlikely things happen all the time. People win lotteries, get struck by lightning, elect Donald Trump...
Maybe worth a thread header on the use and misuse of statistics in cases like this?
I don't know how good DNA sampling is nowadays but it certainly used to be the case that if you trawled the country for someone matching DNA at a crime scene you'd expect to find about 10 people.
A supposed "5 million to 1 chance" suddenly becomes a "1 in 10 chance" unless you have some additional evidence.
I never understood the police asked for people to be sampled so as to "eliminate them from enquiries". Or at least, I never understood why anyone would volunteer.
The standard probability calculated when there is an adequate supply of DNA is described as a likelihood of not less than 1 in a billion. This is calculated by the number of branches on the DNA found that match the accused. It has been explained to me that in most cases the chances of a false match are significantly less than 1 in a billion but that is the highest ratio they use in their reports.
There are some exceptions to this. If the sample is very small or if the accused comes from an ethnic minority which has comparatively few contributors to the data base measured against then the likelihood of the sample not being from you is much lower but as a generality if you know you didn't do something the risks of giving a DNA sample for elimination purposes is vastly lower than the risks of going to a jury trial.
And, of course, the police are entitled to take a sample from you anyway if you don't volunteer.
Thanks - I think my figures are probably going back 20 years at least.
Would the police really get permission to sample everyone in a town?
No, but they routinely take a DNA swab from someone who is in custody for any reason.
I had a particularly smart Jury question recently. They asked, how did they know to check the DNA of the accused? The answer, of course, is that the DNA tested had matched an entry in the DNA database because the accused had been previously convicted. Of course the Judge did not tell them that but someone on the jury had worked it out.
It is worth remembering that whenever you submit DNA for one of those "profiling companies" to see whether you are susceptible to skin cancer or dementia or supporting Reform or whatever, then the default tick box allows the the lab to share the results with law enforcement. (In the US at least.)
What this means is that when they get DNA at a crime scene, they can usually find a couple of people who are cousins of the accused. This can really help them narrow down where they should be looking.
Well a) only idiots go with profiling services, b) law enforcement should only be keeping records of those found guilty....I don't want harrassment because some own cousin does something bad
Are you telling me that noone in your extended family has gotten a DNA test? These days, it's increasingly common. Heck, your Aunt Dorothy might have gotten one as part of her cancer treatment, to see which of the various chemotherapy treatments she is most likely to be able to bear. That now means that if the police find your DNA at a crime scene, they will be able to work out that it's one of Dorothy's cousins.
"Dorothy," they'll say, "can you think of any of your relations, probably a nephew of yours, who might torch an Apple store?" And at the very least, they'll be able to look at her family tree, and you'll be recieving a call from Plid.
Every year, there are more DNA samples being collected and stored, and that means your ability to remain below the authorities radar screens is diminishing by the day.
Well I don't really have an extended family
I have "double second cousins". My mother had "double cousins". A result of a small village post-WWI where 2 brothers from one family married two sisters from another.
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
What was the chance of Mike Lynch's yacht sinking. Has anyone worked out the odds ?
Too many assumptions. Chance of being on a boat that sinks in a year is easy. But for that specific boat, you need to look at design issues compared to similar vessels, location, storm, any aggravating factors (crew). That kind of maths is how you end up jailing mothers who have multiple babies die of SIDS.
As DJL notes, the chances of two defendants dying* (any cause) within x period of a court case might be more relevant and much more easy to calculate. But even then, there are an awful lot of court cases each year and an awful lot of years to consider. Coincidences happen and "the driver of the car, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, remained at the scene and is assisting with enquiries" for the unfortunate runner is a strange way of doing a hit.
But yes, it does make you stop and think, doesn't it?
*not confirmed yet for Lynch, of course, but seems very likely, unfortunately
Total landlubber but the boat looks ready to sink in this photo and it's just normal seas
That is pretty normal. Looking at the boom and jib I assume it is on a beat. If it were a racing yacht or racing dingy or a racing catamaran it can be going over far far more than that. It is what they are supposed to do. If it goes too far you can let the sail out or turn it into wind, but if it goes too far the sails will spill the wind and the keel will prevent it from capsizing. In a dingy or catamaran there is no keel so you go for a swim (which I have more times than I care to remember).
The problems start as the corner of the deck goes under.
Most sailing yacht decks are designed to not mind a fair bit of subversion.
In the above boat, you are rapidly looking at doors and windows going underwater. Down-flooding, then glug glug.
Something the RN realised in the 19th cent was that doors and windows are always open when inconvenient. At one point, they were designing internal bulkheads with no doors - you had to climb a ladder to well above waterline and then climb down. Later they added lifts - for officers only!
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
Eh?
The police won't need DNA to place your brother at the crime scene given that it's his house, and he'd need an alibi placing him elsewhere, DNA evidence or not.
On the other hand, sometimes murder victims will have the DNA of their assailant under their fingernails, and if your DNA is found there then you would have a lot of explaining to do, and likewise why you had scratches over your face.
But dna evidence only matches on a few points (15 or so as I remember) chances are both myself and my putative brother share the same points of congruence and what makes you think I will get scratches on my face when its a cold blooded killing to implicate my brother....I knock on the door wait till she turns down then stab her in the back...no scratches. In court I confess about the talks of my brother telling me what a controlling bitch she was and how he cant live with her much longer etc....yeah he is going down
What was the chance of Mike Lynch's yacht sinking. Has anyone worked out the odds ?
Too many assumptions. Chance of being on a boat that sinks in a year is easy. But for that specific boat, you need to look at design issues compared to similar vessels, location, storm, any aggravating factors (crew). That kind of maths is how you end up jailing mothers who have multiple babies die of SIDS.
As DJL notes, the chances of two defendants dying* (any cause) within x period of a court case might be more relevant and much more easy to calculate. But even then, there are an awful lot of court cases each year and an awful lot of years to consider. Coincidences happen and "the driver of the car, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, remained at the scene and is assisting with enquiries" for the unfortunate runner is a strange way of doing a hit.
But yes, it does make you stop and think, doesn't it?
*not confirmed yet for Lynch, of course, but seems very likely, unfortunately
Total landlubber but the boat looks ready to sink in this photo and it's just normal seas
That is pretty normal. Looking at the boom and jib I assume it is on a beat. If it were a racing yacht or racing dingy or a racing catamaran it can be going over far far more than that. It is what they are supposed to do. If it goes too far you can let the sail out or turn it into wind, but if it goes too far the sails will spill the wind and the keel will prevent it from capsizing. In a dingy or catamaran there is no keel so you go for a swim (which I have more times than I care to remember).
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
New York Times - Vance Defends Unsubstantiated Claims About Immigration and Crime
Citing the movie “Gangs of New York,” JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, said that immigration would create “ethnic enclaves” that spur violence and crime. Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, on Friday defended his past unsubstantiated claims about immigration in which he suggested that early waves of Italian, Irish and German immigration led to higher crime and interethnic conflict, by citing the movie “Gangs of New York.”
At a campaign event before the Milwaukee Police Association, Mr. Vance was asked about the comments — which have resurfaced in recent days — from a 2021 interview with the far-right podcaster Jack Murphy, and whether he would have prescribed the kind of mass deportations then that he and former President Donald J. Trump have made central to their platform now.
Mr. Vance mostly skirted the question on removals, but he stood by his comments on crime and ethnic and interethnic conflict, pointing to the Martin Scorsese film that depicts gang violence between Irish migrants and nativist Protestant Americans. , , ,
Since the nation’s founding, nativist politicians and anti-immigrant activists have sought to conflate immigration with crime. But historians and criminologists say there are no empirical studies to support claims like those made by Mr. Vance. The studies that do exist have repeatedly concluded that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States. A 2023 study by researchers at Stanford, Princeton and other major institutions found that, since 1880, immigrants have not been more likely to be imprisoned than people born in the United States.
SSI - Yet more BS from alleged intellectual MAGA-maggot J.D. Vance.
Not content with his well-known Kinder, Küche, Kirche view of the proper role of women, the Recovering Hillbilly is now declaring that the grandsires of million of Americans of Irish, Italian, German, etc., etc. descent, where a dangerous criminal class.
Reckon he is so pig-ignorant of history, that he fails to undertand that HIS own Scots-Irish ancestors settled in "ethnic enclaves" when they arrived in America. Nor does he comprehend, that the ESSENCE of America is the story of the assimilation of new immigants and especially their children and grandchildren into the mainstream of Amerian life. . . .
Vance's incorrect "analysis" of the allegedly criminal Irish, Italians and Germans, is especially ironic coming from an American Catholic!
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
The term was self-applied by people talking about when they first became "properly" aware (or "woke") to a particular form of injustice. E.g. "I became woke to fraternal injustice when my younger brother was allowed to stay up to watch Red Dwarf, but I was always blamed if we had fights."
It's use suggested that those who were not woke, were not part of the enlightened vanguard, the Elect, to borrow what seems to be an analogous term from religion, and so could have their views discarded.
So it was part of a pretty typical ingroup/outgroup signalling behaviour, until it was picked up and used as a catch-all term of abuse, a bucket for all the perceived ills and slights that a person might feel they receive, the latest them and they to protect a different ingroup from.
It was pretty bad and useless and since has become worse and even less enlightening.
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
It really depends on the premise. If you believe “woke” simply means alert to injustice and not a bigot, then non-woke liberal is an oxymoron and none exist.
If you think woke means extreme lefty navel gazing emanating from US college campuses, then the vast majority of liberals and liberal parties are non-woke.
If you are someone who sees the latter type of wokeness on social media and then ascribes it to anyone to the left of Trump, in a culture warry sort of way, then what you’re really looking for is a conservative libertarian party, not a liberal party.
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
Eh?
The police won't need DNA to place your brother at the crime scene given that it's his house, and he'd need an alibi placing him elsewhere, DNA evidence or not.
On the other hand, sometimes murder victims will have the DNA of their assailant under their fingernails, and if your DNA is found there then you would have a lot of explaining to do, and likewise why you had scratches over your face.
But dna evidence only matches on a few points (15 or so as I remember) chances are both myself and my putative brother share the same points of congruence and what makes you think I will get scratches on my face when its a cold blooded killing to implicate my brother....I knock on the door wait till she turns down then stab her in the back...no scratches. In court I confess about the talks of my brother telling me what a controlling bitch she was and how he cant live with her much longer etc....yeah he is going down
You're going to have to do better than that to trick Columbo.
Abortion may be the 5th most important issue for independents, but it's been an incredible motivator of otherwise low turnout groups. Go look at the data from the Kansas vote in August 2022: it was young people turning out in record numbers that led to the rejection of the the anti abortion amendment to the State constitution.
Remember that the young are normally by far the lowest turnout group, and poll weightings reflect that.
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
Eh?
The police won't need DNA to place your brother at the crime scene given that it's his house, and he'd need an alibi placing him elsewhere, DNA evidence or not.
On the other hand, sometimes murder victims will have the DNA of their assailant under their fingernails, and if your DNA is found there then you would have a lot of explaining to do, and likewise why you had scratches over your face.
But dna evidence only matches on a few points (15 or so as I remember) chances are both myself and my putative brother share the same points of congruence and what makes you think I will get scratches on my face when its a cold blooded killing to implicate my brother....I knock on the door wait till she turns down then stab her in the back...no scratches. In court I confess about the talks of my brother telling me what a controlling bitch she was and how he cant live with her much longer etc....yeah he is going down
You're going to have to do better than that to trick Columbo.
Well columbo was an intelligent man....fortunately for criminals here we have the metropolitan police
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
You do know the people who coined the term are the people you would describe as woke?
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
Woke is the belief that people should be divided into identity groups and then treated based on a perceived hierarchy of oppression.
Or, if that's not woke, it needs a word to describe it.
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
Hope that's a hypothetical not a confession ?
I don't have a brother
Please God, not another murder confession.
It seems quite unfriendly that as an atheist I have so little to apologise for.
This is my problem with dna and yes I know a fair bit about the science. I have a brother for example. I goto his house kill his wife because I hate my brother....chances are he is a good match for the dna evidence, I have no actual motive to kill his wife because my motive is he stole a toy from me when I was 4....pretty likely he gets a jail term
Hope that's a hypothetical not a confession ?
I don't have a brother
Please God, not another murder confession.
Do you get lots?
A colleague, qualitative researcher, once had an interviewee confess to murder (in the eyes of the law, at least) during a research interview. Bit of an ethical dilemma ensued (end result after various bits of legal/ethical advice was that it went no further).
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
Woke is the belief that people should be divided into identity groups and then treated based on a perceived hierarchy of oppression.
Or, if that's not woke, it needs a word to describe it.
That's intersectionality.
I can't see why you'd want to use woke instead though. Seven syllables!
I have a similar story: a friend of ours was going to get a DNA test, and his parents begged him not to. Turned out his dad was not his dad.
Yes heard many stories like that especially for children that were adopted young and the foster parents never told them. Just speculating it would be a novel motive for a murder mystery
How much does one care? If it turned out that I was adopted, I'd be mildly interested, but basically the "parents" I was used to would remain my (late) parents, rather than someone I'd never met. But I have friends who feel strongly that it'd be a Big Deal.
Why do you think you'd know how you'd feel if you found out you were adopted?
Abortion may be the 5th most important issue for independents, but it's been an incredible motivator of otherwise low turnout groups. Go look at the data from the Kansas vote in August 2022: it was young people turning out in record numbers that led to the rejection of the the anti abortion amendment to the State constitution.
Remember that the young are normally by far the lowest turnout group, and poll weightings reflect that.
Yeah, but the young talk a good game and maybe even wave placards about but they don't vote. That is why they are down weighted.
What was that about, "this time its different" being the most expensive words in the English language?
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
Woke is the belief that people should be divided into identity groups and then treated based on a perceived hierarchy of oppression.
Or, if that's not woke, it needs a word to describe it.
It's not. There is a whole Wikipedia article explaining what "woke" is.
But the phrase has now been co-opted to include anyone or anything that someone on the right has an instinctive dislike of. A PBer called Labour's efforts to reduce child poverty as woke, for example.
Abortion may be the 5th most important issue for independents, but it's been an incredible motivator of otherwise low turnout groups. Go look at the data from the Kansas vote in August 2022: it was young people turning out in record numbers that led to the rejection of the the anti abortion amendment to the State constitution.
Remember that the young are normally by far the lowest turnout group, and poll weightings reflect that.
Yeah, but the young talk a good game and maybe even wave placards about but they don't vote. That is why they are down weighted.
What was that about, "this time its different" being the most expensive words in the English language?
Abortion may be the 5th most important issue for independents, but it's been an incredible motivator of otherwise low turnout groups. Go look at the data from the Kansas vote in August 2022: it was young people turning out in record numbers that led to the rejection of the the anti abortion amendment to the State constitution.
Remember that the young are normally by far the lowest turnout group, and poll weightings reflect that.
The issue is how much it pulls in additional low propensity voters who wouldn’t have otherwise voted and then how much that benefits one particular party (in this case the Democrats).
The net uplift from such a referendum should be greater in 2022 than 2024 simply because 2022 is not a Presidential election year. Organised attempts to get younger voters to come out ramp up significantly in these years.
(There is also a question of how much these referendums really do motivate voters - given abortion bans have been blocked in conservative states by hefty margins, some voters might start to think there is not a need to come out and vote. I’d argue the pro-abortion camp needs a loss to get motivation up again).
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
Woke is the belief that people should be divided into identity groups and then treated based on a perceived hierarchy of oppression.
Or, if that's not woke, it needs a word to describe it.
Everyone knows what Woke is.
Those who ask, "what does Woke mean?" simply don't accept there's a problem and want to distract, and not engage.
It's a bit like asking someone repeatedly: who funds you.
simple definition of woke ....when someone from a minority community criticises things that happen in that community the woke people claim them to be a coconut rather than engage
To be clear white british have plenty of problems too, not saying minorities are the only ones
Abortion may be the 5th most important issue for independents, but it's been an incredible motivator of otherwise low turnout groups. Go look at the data from the Kansas vote in August 2022: it was young people turning out in record numbers that led to the rejection of the the anti abortion amendment to the State constitution.
Remember that the young are normally by far the lowest turnout group, and poll weightings reflect that.
The issue is how much it pulls in additional low propensity voters who wouldn’t have otherwise voted and then how much that benefits one particular party (in this case the Democrats).
The net uplift from such a referendum should be greater in 2022 than 2024 simply because 2022 is not a Presidential election year. Organised attempts to get younger voters to come out ramp up significantly in these years.
(There is also a question of how much these referendums really do motivate voters - given abortion bans have been blocked in conservative states by hefty margins, some voters might start to think there is not a need to come out and vote. I’d argue the pro-abortion camp needs a loss to get motivation up again).
It's entirely possible that young voters in Arizona are so confident that the abortion ban won't come into force that they decide not to come out and vote.
But I think I'd want pretty good odds, given it's a trend we've seen at - I think - every abortion vote yet.
Abortion may be the 5th most important issue for independents, but it's been an incredible motivator of otherwise low turnout groups. Go look at the data from the Kansas vote in August 2022: it was young people turning out in record numbers that led to the rejection of the the anti abortion amendment to the State constitution.
Remember that the young are normally by far the lowest turnout group, and poll weightings reflect that.
Saw somewhere, that current crop of yout' are voting at higher rates than the yout' of previous generations. Still abysmal but better than likes of me and (maybe) you at that age.
Would be interested to know, where abortion ranked with voters 18 to 30?
ESPECIALLY with young women? Reckon maybe higher than 5th place. AND note that where many young women are heading/trending . . . many young men are sure to follow . . .
Lucy Letby is an interesting phenomenon. Seems she's now being politically weaponized by the British Right as a way to bash the NHS.
Letby truthers are really very odd but it is not just the British right. Private Eye too has been questioning of it.
And Owen Jones. About the only tweets he's doing these days about anything other than Gaza are on Letby.
I do wonder how much support Ms Letby would get were she not - to put it bluntly - an attractive young lady. We're all suckers for beautiful people.
I wouldn’t classify her as beautiful and I don’t think many would TBH. Personally, I think a key reason she got convicted was her behaviour / demeanour at trial which came across as emotionally detached / weird.
I haven’t followed things too closely but there certainly seems enough questions to ask given the issues raised, doubts raised by experts about evidence etc.
Someone on here mentioned that there is an interest on the Right to imply Letby has been framed. That is maybe true but, conversely, there is an incentive on those invested in the NHS to put the blame of so many deaths on a rogue and evil nurse rather than look into more fundamental issues. Both sides have a vested interest in pushing their views on this one.
If people are asked to assess how honest and trustworthy they are based on a photo, then they will tend to give much higher marks to better looking people. I don't really think that is a contraversial point. Nor do I think it controversial to claim that - if all 70 million people in the UK were ranked in order of attractiveness - she would be comfortably in the top quarter.
This does not make her innocent or guilty; I am merely pointing out there is cold, hard scientific fact that we (as humans) are suckers for physical appearance. And I find it odd that you doubt this.
Don’t think I did dispute that physical appearance influences things (it’s certainly not in my post) but more her personality may also have had more of an impact and / or she wasn’t particularly stunning enough to influence the outcome.
I’m not an expert on the case but there feels enough odd to suggest it should be looked at more.
I think the fear is that we have had some serious miscarriages of justice before based on mathematical models, the SID cases being the most obvious example.
Very few lawyers, and even fewer jurors, have any real understanding of mathematics. To give you an idea I am considered unusually numerate amongst my cohort and yet I have lost count (ha) of the number of times I have made basic errors on here.
I think we are right to look at the modelling critically but we should not ignore the other evidence whilst doing so. My hesitation, at the risk of setting another haggis running, is why I would never support capital punishment. If we had it she would have been a prime candidate.
The mathematics is bollocks (or, not bollocks, but not relevant). Who cares if it's mathematically unlikely to be someone else than her (under various assumptions that probably don't hold). Even if the maths is correct, unlikely things happen all the time. People win lotteries, get struck by lightning, elect Donald Trump...
Maybe worth a thread header on the use and misuse of statistics in cases like this?
I don't know how good DNA sampling is nowadays but it certainly used to be the case that if you trawled the country for someone matching DNA at a crime scene you'd expect to find about 10 people.
A supposed "5 million to 1 chance" suddenly becomes a "1 in 10 chance" unless you have some additional evidence.
I never understood the police asked for people to be sampled so as to "eliminate them from enquiries". Or at least, I never understood why anyone would volunteer.
The standard probability calculated when there is an adequate supply of DNA is described as a likelihood of not less than 1 in a billion. This is calculated by the number of branches on the DNA found that match the accused. It has been explained to me that in most cases the chances of a false match are significantly less than 1 in a billion but that is the highest ratio they use in their reports.
There are some exceptions to this. If the sample is very small or if the accused comes from an ethnic minority which has comparatively few contributors to the data base measured against then the likelihood of the sample not being from you is much lower but as a generality if you know you didn't do something the risks of giving a DNA sample for elimination purposes is vastly lower than the risks of going to a jury trial.
And, of course, the police are entitled to take a sample from you anyway if you don't volunteer.
Thanks - I think my figures are probably going back 20 years at least.
Would the police really get permission to sample everyone in a town?
No, but they routinely take a DNA swab from someone who is in custody for any reason.
I had a particularly smart Jury question recently. They asked, how did they know to check the DNA of the accused? The answer, of course, is that the DNA tested had matched an entry in the DNA database because the accused had been previously convicted. Of course the Judge did not tell them that but someone on the jury had worked it out.
It is worth remembering that whenever you submit DNA for one of those "profiling companies" to see whether you are susceptible to skin cancer or dementia or supporting Reform or whatever, then the default tick box allows the the lab to share the results with law enforcement. (In the US at least.)
What this means is that when they get DNA at a crime scene, they can usually find a couple of people who are cousins of the accused. This can really help them narrow down where they should be looking.
Well a) only idiots go with profiling services, b) law enforcement should only be keeping records of those found guilty....I don't want harrassment because some own cousin does something bad
Are you telling me that noone in your extended family has gotten a DNA test? These days, it's increasingly common. Heck, your Aunt Dorothy might have gotten one as part of her cancer treatment, to see which of the various chemotherapy treatments she is most likely to be able to bear. That now means that if the police find your DNA at a crime scene, they will be able to work out that it's one of Dorothy's cousins.
"Dorothy," they'll say, "can you think of any of your relations, probably a nephew of yours, who might torch an Apple store?" And at the very least, they'll be able to look at her family tree, and you'll be recieving a call from Plid.
Every year, there are more DNA samples being collected and stored, and that means your ability to remain below the authorities radar screens is diminishing by the day.
Well I don't really have an extended family
I have "double second cousins". My mother had "double cousins". A result of a small village post-WWI where 2 brothers from one family married two sisters from another.
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
Woke is the belief that people should be divided into identity groups and then treated based on a perceived hierarchy of oppression.
Or, if that's not woke, it needs a word to describe it.
Everyone knows what Woke is.
Those who ask, "what does Woke mean?" simply don't accept there's a problem and want to distract, and not engage.
It's a bit like asking someone repeatedly: who funds you.
And if you are woke (as you understand it) you are creating beliefs over rationality (and trying to impose it on the rest of us) which is the polar opposite of liberalism. In that understanding, you cannot be both woke and liberal. Woke is confined within a section of the left wing, the madcap left, and these people are not liberals, yet they say they are.
What was the chance of Mike Lynch's yacht sinking. Has anyone worked out the odds ?
Too many assumptions. Chance of being on a boat that sinks in a year is easy. But for that specific boat, you need to look at design issues compared to similar vessels, location, storm, any aggravating factors (crew). That kind of maths is how you end up jailing mothers who have multiple babies die of SIDS.
As DJL notes, the chances of two defendants dying* (any cause) within x period of a court case might be more relevant and much more easy to calculate. But even then, there are an awful lot of court cases each year and an awful lot of years to consider. Coincidences happen and "the driver of the car, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, remained at the scene and is assisting with enquiries" for the unfortunate runner is a strange way of doing a hit.
But yes, it does make you stop and think, doesn't it?
*not confirmed yet for Lynch, of course, but seems very likely, unfortunately
Total landlubber but the boat looks ready to sink in this photo and it's just normal seas
That is pretty normal. Looking at the boom and jib I assume it is on a beat. If it were a racing yacht or racing dingy or a racing catamaran it can be going over far far more than that. It is what they are supposed to do. If it goes too far you can let the sail out or turn it into wind, but if it goes too far the sails will spill the wind and the keel will prevent it from capsizing. In a dingy or catamaran there is no keel so you go for a swim (which I have more times than I care to remember).
I remember spending a happy afternoon on a small 'uncapsizeable' training boat in dead calm on loch goil trying to capsize it while the instructor laughed at us (I think they're was a bet involved). We did get the tip of the mast to touch the water.
ETA: No, I think what we managed was to get the guy hanging off the top of the mast into the water, not the mast itself
Loch Goil? If you had waited long enough, the boat would have filled with rainwater and sunk.
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
Woke is the belief that people should be divided into identity groups and then treated based on a perceived hierarchy of oppression.
Or, if that's not woke, it needs a word to describe it.
You can't be both Liberal and Woke on that definition of Woke. Also not many people actually have that belief, which would mean the term being bandied around incorrectly most of the time.
If someone thinks of themselves as a non-Woke liberal, which political party is likely to best represent their views?
Non-Woke liberal is possibly a contradiction in terms, if Woke actually has any meaning, beyond an insult
How would you define it?
I don't define woke because it appears to have no meaning other than as an insult. It could be a synonym for progressive but some people don't want to accept those they describe as woke as progressive - maybe it's perceived as too positive a term for people they despise.
Woke is the belief that people should be divided into identity groups and then treated based on a perceived hierarchy of oppression.
Or, if that's not woke, it needs a word to describe it.
You can't be both Liberal and Woke on that definition of Woke. Also not many people actually have that belief, which would mean the term being bandied around incorrectly most of the time.
Not many people hold that belief percentage-wise, but the madcap left does have numbers and disproportionally occupies positions of influence across universities, the media, the public sector (especially) and the private sector.
Comments
https://youtu.be/875yq0-ogwo?t=20
A result of a small village post-WWI where 2 brothers from one family married two sisters from another.
Otherwise you're always in the realms of compromise and prioritisation. And definitions of terms.
Non-woke Liberalism, sane Conservatism, these seem to be long lost causes.
He did have a bucket to bale out with, and the water in the bilges under the floorboards kept his stash of Carlsberg Extra Special nicely chilled in all weathers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_(UK,_1989)
How far the cops can intrude into medical databases I am not clear, but simple trawls without named suspects don't seem on.
But that doesn't change the basic point that putting one's DNA in those genealogical companies is absolutely insane.
Vide also e.g. recent stories about sperm donors and their children, and of course what happens if someone turns out not to be a natural child of a potential testator?
Even in the 1820s this was probably something of a joke.
Mrs T thought she was one...
The police won't need DNA to place your brother at the crime scene given that it's his house, and he'd need an alibi placing him elsewhere, DNA evidence or not.
On the other hand, sometimes murder victims will have the DNA of their assailant under their fingernails, and if your DNA is found there then you would have a lot of explaining to do, and likewise why you had scratches over your face.
Most sailing yacht decks are designed to not mind a fair bit of subversion.
In the above boat, you are rapidly looking at doors and windows going underwater. Down-flooding, then glug glug.
Something the RN realised in the 19th cent was that doors and windows are always open when inconvenient. At one point, they were designing internal bulkheads with no doors - you had to climb a ladder to well above waterline and then climb down. Later they added lifts - for officers only!
https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/1825830022642270510
https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1825864540325630325
Roger might be impressed.
Citing the movie “Gangs of New York,” JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, said that immigration would create “ethnic enclaves” that spur violence and crime.
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, on Friday defended his past unsubstantiated claims about immigration in which he suggested that early waves of Italian, Irish and German immigration led to higher crime and interethnic conflict, by citing the movie “Gangs of New York.”
At a campaign event before the Milwaukee Police Association, Mr. Vance was asked about the comments — which have resurfaced in recent days — from a 2021 interview with the far-right podcaster Jack Murphy, and whether he would have prescribed the kind of mass deportations then that he and former President Donald J. Trump have made central to their platform now.
Mr. Vance mostly skirted the question on removals, but he stood by his comments on crime and ethnic and interethnic conflict, pointing to the Martin Scorsese film that depicts gang violence between Irish migrants and nativist Protestant Americans. , , ,
Since the nation’s founding, nativist politicians and anti-immigrant activists have sought to conflate immigration with crime. But historians and criminologists say there are no empirical studies to support claims like those made by Mr. Vance. The studies that do exist have repeatedly concluded that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States. A 2023 study by researchers at Stanford, Princeton and other major institutions found that, since 1880, immigrants have not been more likely to be imprisoned than people born in the United States.
SSI - Yet more BS from alleged intellectual MAGA-maggot J.D. Vance.
Not content with his well-known Kinder, Küche, Kirche view of the proper role of women, the Recovering Hillbilly is now declaring that the grandsires of million of Americans of Irish, Italian, German, etc., etc. descent, where a dangerous criminal class.
Reckon he is so pig-ignorant of history, that he fails to undertand that HIS own Scots-Irish ancestors settled in "ethnic enclaves" when they arrived in America. Nor does he comprehend, that the ESSENCE of America is the story of the assimilation of new immigants and especially their children and grandchildren into the mainstream of Amerian life. . . .
Vance's incorrect "analysis" of the allegedly criminal Irish, Italians and Germans, is especially ironic coming from an American Catholic!
It's use suggested that those who were not woke, were not part of the enlightened vanguard, the Elect, to borrow what seems to be an analogous term from religion, and so could have their views discarded.
So it was part of a pretty typical ingroup/outgroup signalling behaviour, until it was picked up and used as a catch-all term of abuse, a bucket for all the perceived ills and slights that a person might feel they receive, the latest them and they to protect a different ingroup from.
It was pretty bad and useless and since has become worse and even less enlightening.
If you think woke means extreme lefty navel gazing emanating from US college campuses, then the vast majority of liberals and liberal parties are non-woke.
If you are someone who sees the latter type of wokeness on social media and then ascribes it to anyone to the left of Trump, in a culture warry sort of way, then what you’re really looking for is a conservative libertarian party, not a liberal party.
Remember that the young are normally by far the lowest turnout group, and poll weightings reflect that.
Or, if that's not woke, it needs a word to describe it.
A colleague, qualitative researcher, once had an interviewee confess to murder (in the eyes of the law, at least) during a research interview. Bit of an ethical dilemma ensued (end result after various bits of legal/ethical advice was that it went no further).
I can't see why you'd want to use woke instead though. Seven syllables!
What was that about, "this time its different" being the most expensive words in the English language?
But the phrase has now been co-opted to include anyone or anything that someone on the right has an instinctive dislike of. A PBer called Labour's efforts to reduce child poverty as woke, for example.
The net uplift from such a referendum should be greater in 2022 than 2024 simply because 2022 is not a Presidential election year. Organised attempts to get younger voters to come out ramp up significantly in these years.
(There is also a question of how much these referendums really do motivate voters - given abortion bans have been blocked in conservative states by hefty margins, some voters might start to think there is not a need to come out and vote. I’d argue the pro-abortion camp needs a loss to get motivation up again).
Those who ask, "what does Woke mean?" simply don't accept there's a problem and want to distract, and not engage.
It's a bit like asking someone repeatedly: who funds you.
To be clear white british have plenty of problems too, not saying minorities are the only ones
But I think I'd want pretty good odds, given it's a trend we've seen at - I think - every abortion vote yet.
https://babylonbee.com/news/dnc-dyes-chicago-river-red-to-celebrate-abortion
(Yes people, this is satire).
Would be interested to know, where abortion ranked with voters 18 to 30?
ESPECIALLY with young women? Reckon maybe higher than 5th place. AND note that where many young women are heading/trending . . . many young men are sure to follow . . .
Intersectionality is crazy, but that's not "woke" its intersectionality.
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