21 May, 2010

more statistics

So the meta-analysis is null and void. Why? Because the data is incompatible and re-assessment times too inconsiderate. When people make up an experiment, can they at least make it similar to one other experiment out there? Honestly. How hard can it be... but then, you gotta try avoid the plagiarism - or the accusations of such. Bleh.

Imagine, you got a 50-50 chance that your real world and your dream world are true and a 50-50 chance that you'll die in them. Yep, Doctor Who again. I've been pondering on that concept ever since SG-1's Moebius or whatever it's called and Teal'c had a problem with deciding which dream world was real. Of course it was neither. If both are realistic, it must be neither, right? But what if somebody one day really couldn't tell the difference between their dream and real world. What would happen if they died in the real world? "[They'd] die, stupid."

The dark side of Doctor Who is scary, weird and just plain annoying. Seeing as he showed his ugly face in the Doctor's reflection on the console, I won't be surprised if he makes a little cameo appearance again at some later date. Then again, maybe not. Who knows? The writers of the show can be slightly unpredictable - which is good... and that is beside the 'Aaah! Gulp. Monsters.... Aaaah! Gulp. Monsters gone. The Doctor scared them away,' or 'the Doctor saved the world/universe/insert place here' type things.

I wonder whether they'll ever bring up the Susan Foreman story line again, even though she's presumably lost along with the rest of the Time Lords in the Time War, possibly when she was President of Gallifrey. Maybe they'll get her and Jenny to meet. That'd be interesting, especially considering Jenny can travel in space, but Susan Foreman somehow obtained the Master's old TARDIS. Hmmm... It is possible, right? Or is the Timelock so locked that she got locked in it and despite having travelled the universe with the first doctor and traversed time as well, you'd think that there is a remote possibility that they will crash into each other at some stage. Not that I really care. It'd just be interesting to see what the writers would come up with.

So far, Steven Moffat is doing a scary, fine old job. It's certainly different from the previous series. Continuity is a tricky thing, but if the Doctor was shown doing different things in different parallel universes or jumping between them... Hmmm... even if it were a leg-puller... Or, maybe the Doctor only exists in one parallel universe and is absent from all others, cos the Time Lords don't exist in the parallels...

Then again, the Enemy of the Universe wasn't originally meant to be the Daleks. Who then, was it meant to be? Those weird ladies from Karn? Doubt it. What would happen if the Doctor accidentally got tricked into getting stuck on the wrong side of the Time Lock. Ooh. Now that bears some thinking. A job for the Trickster perhaps?

Forget the Who-niverse. It isn't relevant to my statistics at this stage as I twiddle with relative risks and try to work out whether they pose any danger to the effect sizes the calculator spat out.
Be kind, O thou Hedges.
Be kind, O thou numbers too foreign to my mind.
Be patient and I will sort you into comprehendable streams and sentences and relegate you to thy proper places in the report.
(Note: 'thee' is singular, where 'you' is plural - or so it is according to my understanding of ye Olde English.)

The conclusion? Don't write a systematic review unless you are willing to spend the time on learning to understand how numbers think and behave. Neither attempt a literature review if you aren't prepared to be frustrated and aggravated at every turn when the articles you search for prove entirely too elusive for your comprehensive search strategies.

Never mind.

Mousey wires
Hardly byred
By the ever-sea
Still the whistle
Of the treadle
Shot down the buzzing bee.

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