Statistics – the Greatest Lie

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I’ve grown used to lying over the last few years. It all started after Donald Trump’s first election when he declared that millions of people had attended his inauguration and claimed it was far more than had attended Barack Obama’s inauguration. The pictures clearly showed this was not the case, and although it’s true that pictures can lie, is more likely that a politician was lying. We soon learned that if his lips were moving, he was lying.


The one on the left is a candlestick – it has a metal insert. The one on the right it a snowman. They always make snowmen when they have spare wood and time as they sell well at Christmas when they do the craft fair in the Cathedral.

WP is much the same. I have had over 400 views a day for several weeks now. I have also had an average of 12 people a day recorded as looking. So which is it WP – 400 or 12?

It could be AI robots, but in that case why don’t they show up on both counters. It could be that I’m being monitored by American Intelligence for my comments on President Trump and the Death of Democracy, but they wouldn’t do that surely? Juxtaposing the two words in view of the moronic outpourings we hear every day is surely just handing me an opportunity for mockery. It couldn’t be much else as nobody else would be interested, and in truth I’m sure it must be AI. Trump is flirting with Armageddon, but AI is setting up to slowly strangle the life out of us. It will be like the boiling frog – we won’t notice until it is too late.

The candlestick again. It started out as a bent bit of pine with a split and a massive knot. She just set to work, the knot pinged out, another, as you can see, stayed to make a decorative feature, and the split disappeared along with a lot of the wood. She is getting good at this.

It’s much the same with Julia’s wood turning (where she went today). I won’t notice that all the shelves are covered in turned wood products until it’s too late.

She baked simnel muffins over Easter too, but they don’t last, so they won’t be taking anything over.

 

 

 

19 thoughts on “Statistics – the Greatest Lie”

    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      Twelve is like having an extended family. Four hundred is like being part of a prison population. I can cope with 12. I’m tempted to assign roles like patriarch, the gloomy uncle, two big sisters and the uncle who went to Australia and we never speak of the reason . . .
      But if I did that I’d be bound to miss out people like the Yorkshire side of the family (we all have one . . .) and the annoyingly perky American cousin who has fancy dress for her animals . . . 🙂

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    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      Does it matter if I’m getting 500 views or 12? Well, if I were using it as part of a marketing campaign, yes it does. It also makes me feel like I’m being lied to.
      But for most practical purposes, no.

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  7. tootlepedal

    There are worse fates in the world than being overwhelmed by nicely turned wooden objects.

    I am with you on the subject of mysterious visitor numbers. I’ve been getting greatly increased visitor numbers, but the actual number of people reading recent posts has gone down a bit. However, a big number of archived posts have had 1 or 2 visits, so I am assuming that this is the work of a bot scraping the text for AI chat training. We will know the truth of this if we suddenly find public pronouncements full of feeble jokes and excessive alliteration.

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  8. paolsoren

    The knot in the wood worked well. So often a piece of timber that can’t be used in furniture or building in magic in turning. But the turner has to notice it. Well done.

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    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      She is getting good at this. I originally decided not to start as I’m not sure my hands can take it but I daren’t start now as don’t think I could ever be as good as she has become. 🙂

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