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shortcut to forums from the "reporting screen"


epgeek

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...Umm, wouldn't it be the reverse -- we have even less time, 'cause we've used up 2.5 million of our (maximum) 7.8 million? :) <g>

...Actually, I'm willing to include in my ancestors the Australopithecines, which reduces our maximum time left to about 3.9 million years - half!

Boy, are we ever O/T! But no, looking at the 'balance of probabilities' consequent on the 'we're in no special space and time' assumption (the Copernican principle) means we rule out the probability of being in the lower 2.5% of our lifetime - 1/40th - (lifetime of the species, in this case) because it is 'unlikely' and we similarly rule out the upper 2.5% so to leave the (most likely) inner 95% which accordingly ranges from 1/39th of our known existence to 39 times our known existence. So, if you increase the period of known existence you proportionally increase both ends of the predicted future range. Thus (the lower ends) if 200,000 -> 5,128 then 2,500,000 -> 64,103, etc.

"95% confidence" is the usual (minimum) acceptance level for an extrapolation/prediction, it is the 'practically safe bet', as used by pollsters - the honest ones1 - and other statisticians when they need to draw defensible conclusions out of uncertain conditions. Bayesian probability estimates are said to produce similar results to these simple probability ones but I wouldn't know about that offhand.

In any case, the more you include non-human ancestry, the more you include non-human progeny/descendants (pre human->human->post human, Vs human ->human).

1Not to point fingers but from what I have seen pollsters in the US are the most honest around, in terms of statistical methodology and transparency. Probably because the US public is comparatively well-educated in such matters and would routinely bring them to task should they publish grossly misleading results. There may be bad pollsters in the US but I am definitely happy with the work of the ones I have seen (in terms of the 'basics', not considering questionnaire design which is actually critical). Some other places, maybe not so much.

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From what I see, the only indication of change has been the parsed version identification itself. The web-page does not appear to have been touched at all, still showing the commented out as obsolete section where the dialog and pointers to the newsgroups and Forum still exist within the code.

Parse output doesn't seem to have changed, results are the same. I could say that things seem a bit faster, but that's really hard to say, not knowing the rest of the situation at the time of my submittals. On the other hand, I did run into issues that made it appear that all the involved servers aren't talking to each other fast enough (my first guess, anyway.) [issue posted into the Topic 'announcement' in the Reporting Help Forum section.]

I also see the <!-- commented out as obsolete [...] --> section on the Help page but the forums are quite obvious and in plain sight on the Site map page... at the moment (as Miss Betsy mentioned somewhere higher in this thread). Just in case some high-handed do-gooder removes it from there too, I'm adding forum.spamcop.net to my browser's Bookmarks. And it's nice to know that not only the Spamcop NNTP forums still exist, but in addition there is a "spamcop" Google Group which has lain dormant for several years but could be revived if peer-help ceased being welcome anywhere at *.spamcop.net.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I also see the <!-- commented out as obsolete [...] --> section on the Help page but the forums are quite obvious and in plain sight on the Site map page... at the moment (as Miss Betsy mentioned somewhere higher in this thread). Just in case some high-handed do-gooder removes it from there too, I'm adding forum.spamcop.net to my browser's Bookmarks. And it's nice to know that not only the Spamcop NNTP forums still exist, but in addition there is a "spamcop" Google Group which has lain dormant for several years but could be revived if peer-help ceased being welcome anywhere at *.spamcop.net.

That's pretty much the bottom line here for the moment. But I couldn't help myself in tidying up a previous O/T observation of mine ...

...not considering questionnaire design which is actually critical...
Talking random sampling there - the selection of the demographic (non-random surveying) is another matter http://www.dailymotion.com/user/dilbertani...dead-people_fun
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