Thomas Hoskyns Leonard Blog

Saturday, 18 July 2015

CRIME STATISTICS: COUNTING SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T WANT TO BE COUNTED by Oz Flanagan

CRIME STATISTICS: COUNTING SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T WANT TO
BE COUNTED

An Article in Statslife by Oz Flanagan

followed by a comment by myself

OXONIAN NOON, A Poem by James L.S. Carter

OXONIAN NOON

by James L.S. Carter

From every quad to every quad, from quads

Cloistered in thoughts, like gardens' summer-times,

Drift to the Isis the long-lasting chimes

Of bells across the green where stillness lauds

The bells, seeming to rob the noise of Gods

Who would be summoned by a passion's crimes

Such as make way into bard's sorry rhymes

Suffered thro' centuries at Honour Mods.

But Lares ands Penates, Dryads, Sylphs

And Bulgars lately escaped the continent

Are here in plenty by each battlement

Whose gargoyles'grimaces cleansed of all filths

And grimes but the original can't peep

Through crenels where secret courtyards sleep.

Friday, 17 July 2015

OH GREAT SPIRIT, A poem by Nicola Romanski

OH GREAT SPIRIT

by Nicola Romanski

The protection be wrought from beyond the veil

Oh great spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds,
and whose breath gives life to all the world,
-hear me-
I come before you, one of your children.
I am small and meak
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever
behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made,
My ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may know the things
you have taught my people,
The lesson you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength not to be superior to my brothers,
but to be able to fight my greatest enemy myself.
Make me ever ready to come to you,
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades as a fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.

THE WRITINGS OF THE MOON by Robert Mooney

16th July 2015: I have just received details of this website via a space-time warp from a friend
of a friend:

THE WRITINGS OF THE MOON

Robert Mooney

FACEBOOK PAGE

Thursday, 16 July 2015

THE SPACE-TIME ZONE CAPSULE (Poem)

THE SPACE-TIME ZONE CAPSULE

by Thomas Hoskyns Leonard

I sit curled like a wombat in my tiny flat,

Hurtling through time and space

As I endeavour to save the human race;

Celebrating my safe sanctuary, blossoming like a bud,

As my family contracts, and expands from that of the blood.

'The True Olympians, A Call to Arms!'

A poem, I write;

That will certainly start a fight!

Then onto my laptop to administer

My group Facebook discussion page;

Those posts should put everybody into a rage!

Then another slumber until onto Chess. com I go,

Where I draw with a Spaniard, and beat my Russian foe.

'Anything for the shopping list?' asks Scott,

'The stuff in the fridge is beginning to rot.'

'Ham, pork, Sultana Bran, and chicken too,' I reply.

'Remember my diabetes, and try to see eye to eye.'

'Enough of your tommyrot,' scorns Scott.

'Stay here with your wobbly legs

And I'll even bring you bacon, beans, and eggs.'

'What now?' wonder I, as my flatmate says 'bye bye'.

I turn on the cricket. England are getting battered,

Now I feel absolutely shattered!

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

BAYESIAN NEWS: ISBA BULLETIN June 2015

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR BAYESIAN ANALYSIS

ISBA BULLETIN JUNE 2015

Includes biography of Bruno de Finetti who attempted, without rigorous

success, to axiomatise subjective probability, and is most

celebrated for his exchangeability theorems.

Also includes an interview of the Braziliab Bayesian forecaster Helio Mignon, who

obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Warwick

According to Helio's Ph.D. supervisor, the late lamented P.Jeffrey Harrison,

'The best forecasts are those which are made after the event'.

Harrison also once said

'I love exchangeability. You exchange you prior when you've seen your posterior.'

Helio's pretty good though.

See also A PERSONAL HISTORY OF BAYESIAN STATISTICS