Did Idaho ‘move to the left’ based on results of our recent election for governor?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No – that’s just paranoia. To me it seems you had to be looking for a leftist under every bed, as portrayed above via the revision of a vintage cartoon. But it’s what Bob Neugebauer decided we did in an article published in his Gem State Patriot News on November 13, 2022 titled Will Idaho continue to move “Left”? I don’t think so. I suspect he’d read another article on November 11, 2022 titled Summary of the Ammon Bundy for Governor Campaign which whined:

 

“Throughout the campaign we could see the great challenges all Idahoans face when it comes to stopping Idaho’s slide into leftist liberalism.”

 

Our incumbent, Brad Little [Republican] got 60.5% of the vote, while Stephen Heidt [Democrat] got 20.3% and Ammon Bundy [Independent] got just 17.2% - a poor third place showing. Bob’s LinkedIn profile says he got to Idaho in January of 2001, so he was here for the 2002 election for governor. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results from the previous five elections, and this one all are shown above in a bar chart. For 2002 through 2018 the Republican vote had averaged 56.3%, so how Little did was quite predictable. For 2002 through 2018 the Democratic (presumably leftist) vote had averaged 39.1 %, so Heidt did awful poorly.  

 

Bob waved his hands about the numbers of registered voters, and said:

 

“It is clear to us that many democrats but even more unaffiliated registered voters cast their vote for Little as they realize the democratic candidate never had a chance and Little is the closest thing to a democrat that they were going to get.”   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still another article from the Bundy Campaign on November 7, 2022 titled Splitting the vote narrative is laughable listed the numbers of registered voters shown above in a second bar chart. It looks to me like ALL the Republicans voted for Little, ALL the Democrats voted for Heidt, and the Independents split between Heidt and Bundy (except just about 3% who went for Little). There is a big problem in using the registration numbers, since the Republicans run a closed primary election. Independents and Democrats don’t get to vote then.

 

How business writing could be improved, based on results from a 2016 survey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an interesting article by Josh Bernoff in the Harvard Business Review on September 28, 2016 titled Your writing isn’t as good as you think it is. It discusses a survey of 547 people on twelve topics he did for his 2016 book Writing Without Bullshit – boost your career by saying what you mean. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above in a bar chart, the top five problems in material people read were that it was: Poorly organized (65%), Too long (65%), Unclear (61%), Not precise enough (54%), and used Too much jargon (54%).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A second bar chart shows problems in material people write were that it was: Too long (45%), Not direct enough (37%), Not precise enough (32%), had Too much passive voice (25%), and used Too much jargon (24%).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are large discrepancies between what people read and what they write, as shown by a third bar chart for differences. 65% thought what they read was poorly organized versus just 16% for what they write – a difference of 49%. The difference for Unclear was 43%, for Too much jargon 30%, for Not precise enough 22%, and for Too long 20%. In the Harvard Business Review article Joel notes we think writing quality problems are someone else’s fault. He also asked people how effective what they read was on a scale from 1 to 10, and the answer was just 5.4, but for what they write it instead was 6.9.   

 

The image of a woman reading was adapted from one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

How to decide if a news story is fake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian Dunning has an excellent article at Skeptoid on November 22, 2022 titled How to Spot Fake News. His headings are:

 

Make sure the news also appears on reliable news sources

Check your biases

Check the article’s biases

Watch for conspiratorial overtones

Double check for satire

Check the date

Don’t trust the headline

Don’t trust pictures

A quick Google trick…

Consider the source

 

There is an article by Jordan Liles at Snopes (Fact Check) on November 17, 2022 titled Did Disney file a patent for roller coaster that jumps tracks? He notes the original source is a satire site, The Mouse Trap. I suspect the picture was edited using the clone-stamp tool in Photoshop to remove the tracks - which have a plain blue sky for background.  

 

There is another long article by David Gorski at Respectful Insolence on November 23, 2022 titled “Died Suddenly”: Resurrecting the old antivax lie of depopulation. He debunks the ‘evidence’ and conspiracies in that pseudo-documentary from Stew Peters. There is a fact-checking article by Bill McCarthy at Poynter on April 22, 2022 on an earlier ‘documentary’ titled Radio Host Stew Peters’ “Watch the Water’ film ridiculously claims COVID-19 is snake venom. Another article by Jonathan Jarry at the McGill Office for Science and Society on November 25, 2022 is titled The anti-vaccine documentary Died Suddenly wants you to feel, not think.  

 

On August 7, 2017 I blogged about Spotting fake news and finding reliable information for speeches.

 

An image of a man reading a newspaper was adapted from Openclipart.

 

A cartoon about editing the introduction for a speaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip has Rat doing some drastic editing. The dialogue says:

 

“Pig: I have to give a speech introducing someone but I’m not sure if it’s the right length.

Rat: Lemme see.

 

Pig’s script says:

Hi, everyone, it’s an honor to introduce our next guest. If you’ll just indulge me, here is his incredible background….Four years at Berkeley, three years at UCLA, seven years teaching at Georgetown. Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and four distinguished fellowships. An avid fly fisherman. Father of four children. Devoted collector of stamps and model trains. Hero to millions. Help me give a warm welcome to our guest, the incomparable Ned Johnson.

 

Rat changes it to just be: Hi…Here’s Ned.

 

Pig: Editing is such a skill.

Rat: Or just point and say ‘Ned.’ “

More seriously, you might try describing Topic, Importance, and Speaker, as is discussed by Kim Harrison at Cutting Edge PR on June 1, 2020 in an article titled Use this great way to introduce a speaker – it’s more important than you think.

 

The image of a pen was adapted from one at Openclipart.

 

Conversation Starters can also be used for Table Topics questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table Topics is the impromptu speaking section of a Toastmasters club meeting - where members without roles in running the meeting participate by providing one-to-two-minute answers to questions. Table Topics is discussed in a brief article by Greg Lewis on pages 26 and 27 of the January 2022 Toastmaster Magazine titled The two sides of Table Topics.

 

Where can you find good ideas for questions to ask? On November 24, 2022 I blogged about how Writing prompts can also be used for Table Topics questions. “Conversation Starters” is yet another phrase you can use to Google search for potential questions. Rather obviously at Conversation Starters World there is a list of 250 Conversation Starters and also another list of 200 Icebreaker Questions.

 

I easily found three more recent long lists of starters. At Gifts.com on February 25, 2021 there is an article with 225 Conversation Starters for Any Occasion. And at Teambuilding.com on May 1, 2022 there is a second article with 171 Great Conversation Starters & Topics for Work in 2022, although it only has 155 specific ones. Also, at Parade magazine on September 30, 2022 there is a third article with 250 Good Conversation Starters for Any Social Situation.

 

There also is a book from 2003 by Garry Poole titled The Complete Book of Questions: 1001 Conversation Starters for Any Occasion.

 

The October 21, 1903 Puck magazine cartoon of a conversation came from Wikimedia Commons.  

 

Give me a seat, so I can rest my feet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the main Boise Public Library I recently borrowed a DVD of Monobloc -  a 91-minute 2021 documentary by Hauke Wendler (in German with English subtitles) about one-piece injection-molded plastic chairs like the one shown above. About a billion monobloc chairs have been made. The film is about the social impact of design. You can watch a two-minute trailer on YouTube. There is an article about it by Thomas Wagner at ndion on January 26, 2022 titled Monobloc: What matters is that you sit. In India these inexpensive chairs meant that people could sit up to dine in their homes rather than sitting on the floor. Monobloc chairs also were used as the seat for the first-generation design of an inexpensive wheelchair given away by the Free Wheelchair Mission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There also were some nineteenth century chair innovations by Michael Thonet. Way back in 1859 the bent wood Thonet Chair No. 14 (shown above) was introduced. There is an article about it at the Design Museum which says fifty million of this design were sold by 1930.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There also is the director’s chair. An article by Hadley Mendelsohn at House Beautiful on January 10, 2022 titled How the director’s chair became an icon on set and beyond says it was introduced 130 years ago in 1892. But, as shown above, you can find one in a Civil War photograph by Matthew Brady from back in 1862.

 

Keep your well of speech topics from running dry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a brief article by Denis Judy at Exploring the Mind on November 13, 2022 titled Keeping our Speaking Well From Going [Dry]. It opens with:

 

“If you speak a lot, there are times when you may feel your material is getting stales and you lose enthusiasm for your content. When that happens you need new material that excites you and thus makes your speeches more stimulating.

 

A fun way to do that is to pick a subject, hobby, avocation, culture, or sport about which you know nothing but are interested in learning more. Then immerse yourself in it. Read all you can about it, talk to people who know about it, and experience it if possible.”

 

One way to find new material is via writing prompts, which are a way of getting around writer’s block. On December 15, 2020 I blogged about how to Use writing prompts to get unstuck. And on November 12, 2022 I blogged about how Writing prompts also can be used for Table Topics. In that recent post I linked to an article at the Learning Network in the New York Times on September 8, 2022 titled 445 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing. It has a long list with 37 categories. You can also download it as a pdf file. Each item on their list actually is a link to another article you can use to get started. But that’s not all. There is another article on February 23, 2021 titled 300 Questions and Images to Inspire Argument Writing, also downloadable as a pdf.

 

The cartoon of a well came from Openclipart.

 

The ultimate speech audience is all eight billion people on earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an article by Katia Riddle and Rachel Treisman at NPR on November 15, 2022 titled There now are eight billion people on earth, according to a new U.N. report. Suppose we sat them all down in one place so they could listen to a speech.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on November 21, 2017 I blogged about Is a large audience one where the speaker needs a microphone? Is a small audience one where everyone can see a flipchart? As shown above, in that post I allotted an area of nine square feet per person. Eight billion people would occupy 72,000,000,000 square feet, or 2,582.64 square miles, or a square 50.82 miles on a side. That’s not as large area as one might guess, considering that the state of Delaware covers 2,488.72 square miles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In that previous post I had a table showing power of two, audience size, distance, and venue. The revised version shown above takes it to the limit – two to the 33rd power, which is over the world population of eight billion.  

 

If instead we had standing room only the answer even could be smaller. There is an article in the Washington Post by Ana Swanson on April 2, 2015 titled The entire world fits in New York City.

 

An image of the world and people came from Openclipart.

 

Writing prompts also can be used for Table Topics questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table Topics is the impromptu speaking section of a Toastmasters club meeting. It is where members without roles in running the meeting participate by providing one-to-two-minute answers to questions. Table Topics is discussed in an article by Greg Lewis on pages 26 and 27 of the January 2022 Toastmaster Magazine titled The two sides of Table Topics.

 

Where can you find good ideas for questions to ask? On October 24, 2022 I blogged about Less than obvious sources of Table Topics questions for Toastmasters club meetings. And on December 15, 2020 I had blogged about how to Use writing prompts to get unstuck. A prompt provides a starting point for a writer who is stuck. There is an article at the University of North Georgia university press on June 21, 2021 titled How to overcome writer’s block: 10 helpful tips. A newsletter from Sandy Springs Toastmasters (north of Atlanta, Georgia) on November 14, 2019 mentioned that:

 

“Bud [Otto} also served as Table Topics Master and selected questions from a book of 400 writing prompts to form questions.”

 

So, where can you find good collections of writing prompts? Here are two possibilities.

 

Writing prompts from the Learning Network at the New York Times

 

An article on September 8, 2022 titled 445 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing has a long list with 37 categories and an average of twelve per category (also downloadable as a ten- page pdf file):

 

Overcoming Adversity

Your Personality

Hobbies & Interests

Daily Life

Home & Community

Family

Parents & Parenting

Role Models

Childhood Memories

Growing Up

Morality & Ethics

Race, Ethnicity, Gender & Sexuality

Money & Social Class

Religion, Spirituality & Beliefs

Technology & the Internet

Social Media

Music & Podcasts

Movies, TV & Video Games

Books & Reading

Writing

The Arts

School

College

Work & Careers

Friendship

Dating, Love & Relationships

Health

Sports & Games

Travel

Shopping, Looks & Fashion

Meals & Food

Holidays & Seasons

Animals & Nature

Environment

Politics

The Pandemic

If Only …

 

An earlier version is in another article on September 4, 2019 titled 550 Prompts for Narrative and Personal Writing, and it also is available as a downloadable ten-page pdf file.

 

A third article by Michael Gonchar on March 1, 2017 is titled 401 Prompts for Argumentative Writing, and they can be downloaded as a four-page pdf file.

 

 

Twelve months of writing prompts from Lakeshore Learning

 

Another convenient source for prompts is via monthly lists for 2022, each one downloadable as a single-page pdf file:

 

January to June

Ferbruary

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

 

Today’s prompt is:

 

“You find a magic potion that will let you live 100 years without growing older. Do you drink the potion? Why or why not?”

The source is a Lakeshore web page for monthly calendars

 

 

The basket image came from Openclipart.

 

Top 20 things Americans say they should experience before turning 40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the New York Post on November 7, 2022 there is an article titled Top 20 things you should experience before turning 40: poll. A similar article by Elizabeth Elizalde appeared earlier at SWNSdigital on November 4, 2022 with a less informative title that 4 in 5 Americans believe it’s important to have healthy eyes to experience the best moments in life. It reported results from a survey of 2,000 adults done for VSP Vision Care between September 30 and October 4, 2022. Results are shown above via a bar chart. The Top Ten things Americans say they should experience before turning 40 are:

 

1]    Have a stable job 29%

2]    Own a car 28%

3]    A 3 way tie: Go to the doctor more often to care for your health, Own a home, Travel with a person you love 26%

4]    Start a family 25%

5]    Learn to cook/bake well 23%

6]    Volunteer at a soup kitchen, hospital or senior citizen’s home 22%

7]    Donate to charity 21%

8]    A tie: Conquer a fear (e.g. public speaking) and Start a hobby 20%

9]    Own a business 19%

10]  See the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square in person 18%

 

An item which tied for eighth caught my attention: Conquer a fear (e.g. public speaking). But I didn’t do that before turning forty. Later on I did by joining a Toastmasters club here in Boise.

 

Why are there holes in the blades of electrical plugs?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above, both the flat blades on an electrical plug like the NEMA 5 shown above have holes in them. What are they for? There are multiple, plausible-sounding stories -  but they just aren’t true. Be careful to check them out before using one in a speech.

 

So the socket can grip the plug

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As shown above via a cross-section, this might be to engage with a locking ball or other device. An article at howstuffworks on January 3, 2022 titled Why do electrical prongs have holes in them? claims:

 

“If you were to take apart an outlet and look at the contact wipers that the prongs slide into, you would find that they have bumps on them. These bumps fit into the holes so that the outlet can grip the plug’s prongs more firmly. This detenting prevents the plug from slipping out of the socket due to the weight of the plug and cord. It also improves the contact between the plug and the socket.”

 

Unfortunately a 20-minute YouTube video at Technology Connections titled Holey Plugs, Batman! But … what are they for? thoroughly debunks that claim.    

 

 

Safety lockout

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A second more likely claim at howstuffworks (as shown above) is:

 

“Electrical devices can be ‘factory sealed’ or ‘locked out’ by the manufacturer or owner using a plastic tie or a small padlock that runs through one or both of the prong holes. Construction projects or industrial safety requirements may require this type of sealing. For example, a manufacturer might apply a plastic band through the hole and attach a tag that says ‘You must do blah blah blah before plugging in this device.’ The user cannot plug in the device without removing the tag, so the user is sure to see the instructions.”

 

On February 18, 2011 I blogged about More on mistake-proofing: lock out what you don’t want to happen.

 

 

Saving material (and money)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A third claim at howstuffworks is:

 

"There also is a small savings in raw materials (metal) for the manufacturer of the actual plug prong. Every little bit helps!"

 

But based on the exposed length of a blade and the hole diameter, the savings in metal volume is only five percent. Why wouldn’t there be a second hole to raise that to ten percent?

 

 

What are the holes really for?

 

 

The YouTube video at Technology Connections titled Holey Plugs, Batman! But … what are they for? explains at 12:15 that the holes just allow alignment of the blades during the manufacturing process (molding the plug around the blades).

 

An image with stacks of $100 bills is from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Presenting or performing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The November 2022 issue of Toastmaster magazine has a useful article by Joel Schwartzberg on page 26 titled Are you presenting or performing?

 

Its opening two paragraphs say:

 

“Do you want to be a great public speaker? Probably – who doesn’t? But that aspiration becomes problematic if you make it your primary goal.

 

Here’s the issue: When you focus on how people perceive you (for example, as a fantastic speaker), you steer your mindset toward performing (‘here’s how I want to be seen’), when it should be focused on presenting (‘here’s what I want people to know’).”

 

That’s a useful distinction. But it is not new. Michael T. Motley discussed that concept over three decades ago in an article in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality (1990 Volume 5, number 2) titled Public Speaking Anxiety Qua Performance Anxiety: A Revised Model and an Alternative Therapy. Its abstract says:

 

“Based upon counseling sessions with subjects experiencing high public-speaking anxiety (PSA), informal data are presented as evidence for the viability of a new PSA therapy technique, and for revision of existing models of PSA. Subjects’ cognitive orientation to public speaking as either a ‘performance’ event (with priority on audience assessment of the speaker’s oratorical skills) or as a ‘communication’ event (with a priority on the audience’s understanding of the message), seems to be a key determinant of PSA levels – lower levels being associated with, or resulting from the ‘communication’ orientation. A therapy technique for replacing a ‘performance’ orientation with a ‘communication’ orientation is described, and implications for the role of cognitive orientation in models of PSA are discussed.”

 

I blogged about that back on August 10, 2011 in a post titled Reframe your way around fear of public speaking.

 

Images of Theodore Roosevelt presenting and performing were adapted from Puck magazine cartoons, found at the Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons.   

 

An article that calls for an apology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Gem State Patriot News on October 16, 2022 there is an article by Dr. John Livingston titled An apology is due. One indeed is due – by him.

 

In his fourth and fifth paragraphs Livingston pontificates about how articles for medical and scientific magazines allegedly are carelessly reviewed before being published:

“This is the tip of the iceberg. It is a prospective ‘Mia culpa’. The scientific community has long recognized the sloppiness of its own process. It has been ‘the experts’ that have allowed themselves to be driven by a political narrative that puts money in their pockets and puts actual scientific progress that is always slow to begin with, many steps further behind. The lack of outrage is disappointing. Everyday citizens conduct their everyday lives with far more virtue than ‘expert scientists’.

One would expect from a curious and inquisitive press, that before repeating many of these stories, they would at least ask the most basic of all questions – ‘Really’. Do we all just accept everything that is written as being fact? If the press is lazy and not curious, should we not be on guard ourselves to ask the same question ‘Really’. And how about the next question – ‘prove it’. If the ‘expert scientists’ aren’t inquisitive, if the peer review organizations aren’t inquisitive, if the press isn’t curious, We the People should remain skeptical at least and we should always ask for more information before coming to conclusions about ‘settled science’.”

I do not believe the process of scientific publishing is sloppy. And, as I will discuss later, that is based on personal experience in the careful editing of a materials science journal.

 

Livingston also uses the phrase “Mia culpa” – which instead of referring to a woman named Mia should be Mea Culpa, defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as:

 

“a formal acknowledgement of personal fault or error”

 

And in the very first paragraph of the article he whines that:

 

“…It is not just medicine, but in the hard sciences that we have seen intellectual integrity in publishing being criticized. Articles in prestigious ‘peered reviewed’ journals like Scientific American, The Lancet and The Journal of The American Medical Association have been retracted and issues have again been raised about ‘scientific integrity’ —is that really any different than individual integrity, and the supervision of the investigative process by the senior authors on the article.”

 

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the noun peer as:

 

“One that is of equal standing with another”

 

It defines the intransitive verb peer quite differently as:

 

“To look narrowly or curiously”

 

It also explicitly defines peer review as:

 

“A process by which something proposed (as for research or publication) is evaluated by a group of experts in the appropriate field.”

 

“Peered review” is uncommonly silly terminology.  Presumably it means articles have just been looked at by an unspecified someone. When I searched at PubMed Central I found the phrase “peer reviewed” appeared 254,923 times, but “peered reviewed” appeared only 11 times. An article there by Jacalyn Kelly, Tara Sadeghieh and Khosgrow Adeli at The Journal of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine in 2014 is titled Peer review in scientific publications: benefits, critiques & a survival guide.

 

Both The Lancet and The Journal of the American MedicalAssociation (JAMA) have processes for peer review, which you could learn about just by checking their Wikipedia pages. But Scientific American does not have peer review. That’s because it is a general-interest magazine - written for intelligent and curious readers rather than scientists or physicians. Articles there just have been peered at.

 

Livingston’s third paragraph again refers to peered review:

 

“Today it was announced by London based Hindawi, one of the world’s largest open-accessed journal publishers, that it is retracting more than 500 journal articles based on the discovery of ‘unethical irregularities’ in the peer review process. As a result, these discoveries 511 papers will be retracted in articles published since August of 2020. The articles appeared in sixteen journals. In the words of a Hindawi: ‘Irregularities in the peer review process in some journals that involved coordinated peer review rings and the infrastructure that supports scholarly research’ were identified during the editing process! Are peered review rings the same thing as self-serving ‘servo loops of doom’?”

 

511 articles sounds like a lot - until you get inquisitive. Then you will find out that Hindawi publishes over 220 journals (a very large iceberg), so it only amounts to 2.3 articles per journal. Also, since the retracted articles were found in just 16 journals, overall that’s less than 7.3 percent of them.

 

Livingston’s sixth paragraph begins by stating:

 

“When false information is repeated by well-intentioned people who should know better, good people can be hurt.”

 

I have discussed an article of his from October 2, 2022 where he was guilty of that. It is titled Climate change and government credibility, and I blogged about in a post on October 4 titled Fairy tales from the Gem State Patriot News about Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring.

 

Back in the early 1980s I was part of the peer review process for a materials science magazine then called Metallurgical Transactions. I was one or their Key Readers:

 

“All manuscripts will be judged by qualified reviewers according to established criteria for technical merit. The review procedure begins as a Key Reader is assigned by an Editor. The Key Reader chooses reviewers for the manuscript and submits his or her recommendation, based on his or her own and the reviewer(s)’ judgments. The highest-level handling Editor then makes a final decision on the paper.”

 

Usually there were three reviewers. They and I looked both at the manuscript’s content and whether the four of us thought it fit in with what else generally was understood about that topic. We often called for revisions before accepting a manuscript. A few times we just rejected one.

 

On another occasion (for another publication) I rejected a manuscript about stress corrosion cracking because it had made a faulty assumption about analyzing pass-fail or binary data. I blogged about that data type in a post on March 18, 2013 titled What is your hearing threshold? – the joy of statistics. Their test program sometimes had not applied a high enough stress to get specimens to fail, so they assumed that if the stress had been just one step higher they would have failed. That is baseless statistical nonsense.

 

A cartoon was adapted from this one  at Wikimedia Commons.